Labor Relations 90 Years Ago
The Battle of Matewan
"On May 19, 1920 ten people were killed at Matewan in the deadliest gunfight in American history. The battle of Matewan, popularly dubbed the "Matewan massacre," was an integral part of the fight for industrial democracy and workers' rights that was sweeping the country.
The united mine workers' of America had just elected the legendary John L. Lewis as their president....and the union was on a roll. A few months before the battle of Matewan, union miners in other parts of the country staged a two month long strike and won an unprecedented 27% pay increase. The contracts they negotiated with coal producers in the so called central field required the union to organize miners in southern west Virginia and eastern Kentucky in order to level the playing field for the price of coal.
In the hills and hollows along the Tug Fork there was no union and the miners and their families lived in an almost feudal society. The coal companies dominated their employees lives. The companies owned the miners homes and required them to buy at the company store. The companies also welded significant clout with politicians, newspapers and the school system.
In those days, Matewan was still a hard days journey from the state capitol at Charleston. But the town sat on the mainline of the Norfolk western railroad. The train linked Matewan to the outside world and every day it brought in goods and news from around the country. What kept conversation buzzing here outside the post office and down the street in front of Chambers Hardware Store was that 27% pay raise. The area was ripe for change.
John L. Lewis knew this and was determined to organize the coal fields of southern Appalachia. The union sent in its top organizers, including the infamous mother Jones, and before the spring redbud covered the hills, the miners were working by day and talking union under the cover of night.
Roughly three thousand men signed the union's roster in the spring of 1920. The Matewan community church, a block south of the battle site near the river, was the place where the miners signed their union cards. They knew it would cost them their jobs and in many cases their homes. The coal operators retaliated with massive firings, harassment, and evictions.
Matewan, incorporated in 1895, was an independent town with it's own elected officials. It's mayor, Cabel Testerman, and it's police chief, Sid Hatfield, refused to go along with the companies retaliation against the miners. So the companies hired their own enforcers, the notorious Baldwin-Felts detective agency. The "Baldwin thugs," as the miners called them, had earned a reputation for brutality in other strikes. This time the coal operators had hired them to evict the newly unionized miners and their wives and children from the company owned houses. As a result, hundreds of families spent that chilly mountain spring in thin canvass tents with mud floors.
The miners had been pushed to their limit, and tension hung heavy in the air like the thick mist that rose from the river on a warm spring night.
On May 19th, the day the battle of Matewan took place, a contingent of Baldwin-Felts detectives arrived on the no. 29, the morning train, to evict families living at stone mountain coal camp just outside of Matewan. Sheriff Sid Hatfield and his friend and deputy, Fred Burgraff, smelled trouble and they met the Baldwin-Felts men at the train station.
Burgraff's son Hawthorne, now eighty-three years old picks up the story.......
"What I'm gonna' tell you is exactly what my father told me. When they arrived in Matewan and got off the train, they had their satchels with 'em. We called 'em grips back then, they call 'em satchels, suitcases or whatever. But, they had in those suitcases submachine guns. They called 'em Thompson submachine gun. Of course they wore their pistols on their side, because they were officers of the law. But, when they got off of the train in Matewan, Sid and my father walked over to Albert Felts, he was the leader of the Baldwin-Felts detective, and introduced themselves and asked him what he was doing down there. And, Albert said "we've come down here on a job. The coal company has asked us to put those people out of the houses and that is what our intentions are. We're strictly goin' to do that". It was Sid who said, "well, you know that's goin' to lead to trouble." And, Albert felts said, "well, we're prepared to take care of any trouble that might come our way, we're trained men. And, my advice to you is not to interfere with the Baldwin-Felts detectives." Well, my father and Sid left and went back over the tracks into Matewan and the detective force went over to the camps and started their job of putting people out of the house. My daddy's brother Albert lived in one of the houses. So, they moved out one family after another, maybe one or two, to set an example of what was going to happen."
And set an example they did, evicting six families and piling their belongings - iron skillets, clothes, and rocking chairs - in a drizzling rain. By the time the Baldwin-Felts men got back to Matewan, news of the evictions had spread and people were angry. Sid Hatfield had let it be known he planned to arrest the detectives....and townspeople were preparing for a confrontation. Men hurried into town with guns tucked under their jackets and women frantically tried to get their children off the streets.
John Sayles' "Matewan" 1987
News of the battle spread quickly. Governor Cornwell ordered the entire state police force.....fifty men....to take control of Matewan. Sid Hatfield and his men cooperated and stacked their arms inside the Chambers Hardware store. Hatfield became an instant hero and the miners, heady with the success of running the coal companies' hired guns out of Matewan, stepped up their efforts to organize."
"On May 19, 1920 ten people were killed at Matewan in the deadliest gunfight in American history. The battle of Matewan, popularly dubbed the "Matewan massacre," was an integral part of the fight for industrial democracy and workers' rights that was sweeping the country.
The united mine workers' of America had just elected the legendary John L. Lewis as their president....and the union was on a roll. A few months before the battle of Matewan, union miners in other parts of the country staged a two month long strike and won an unprecedented 27% pay increase. The contracts they negotiated with coal producers in the so called central field required the union to organize miners in southern west Virginia and eastern Kentucky in order to level the playing field for the price of coal.
In the hills and hollows along the Tug Fork there was no union and the miners and their families lived in an almost feudal society. The coal companies dominated their employees lives. The companies owned the miners homes and required them to buy at the company store. The companies also welded significant clout with politicians, newspapers and the school system.
In those days, Matewan was still a hard days journey from the state capitol at Charleston. But the town sat on the mainline of the Norfolk western railroad. The train linked Matewan to the outside world and every day it brought in goods and news from around the country. What kept conversation buzzing here outside the post office and down the street in front of Chambers Hardware Store was that 27% pay raise. The area was ripe for change.
John L. Lewis knew this and was determined to organize the coal fields of southern Appalachia. The union sent in its top organizers, including the infamous mother Jones, and before the spring redbud covered the hills, the miners were working by day and talking union under the cover of night.
Roughly three thousand men signed the union's roster in the spring of 1920. The Matewan community church, a block south of the battle site near the river, was the place where the miners signed their union cards. They knew it would cost them their jobs and in many cases their homes. The coal operators retaliated with massive firings, harassment, and evictions.
Matewan, incorporated in 1895, was an independent town with it's own elected officials. It's mayor, Cabel Testerman, and it's police chief, Sid Hatfield, refused to go along with the companies retaliation against the miners. So the companies hired their own enforcers, the notorious Baldwin-Felts detective agency. The "Baldwin thugs," as the miners called them, had earned a reputation for brutality in other strikes. This time the coal operators had hired them to evict the newly unionized miners and their wives and children from the company owned houses. As a result, hundreds of families spent that chilly mountain spring in thin canvass tents with mud floors.
The miners had been pushed to their limit, and tension hung heavy in the air like the thick mist that rose from the river on a warm spring night.
On May 19th, the day the battle of Matewan took place, a contingent of Baldwin-Felts detectives arrived on the no. 29, the morning train, to evict families living at stone mountain coal camp just outside of Matewan. Sheriff Sid Hatfield and his friend and deputy, Fred Burgraff, smelled trouble and they met the Baldwin-Felts men at the train station.
Burgraff's son Hawthorne, now eighty-three years old picks up the story.......
"What I'm gonna' tell you is exactly what my father told me. When they arrived in Matewan and got off the train, they had their satchels with 'em. We called 'em grips back then, they call 'em satchels, suitcases or whatever. But, they had in those suitcases submachine guns. They called 'em Thompson submachine gun. Of course they wore their pistols on their side, because they were officers of the law. But, when they got off of the train in Matewan, Sid and my father walked over to Albert Felts, he was the leader of the Baldwin-Felts detective, and introduced themselves and asked him what he was doing down there. And, Albert said "we've come down here on a job. The coal company has asked us to put those people out of the houses and that is what our intentions are. We're strictly goin' to do that". It was Sid who said, "well, you know that's goin' to lead to trouble." And, Albert felts said, "well, we're prepared to take care of any trouble that might come our way, we're trained men. And, my advice to you is not to interfere with the Baldwin-Felts detectives." Well, my father and Sid left and went back over the tracks into Matewan and the detective force went over to the camps and started their job of putting people out of the house. My daddy's brother Albert lived in one of the houses. So, they moved out one family after another, maybe one or two, to set an example of what was going to happen."
And set an example they did, evicting six families and piling their belongings - iron skillets, clothes, and rocking chairs - in a drizzling rain. By the time the Baldwin-Felts men got back to Matewan, news of the evictions had spread and people were angry. Sid Hatfield had let it be known he planned to arrest the detectives....and townspeople were preparing for a confrontation. Men hurried into town with guns tucked under their jackets and women frantically tried to get their children off the streets.
John Sayles' "Matewan" 1987
News of the battle spread quickly. Governor Cornwell ordered the entire state police force.....fifty men....to take control of Matewan. Sid Hatfield and his men cooperated and stacked their arms inside the Chambers Hardware store. Hatfield became an instant hero and the miners, heady with the success of running the coal companies' hired guns out of Matewan, stepped up their efforts to organize."
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