Focus 580; The Battle of Blair Mountain: the Story of Americas Largest Labor Uprising

In this part of focus 580 we will look back to an event in American history that will I think not be familiar to a lot of people listening. It was as our guest says the for this morning the largest armed uprising on American soil since the Civil War took place in 1921 when something like 10000 West Virginia coal miners took up arms against the mine owners and they fought a 10 day pitched battle against a combined force of police and militia. It was only after the federal government sent in troops. Did the miners give up. And it is a story that is both important for American labor history but our guest this morning Robert Shogun makes the argument that it is in a larger sense an important story for American history. And I had a lot to do with shaping relations between labor and management for a long time after that perhaps even now he tells the story in his recently published book which is titled The battle of Blair Mountain The Story of America's largest labor uprising it's

published by the west of you press. Our guests are Robert Shogun for more than 30 years covered American politics over the course of seven presidencies. He covered the political scene from Washington as national political correspondent for Newsweek and also for the Los Angeles Times. He is currently adjunct professor of government at the Center for the Study of American government at Johns Hopkins University and he's joining us this morning by telephone and as we talk questions are certainly welcome the number if you're here in Champaign-Urbana where we are 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 we do also have a toll free line. And that's good anywhere that you can hear us. And that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so wherever you are which a number works best for you you want to join the conversation that's great again here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. And any place else you might be listening around Illinois Indiana actually even people if you were listening on the internet you may use the toll free line as long as you're in the United States. And that is 800

to 2 2 9 4 5. Mr shogun. Hello good morning how are you know. I'm fine thanks and yourself fine. Glad to be back in Illinois electronically and in the Midwest. Well we're glad to have you talking with this morning and one of the reasons I thought that it would make an interesting conversation is that first of all I think probably most people don't don't have much labor history haven't gotten many of those stories as they've moved along through life and through school and that this would be a story that a lot of people hadn't heard. And I guess I maybe that's one place we could start out and I could ask you why it is that this story as as as significant as it was both this labor history and American history seems so little known. Well it's a question of you know maybe Michael Moorcock is here because it is a way of looking at things. I think that it that the reason it's been it's a little

known and this is true even in West Virginia. People grow up being unaware that many of them. Is that because they're American. Don't don't like to recognize certain realities about the country and one of them is the jarring idea that we do have a class conflict here of one kind or another that is not just one big happy middle class people paying their mortgages and sending their living behind a white picket fence and sending kids off to school. It's a jungle out there people say and think conflict between workers and their bosses for a long time and their and their will and that continues today at times and in the past. It's good to have beyond conflict rates to stage of outright warfare where we had been in West Virginia at a time like years ago with a virtual civil war and I think the

reason I think people rather than talk about it would deal with it people would just pretend it didn't happen it's that it's not that it was ignored at that time. It's important to realize that that the major papers all over the country covered covered the story and reporters came from everywhere to report on the war they said war correspondents people who've been in World War 1 to cover the fighting and it was page 1 news everywhere and in the news reels but very soon thereafter when it was just forgotten now part was immediate mood of the country it was in the 1920s it was this. Roaring 20s in his time the good times were rolling in. Harding and Coolidge were in the White House and the unions and labor were thought of as a second really very minor element and so people just pretended they weren't there and even later when Labor and the labor movement resigned thanks and deal things press

people continued not to deal with the next payday. So if not a deliberate not a kind of not an over conspiracy but it's sort of a subliminal one I think in which people just don't want to talk. And one of the things I learned as a journalist here that was that sometimes the best stories were stories that people in power didn't want to discuss or let you know about. And so that's one of the arrangement that made me go after this I really started work an hour 40 years ago got sidetracked a lot of things and then I wrote a lot of books about politics and then when I retired a few years ago I came back to this fortune I could still read my notes. So that made it possible for the book. The bottom line here is as you say it is a round this period so this we're talking about nine hundred twenty nine thousand twenty one it was a time of intense kind of strife between unions and people who were hoping to

organize unions and the people who ran the companies that these people worked for and so that is here the bottom line. It was an intense period of labor strife and for a lot of people the bottom line simply was the right to organize and that's here what people were fighting about in this little corner of West Virginia that borders on Kentucky. That is the the the desire of the miners to organize and of the mine owners to prevent that. Yeah yeah well I put it in part by a couple ways. We have transitional period World War One just ended a couple years before World War One had been. Well a friend of mine Phil McCartney wrote a wonderful book called Labour's Great War and it was a terrific war for labor and from a sense because the they were for the government in order to get a pure production and coal lot of Lebanese took over and they take over the company. But they made sure that there were labor strife was

eliminated and Labor was in short supply. So that management business back to go along with labor in their demands after the war it was a struggle labor wanting to maintain that new role and it is stablished and strengthen and in cooperation with the company's alliance to wipe them out and they did they would now talk and get along with labor not West Virginia particularly people they just didn't think there ought to be unions they thought they were un-American that we're creatures of running in track to deal with and rule in crime. That was part of the reason that West Virginia was very important because. You're going to the United Mine Workers who are one of the most at that time and most powerful union in the country and they organize the mines well in Illinois and elsewhere in the Midwest and also in Pennsylvania were very well organized. But in the summer and somewhere they went for you but in southern West Virginia as they develop

coal resources more recently these mines said open up during the war when they need production and they were not union in trouble with that as long as they kept producing it was very hard for the union mine unions in the union mines to bargain successfully over to strike because there was enough nonunion coal coming out of West Virginia to break the strike. So it was that critical period which is struggle and Cap'n that take place in a corner where for example what was involved was the most strong union in the country. United Mine Workers and what was that time probably arguably the most important industry in the country call it what fuel economy. We have a caller here somebody on a cell phone so I want to bring him into the conversation and let's do that line number one right here. Hello. Hi good morning. Fantastic What a fantastic topic to talk about. I wanted to sort of. Restore a point something out that you brought up earlier which was why do people not have a sense of these kinds of battles that have taken place and in a book written by a guy named James

Whelan called Lies My Teacher Told Me. He talks about how textbooks shy away from any kind of controversy even sitting like this. That would be perfectly good topic for a textbook to cover isn't covered but I just wondered if your if your guest had any primary sources in the writing of his book people who had been involved and family members involved in this and this cold war story and and sort of what if what if primary sources are like a what a secondary sources were like so that was my question. Great topic thanks. OK well that well there are living primers or who long ago but there's some important source material. The readers of the march were primed for treason. Again the state of West return is kind of an improbable and so dire and that the transcripts of those trials are on microfilm.

And I was able to gain access to them fact I first started reading them four years ago and so there's all kinds of testimony not only from the strikers from government officials and nearly and then mine owners and nearly everyone involved and so that was a big primary source and then another source was the very nice state the labor and Senate Labor Committee had hearings before and then yes there were more in in the summer of 19 21 and it went on for several weeks or more in the thousand pages of testimony. I was able to get a copy of that force in just about anybody when any connection with the strike was pressed. So that was pretty good. Primary source until you had the miners leaders you had the companies and you had to begin play Pozen they are not a source material with them. I was filled out in the woods is related to the

start of the book in the town of Matewan. I don't know how many listeners are saying the movie made one but 15 years ago John Sayles and he the movie focuses on the issue that ending out a guy named Fred Hatfield who's the police chief of Maine was very pro-labor. He and some of his cohorts were tried for murder. They shot and killed seven private detectives who were used by the coal companies to bust the unions and they were tried and there I was able to get a transcript. The market at this moment. So that roll with that newspaper report was revised a good deal of material in there with you know from secondary information that helpful another very I think a pretty complete hopefully pretty complete bibliography in the in. In fact back in the book I hope that would help you.

You know I know that there are a lot of resources or at least some that I have come across on the Internet so people do have access for example I came across a website that West Virginia archives in history and they have a page here on the battle of Blair Mountain. Right yeah I would help. That would help me get the game started primary day and not a good piece of material. The army was a very mob and kept the Clery martial law group of federal troops kept going in and out of West Virginia was like Iraq for a while and the very good history of the U.S. army's role in civil disturbance and they have that that harness that was very helpful in guiding me to a good deal with the army's role because there were a lot of you know political machinations involved with it and then too.

So not interesting next to Republican presidents who were not hearty Well you know you might have thought well he'd be very eager to send troops in to Damascus right and help that business but he was reluctant because I think they realize in Washington. The government of Washington was so corrupt and when ome lock stock and barrel packed many parts bottom line on that that it was just a messy picture and they don't want to say it would take the fame that they just want to get involved in it but ultimately with 10000 men fighting chaos threatening whom Harding did send in troops he sent in a certain way spearheaded by a squadron of bombers in the US the air service and it was only when an Air Force air for their command by Colonel Mitchell Billy Mitchell very famous for sinking aircraft carrier getting adult men and came down near Mexico one point talked about using

tactics against the miners that was prefigured Guernica in the fantasy civil war but that didn't it didn't come to that fact. There were no shots fired in anger by the miners the mining the Union Army Union miners army against the U.S. Army allies of earth of the violence who was between the miners and any other group that consisted of state police the militia as I think you said and also a kind of vigilante group. Well let's maybe we should go back because one of the precipitating events I think for the Blair Mountain battle Blair Mountain were was the series of events that took place in May 1 in actually going back to the year before in one thousand twenty. Yeah there was the shootout involving

the SID Hatfield who was the chief of police in Matewan and his deputy and these these thugs these guys enforcers who were hired by the coal companies wouldn't sell the ball to infest directors and there was this shootout in 1920 and then. Later the next year in the summer of 1981 I think that was it that was when then the SID Hatfield himself was killed. Yeah I feel was murdered by detectives after the trial he was acquitted. That was hardly a surprise that people in and mingle County where you live were not going to convict him. And the header defect they take of a guy named Tom self was seeking revenge because among the seven detectives killed and the man on May 1 were two of the brothers

until he was gaming the engine wanted dead weight. This was in August for the nineteen twenty one and after I had come to watch him in the Senate hearing and feel it come up there to testify and told him the same as it was that the famous thinkers and the. Even if my words you made a movie cold smiling said but axial was lured this was after the hearings and they trumped up some murder charge against him in a county that the mine owners controlled. McDowell County some distance from where you live and into the town of Watertown a well an

Advil was of course apprehensive by going there but he was given assurances that the local sheriff would protect them well they're now wanting to have field guide to local sheriff and being a bit out of town and axial his wife and the friend of his walking up the steps of the courthouse toward his arraignment I guess it was then and he was shot down by the ball and self-protective them ambushed and right after they did they ran up and put a gun in hand to make it look as if it had been a gun battle and they fired bullets against a wall. To add to that prism of course they were. Ultimately they pleaded self-defense and they weren't convicted. The miners that was what really triggered the march the miners were really a day they've been on strike for a year and the companies that use all kinds of violence against and needed victims in their homes they refused to bargain or negotiate and there are going eyes who are locked up most of my been locked up

in jail in Logan County all Ming miners the miners the union mine said that everything was against them and they got together there was no formal plan but it was a lot of word of mouth. Nobody wrote it down over it and they destroyed it after what about 10000 M and then they began to mark Logan The idea was to free organized jail. And they also said you know we'll hang done Schafer into a sour apple tree the fourth is a gun shape and was the sheriff of Logan County and he was. Figure who well he made about thirty five hundred a year and he can lay $330000 the net worth so you can give an idea of how he handled his affairs and when he was a shrewd guy and they they thought they need to get him I think their other purpose was to gain attention.

I think they felt that if they could dramatize their cause and get the attention of the country outside aware that people would realize what a great injustice this was and then they would get support. I think the important thing to remember that this is it was his reason for the post overthrow the government they were trying to overthrow the system they were trying to make the system work for them they believe very strong Many of Montford World War One they believe very strongly in America and the Constitution. And they they were not. They had very little interest in socialism or communism and afterward the miners looked to high and low to get more evidence of communist infiltration and when any day when a son is a soldier marched in the Sudan armed they said we can't fly an awful sand may wave then marched off waving the American flag they felt they won some kind of victory because they thought Well now people realize were terrible thing this is

that we were so desperate. We were determined to do. But that's not what happened. People didn't seem to care. Who is 1920s America. Well we have been different now because I think if I could say one thing army and ramble on too much but you know I you talk about it being labor history in a way people refer to it and of course you're literally you're right but I guess that expression I wonder about that one thought about labor history. A little hard for me to differentiate labor history from American history you know if you take the working people out of America have left their you know to 125 million Americans are still in 30 many working people willing to go left and I guess people send money to the Bush campaign I don't know but I think that Labor is it integral working people or a pretty big part of them.

Country sometimes people don't like to realize look at where we are at our midpoint here. Let me introduce Again our guest. We're talking with Robert Shogun he was for a long time a political reporter. He worked both for Newsweek and The Los Angeles Times and he now is adjunct professor of government at the Center for Study of American government at Johns Hopkins University and is author of a book that explores this history that we've been here talking about his book is titled The battle of Blair Mountain The Story of America's largest labor uprising it's published by the Westview press and is out now. If you'd like to look at it questions are certainly welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 3 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. We were talking about we talk a little bit about the what happened in Inmate 1 and then as the revenge killing of said Hatfield that happened after that then and the fact that the miners were what they were doing is they they they were marching to a particular

county this county main go that's right on the border between West Virginia and Kentucky there was a focus of organizing efforts but to get there they had to go through Logan County which is not that. Is that right. OK well that they were if I had to cross where I guess what I was didn't. Did they not had to have to go through through the county where where chafing was the chief and was the sheriff. Oh yeah that was Logan. Yeah and I'm just what we're like what happened when when when they went through Logan County. Well they didn't get through and they tried to and they got they guys they were the stuff that Blair Mountain in order to get to who they were they

were marching on Logan County you know when they got to Blair Mountain. That was it not for the fans for the for the companies concerned. Yes there are a refueling and it's a you know pretty high mountain being step mine now. You know people making a big effort to save it or serve it get it to their historical site. Boy you can keep it in the ripped apart by the coal company but at any rate it will hear that chafing form the defense line that consisted as I mentioned of the state police and militia and that's where the fighting when our name in the series of skirmishes and it was just one battle went on for quite some time and for a number of days and it was getting to a point where it looked as if the miners were going to break through and there. Was all the load or not happen

of course that would've That would have that would have prevented. That would have you know who's very very threatening today than they would have been able to get the people at jail and so on. So that would've been a great victory for that well right for as long as it lasted. But yeah and. We don't know who you are you're writing from and they had to go to Logan to get legal. Yeah that's good I guess that's what I did. But that but you're right that then. Then they the the the police and the authorities and the people are basically one side of the miners and they drew the line and said OK this is where we're going to be right where they were. Sailor Moon OK yeah. And so that and that's how it is that it ended up being this place. Yeah Blair Mountain where there was this big concert where there was a literally an armed encampment of miners there. And people kept flowing into it but they got kind of bottled up

because the opposition was saying OK this is where you're not going to cross this line and that's why it happened at this sort. As it did at that place. Yeah well that's right. And all of this is right. There's a map in the book that shows that there are also some good pictures in the book I think goes with it we got from the west in the library of characters packed field and tells the other people taken in time but the map shows very clearly what was involved in this whole thing. Logan Blair Mountain is about an hour and a pullout from Charles and I know there are many people who are in the capital. From when you begin to trust in the capital. So it's pretty close to the main city there and labor would been pretty strong in the area around Charleston and north

so that was natural for them to be able to move here. Not an I thing aspect to this. People in southern West Virginia trying to preserve a Blair Mountain as the dark site and even after I mention the treatment from the trials were taken away and the crowd will move to Jefferson County because it was you know added the area to get things in the news everything can use in the West in the Panhandle happens to be near Washington and one in a town in the Panhandle town called Harpers Ferry which is famous for history or for John Brown's raid. Well William Blizzard who was ultimately designated as the leader of the march by the coal company says they want to do is try somebody whinged blizzard with pride in the think for treason in the same

courthouse in 1922 that John Brown was tried for treason and I guess it would have been 18 57 or 58 when they said rape and. He was on the ground was beginning in nine states and the jail where Blissett was held still standing people in Charles Town who went to jail is not to be confused I hope with sorrow from Charles hands which is near Harper's Ferry south down to the city the county fire and one pair to jail van and put up a parking lot on the people local people there trying to preserve it because they think it's historically important. So I mean you have another exam you know you asked me at the beginning of the wide people don't know about this online or I think that people tend to

disregard it. I was down everything in an interview by radio talk show person who said well I can see why it is that I can see as important a Labor Day but not American history and of course I try to say to him as I mentioned earlier that I think it's all part of American than any I would thought it was encouraging that there are people nowadays who not only you know want to know about this but are trying to make sure that it doesn't Ranee's it by saving you know the artifacts of the jail have one case in the mountain with a battle plate. We talked a bit earlier about the fact that one of the. Things that made the miners so angry was the murder of Sid Hatfield who was the sheriff and that he apparently was very sympathetic to the cause of the miners talked about the fact that there are photographs and here and there here is a great photograph of some of the organizers from Ingo County and in the photograph it is indeed said Hadfield And sitting

next to him is none other then Mother Jones. The most dangerous woman in America. What made Sid Hatfield so sympathetic to the to the cause of the miners and the people who wanted to organize well after a bit of a puzzle of mine in the miners study was a bug in every eye. He was I had been a miner It worked in the mines and the mines and so his friends were miners. I don't think he had much use for the coal companies I think he you know he had belonged to the union and he thought that was a good idea. And then I think started out of some of it had to do with local politics. He'd been appointed police chief by the mayor of. Mate one man named The cable Testament and testament was sympathetic to you called them all way cool. So cruel it was more real than ever it is an earthling cried like critters

are the bizarre is that care for me was one of the people killed Abel Tyson was one of people killed in a made one shoot out with something called Ming one man with a May 19 19 20 within a week. Do that and his dad actually a very short time they've been long in the week after you married his widow Testament who is considered rather attractive young woman this time though is a bit of scandal to it. And of course Tom felt the detective agency seized upon that and at the trial he claimed that half field had instigated the whole shoot out so he could he could kill them. And Mary is white actually maintain the course that is it takes a head shot.

Mayor testing in a ham and and his person is weirdo and has Jesse Haci of New why he testified that he tested upper teeth stated publicly that day. Testament and said I feel we're good friends. Before the suit ad and then her cable had said to word that if anything ever happened to hand she said look to sit as feel for friendship and support which he did. Well there you go. You can believe what you think about Stafford and think the main thing I mean if people were human beings and this is a story I mean it's important in terms of labor the American innocence of a very human story you have every kind of the human emotion and virtue in fall. There was courage and green and avarice and loyalty and betrayal of them had a whole bunch of characters on one side or another because

this was a matter of airing you know very little literally of life and death for people and even before the battle there was continual skirmishes and shootouts between us. The mind guards on one hand and sometimes and and thank police or more more often with the mind guards and the strikers who are firing away at them. So you had the violence to continue a pattern of violence through the state and the governor couldn't handle it cause crowd trying to get federal troops in the federal to come in every day for a couple weeks and they would go out to do it period while it lasted for two three years no matter you mention Mother Jones I think he played an important role here in the center in a big U.S. role. Feeling very I think most of your listeners probably know he was he was a very formidable labor organizer after me you see the schoolteacher and her husband died from there in some epidemic and

she became a labor organizer here very effective. She took advantage she was very good at dramatizing her so she wouldn't terrific in this media age. Good. She knew how to play to a role if you're a white haired lady she was it time the Brooklyn and her 80s and of course you use language that a little old ladies weren't supposed to use and then or maybe even now. But she did any and got away with it and so. See he had been a big help to the miners and their house you know organizing. When it came to the marker she got old and she became susceptible to flattery. Part of the governor's on the part of the Republican governor in the state when the miners were getting ready to march he decided to sue in most states.

Noun that was not a crazy thing to say or a reasonable thing because you could argue that well there were where are they going to do. They were but they couldn't when this is a battle they were ultimately going to lose maybe I think you could make that argument but I think they went beyond nag told and it was a big meeting the miners had just before the march started and he made a big spring in which he said I have a telegram here from President Harding with the promise that if you'll only go home. God got the gun. Go home then he'll look into that Kerry thing. Well the union leaders were wary faces that why Harding sits in a tavern he waved the paper in its ability to acknowledge it and he will show it to you Well they didn't really that so they called the White House and found that remarkably they were able to get through and they were told that no Harding had not sent any telegram to mothers. So after that they viewed this as kind of an act of betrayal on our part and with

unfortunate because AC had made a great contribution to labor but as I said there are all kinds of human emotion in this story and that is one of one of the pictures that in the book here is at the end of the battle and that apparently the soldiers collected arms and ammunition from both sides and here's a picture of stack boxes ammunition and rifles and in in quite a quite a few enough to looks like. A small army including a couple of machine guns and you it seems miraculous to me that more people weren't killed. Well that's right and an ankle while at first we don't know how many people were killed or ethnicity 20 to 50 and I tell you not to talk to people about that meant trying to understand I going down there help me to understand a little later a lot of it is very thick growth. There are lot of foliage and trees. O is there's a lot of good cover and there's not the open territory

I mean you could do a lot of shooting without hitting anybody and I think although West Virginians you know like to pride themselves on being cracked. Shock and Awe last fact is that they were not neither neither side where they organized or trained military forces and I don't. I never been in a battle myself but I've read enough of that and I suspect mostly to know that there are moments of great confusion and chaos. Wouldn't that send anybody talk. And this is true even when you have a fully organized and disciplined army I think that with a lot of confusion and with all of the weapon few right there were a tremendous amount of weapons and they did make a tremendous amount of noise and fire but fortunately there were many more people killed than that in the world. There's one thing I wanted to say if I could I was struck writing a book I really got into it right around the time

of 9/11 right after the attack on the Trade Center and the Pentagon and the things that happened the country I was reminded you know and then researching the book again of the period then and now there are some striking similarities. And there was a period then of great unresting concern about terrorism. People familiar with American history know that there were bomb blows going off in Wall Street and the world bond sent through the mail killing people and it was great fear because of the new Soviet government and the relatively new and mine in Russia that they were going to perpetrate world revolution so there was a kind of fear and terror. Then much as there is today terrorism I know they were terrorists. Some are people who are believed to be some of the people in United States who are terrorists and there were it was a great suspicion of people of alien people from abroad it was great

being a folder. People would be deported in a lot of the reason and so it's a similar period and it made it hard for the labor movement then. I mean I would feel an added problem because all our leaders were thought of as being linked to the Soviet Union or some kind of communist theory or terrorism a little of that and there were a lot of there were some strike that day to make that charge against you and everybody against some of the strikes that those charges were made and just as and it was an attempt to stifle dissent and that has started with the first with the first forward even where the war ended we had the Palmer raids and thank people for a missile program. The attorney general and he was attorney general for a Democrat and he was the John Ashcroft of his day that day and he rated all of these people and kids them of doing this or that was never much evidence and the poor felt it was a I mean that is relevant to the news that the cause of the miners in West Virginia because it made it

harder for them to get public support because it was so much fear that of the of the dangers that the country faced and I think when that happens there's a tendency to be careless about protecting civil liberties and to let those things go because they're supposed to be greater danger just as I feel that to today. And so I think there's another lesson there those being on the labor movement is that you know it's important you know don't mean to belittle that there's a terrorist threat to the countries it is important to remember that I think that in protecting against that threat just as it was important to remember in 1921 that. Not to abuse or undermine the freedom and the values that we're supposedly trying to defend but so I think that there are some contemporary significance to him and I

think it's particularly true today is not a good time for the labor movement. They really have been on the fence a bad beat and I think when President Reagan died he would go on both to this endless series that you'll be penned here when Imam or somebody is talking about the impact of strike if you if you listeners remember very broke the air traffic controllers strike that fired all the extra Brophy and it was a powerful ball against labor. But 20 years ago and there's an outfit and it Pandit I was here in tank Daniel Yergin who was pretty renowned scholar he said this is one of the reasons for our prosperity today well are the prosperity for home. You know but hell where they've been for times and he is very much up against it and progressive forces in general are

and I think there have been I think it's important to remember at that time that when there was another period like that that people were willing to stand up for their rights which they took to be the right what they believe. They read very literally their own lives and some of the law for them and they were defeated very that time. Take decade later a mourner decade later. They won most of the things that they had fought for in the 20. Thanks to the New Deal in progress you know the question is if they had fought for it then would they have ever again that that's something that people have said there are no guarantees in this case if you do what you believe in. But again the more I think this is an important story because I do this is a you know our our our countrymen shaped by struggles like this between various groups and sometimes the left between the haves and the have nots. And

you know what we the important the best thing about our country is that normally these things can be settled peacefully any sort of court order and elections are one thing but there are been times when for one reason or another business or government becomes so arbitrary or powerful that that people are left with little recourse. And that was what the people of Blair Mountain face and that's what it did what they did. We have about 10 minutes left a little less than that in this part of focus 580. And our guest is Robert Shogun more than 30 years covering Washington politics U.S. national political correspondent for Newsweek and The Los Angeles Times and currently is adjunct professor of government at the Center for Study of American government at Johns Hopkins University and his book if you'd like to read it is titled The battle of Blair Mountain The Story of America's largest labor uprising published by the Westview press. Staying sort of getting getting back to the idea that. Is this in

part this is obviously this is labor history this is American labor history. I wonder do you think that you know even though we're talking about here a series of events that took place in the 20s so it's going back before World War 2 that this has shaped relations between labor and management even even now. Well I think it and the magic of that kind of them not not by it self but I think that the relations between labor management are you know based on a series of conflicts and struggles back and forth. This is certainly one of one of the things that the coal miners. Mine mine owners got their way at that time. But the Union kept fighting and kept waiting. So you have this tension and conflict

that continues to go on and there's none and although there are areas there. We have bargain can contract. I think there's a certain amount of that kind of natural and pragmatist on both sides and I think what was demonstrated and I think I can say is that and then men realize that when they have the power on their side they will use it to the maximum and that is a lesson that the union labor people have learned from a lesson a company that really learned at some point they can bargain and negotiate. Sometimes there's not much room that they have to do this and they have to be realize that you know our money companies are not looking after their welfare they're looking after stockholders for their own profit. I think that that's part of one of the attitude that is pervasive in today in

Lieberman. We talked a bit earlier about the battle and about the fact that over this 10 day period there was there were a lot of skirmishes and there were fighting. Back and forth between the miners and those people who are opposing them which is this kind of group of police and state police and militia vigilantes all these people sort of banded together and that what finally brought the fighting to an end was the that the federal government sent troops led by Billy Mitchell and they actually were some some airplanes use. And that obviously that at that point the miners felt that there were they were they were so outnumbered there was they had no choice but it to give up was the inn in Washington was that that decision to to intervene in that way militarily was that it was at all controversy what was the debate like about that. Well there was I think the argument Waco was that big Porton figure in debate and that discussion was that

I got an internal band hold who was saying to West Virginia by Harding as his own rules will one of the first all star governor Morgan Republican ever sought help and instead of sending it six amazingly frank said that ban hold hold hold hold all from a similar to avoid using too. Because that's the last thing line of panels and I usually die. He had been at U.S. emissary to Hungary after World War One. He was there and I think not only was the seated Sensi popular figure and so so fair and so thoughtful that they erected a statute in America is that anyone panels try to negotiate. And he got the

mind the union leaders to agree to call an Intel A-minus to go home before the fighting started they were marching but he got them to persuade them to go home and he said you know if you don't do this. He said they're going to be crushed by the to hell panels got them to do that and they started back and then they called the local authorities not the miners that broke the truth. They really want taxes. They wanted the strike to be Christ. So even if the unions were broken back they violated the truth the locals local police or state police friendly to the coal companies. And so then the mine the miners found out about that. There they were they went back to at that point panels. Hello Harding that he had to say that he had descending too that there was no way and he was very Kay. And then the coal companies and the governor for their B and gold got the

governor particularly for behavior for not living up to agreements and or for causing this outbreak. Well you know pardon me for jumping in there but you know we've come to the end of the time and we're going to have to stop there's more to the story and people want to read more about it. They can look for the book that we've mentioned it's titled The battle of Blair Mountain The Story of America's largest labor uprising published by Western press. Get it Amazon Dot com or your local bookstore. All right Mr. going to thank you very much for talking with us today. Well thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. We appreciate it Robert.