The Coal War (16 page)

The public understood that the coal-companies had to employ guards to protect their properties, which otherwise would be burned or dynamited; also to protect the men who wanted to go on working, who would otherwise be beaten or shot. When you asked the public to believe that guards were being secretly used to beat and kill strikebreakers, and even to burn and dynamite properties, in order that the public might be led to think that the strikers had committed these crimes—then you went out of the realm of reality, you set yourself down for a romancer of the “penny-dreadful” order. Unless by chance you were something worse—a secret abettor and fomentor of crime!

But to the strikers these matters appeared quite differently. Not merely did they know that the “penny-dreadful” tales were true, that these strike-breaking agencies were “framing things up” on them; they knew that they did this systematically, as their regular business routine. Union labor had seen this technique of strike-breaking being developed for twenty years: from the great Chicago railway strike, where a commission appointed by the President of the United States had reported that the burning of cars and other violence had been committed by “thugs, thieves and ex-convicts” in the employ of the Railway Managers' Association; down to the recent great strike of the wage-slaves of the woolen trust, where the president of the mighty corporation was almost sent to prison—having made the mistake of employing the dynamiters himself, instead of letting a detective agency do it.

Here in this coal-country, the detective agencies were so sure of their control of government and news-agencies that they scarcely made any pretense of concealing their doings. They could not have done it, had they wished to; because their employes, swollen with suddenly acquired authority, were not to be kept from boasting. For example, Pete Hanun, the breaker of teeth, and Gus Dirkett, his pal! These two, the murderers of Olson, were under bonds of ten thousand dollars, but they still had their deputy's commissions, and carried rifles, in addition to the revolvers with which they had shot the organizer. By day they rode about the district, terrorizing all they met, and at night they got drunk in the saloons of Pedro, and told of the coming of the “death special”, and the use they intended to make of this new toy.

This “death special” was the talk of all the camps: an armored automobile which was being constructed in one of the mills of the General Fuel Company. It was provided with three-eights inch steel plates, high up on the sides and about the body and wheels; it was shaped in front and back like a battle-ship, and mounted two machine-guns, one in front and one in back, each firing a hundred and forty-seven steel bullets per minute.

There was a meeting of the miners at Horton one morning, two weeks after the beginning of the strike. John Harmon spoke, and Mother Mary denounced the Schultz detectives in her coal-camp English. Some of the detectives were present, and reported her uncomplimentary remarks; and that same afternoon came the avenging “death special”. In it were Schultz, Pete Hanun, Gus Dirkett, and a fourth man, the chief clerk of the General Fuel Company. They approached the colony from over the hills, took post where a ridge of bushes hid them from view, and without any sort of warning opened fire on the tents.

[20]

Hal was in the headquarters tent, discussing with Harmon and Moylan the problem of sanitary inspection, when a wild clamor broke, and the three men rushed out into the street. Women and children were running this way and that, screaming.

“What is it?” Hal cried; and Rosa Minetti answered that it was bullets—somebody was shooting at them!

At first Hal could not believe her. “Listen!” she exclaimed; and he heard a swift whirring, like the sound of a flying-machine; also a whining, buzzing sound, that might have been the hiving of bees. “Bullets!” cried Rosa. “They shoot us all!”

Now Hal had never heard the sound of a machine-gun; he had never thought of such a weapon as a possibility in his life of culture and ease. “It's an automobile!” he declared.

But Rosa persisted. “Look! Look!” And she pointed down the street, where spurts of dirt were leaping high up. “We got coffee-pot on stove! They come hole in it! Coffee run all over!”

A man rushed past Hal. “Kill them! Kill them!” he was shouting. He had a double-barreled shot-gun in his hand, and Harmon called, “Stop that fellow!” So Hal leaped in pursuit, and grabbed the man, an Italian. But it was impossible to stop him; he was like a mad creature. When Hal tried to take the gun, he leaped back and pointed it. “They killa my brud, I killa them! You stoppa me, I killa you!”

So Hal had to let him go, and follow him out into the fields beyond the tents. Other men came running, with rifles and revolvers, even axes and picks. They looked about wildly, but could not tell where the shooting came from, even though the bullets kicked the dirt into their eyes and mouths. The little Italian, beside himself with fury, took aim at the mountains and fired both barrels at once.

Now Hal had come to this coal-country with his mind made up to a role of non-resistance. Whatever others might do, his job was to make an appeal to people's moral sense. He had foreseen that it would not be easy, but he had taken his resolve—he would fight with the weapons of the mind, and in the end the conscience of the community must rally to his support.

But here was a trying problem. What is the proper course of action for a non-resistant, when bullets are actually kicking dirt into his eyes? Shall he dance about and dodge, like a tenderfoot in a frontier bar-room! Shall he crawl under the bed with the women, or behind the stove with the children? Or shall he go about his affairs unmoved, according to the tradition of the British army officer? The latter course might satisfy a man's dignity, but it hardly satisfied his common-sense.

Fortunately this test was not a long one. Having fired about a thousand shots without hitting anyone, the guards considered that they had taught the colony its lesson, and the “death special” moved on out of sight beyond the hills. They left the inhabitants of the tents behaving like a nest of ants that has been suddenly dug out of the ground.

This episode constituted the “first battle of Horton”. It had apparently been planned to cause terror, to put a stop to “incendiary speeches” in the colony; if so, it failed, for it caused only furious indignation. There was a conference of union leaders in the headquarters tent that night, and at this meeting the peace men could hardly get themselves heard. It seemed that there were only two of them left—John Edstrom and Louie the Greek—the latter being a Tolstoyan, who carried his peace ideas so far that he refused to eat meat!

The outcome of the conference was that the union leaders drew up a letter to the Governor, giving notice that from this time on the strikers would protect themselves; they would establish a guard for the tent-colonies, and be prepared to meet their assailants. The Governor did not answer this directly, but Sheriff Raymond made answer of a sort—ordering his deputies to arrest as many strikers as they could find carrying weapons. In Pedro they charged Tim Rafferty with carrying a revolver, and sent him to the filthy city-jail for thirty days.

[21]

The reports of this “battle of Horton”, published in the Western City morning papers, were the cause of Hal's getting a long-distance telephone-call—a very long long-distance call, which must have cost the caller many dollars. It was Edward, demanding that his brother should get out of that strike-district. He was terribly excited, and more profane than Hal had ever known him before. “If you don't come, by God, I'll come and fetch you!”

Hal answered, “I've been wishing that you might see things here with your own eyes!”

“If I come,” declared the far-off voice, “it won't be to see anything—it will be to have you locked up in a lunatic asylum.”

“If you'd only come, Edward, you might stop some of the shooting! They wouldn't take chances of killing a business-man!”

“I tell you to take the night-train!” persisted the tones of distant indignation. “I mean for you to do what I say! If you don't, I'll have Dad cut you off! I'll denounce you in the newspapers! I'll make it clear that I have nothing to do with this tom-foolery!”

“There's no use wasting telephone charges on that sort of talk, Edward. I'm not going to desert these people in their trouble. If you want to save my life, the thing for you to do is to go to Governor Barstow and make him protect these tent-colonies.”

There was an interruption in the telephone service. After some delay Hal heard the faint voice, seeming pathetic in its helplessness: “Why don't you come up and see the Governor yourself?”

That seemed a real idea. “Wait a minute,” said Hal, and he turned and asked John Harmon about it. “By all means!” Harmon said, and Hal answered, “I'll take the train at once. But I want you to understand that I'm coming back—straight back!”

“Take the train!” insisted Edward. “Promise me you'll take the train!” If he could only get his hands on this madman!

“All right,” was the reply—“but I'm coming back!”

Hal made a dash and caught the morning train, and got into Western City in the evening. His brother met him in an automobile—and such a row as they had! At home there was Hal's father, who had heard of the fighting and was in terror for his boy. There was nothing for Hal to do but tell his side; and this, while it overwhelmed the old gentleman, did not lessen his distress in the least.

Hal found that his brother hoped to back him down from his idea of seeing the Governor. Peter Harrigan would be so furious! But though Edward argued until midnight, Hal was not to be moved, and early next morning he climbed the hill and entered the white marble State House. The Governor's secretary took his card, and after reading the name, said politely that he would endeavor to arrange an interview. Soon afterwards he ushered Hal into an inner office where the chief executive stood behind a flat-topped desk.

He was an extraordinary chief executive for the people of a great state to have chosen. No one could credit an account of him, without first coming to understand the political and social system of which he was a product. This mountain state possessed enormous wealth in coal and minerals, and for fifty years, ever since the Indians had been driven out, its politics had served as a weapon in the struggle for the control of this wealth. At the present time the question had been pretty well settled: the mines, the railroads, the franchises of every sort were in the hands of a few great corporations, which managed both political parties, subsidizing their leaders and providing them with money to bewilder and corrupt the public. The corporations would support one party for a few years; then, when the actions of that party had made it odious, they would shift to the other party, starting a fresh campaign on the issues of “economy”, “public honesty”, “law and order”.

Being in possession, all that the corporations now asked of the state was to be let alone; and in order to be sure of being let alone, it was their custom to choose public officials who had too little intelligence to interfere, even if they wanted to. If you let a clever crook get into office, you could not tell what turn his crookedness might take; but if you chose an honest and well-meaning imbecile, you were safe. Thus it happened that the “invisible government” had contributed to the portrait gallery in the white marble State House a long row of studies in human futility.

The present study went by the name of Elon Barstow, and had been an obscure politician, a ranchman member of the state legislature. He had debts, and a mortgage or two, according to rumor; it was everywhere known that his nomination had been decided upon at a dinner-party in the home of Peter Harrigan. In appearance he was a small man, with a curious sort of face—childish, but wizened, making you think of a prematurely old infant. In manner he was nervous and uneasy, peering at you as he talked, as if groping to get hold of you. Hal had been told that he was half blind, and could not make out a person's features at all.

[22]

Hal explained his business; he had just come from the strike-field, where he had seen things the Governor ought to know about. But at once the Governor interrupted; he had received Mr. Warner's telegram, about the forceable detaining of men in the mines, and he would not believe such tales. He considered it very wrong for a young man of good family to take such a line as Hal had taken—giving encouragement to dangerous and unruly foreigners, who were destroying property and making resistance to the state, because of the violent talk of outside agitators, especially that incendiary old woman “Mother Mary”—

Hal had been told about Governor Barstow by Billy Keating, who had interviewed him more than once. He took it as a personal grievance that you should oppose his policies; his voice would rise high and angry as he complained about the troubles you were making for his administration. If you argued with him, his excitement would increase, until he would be pounding his desk. The thing you must do was to get even more excited; to shout louder than he shouted, to pound harder on the desk. So you might make him quail—make him admit there was something in your argument, and that something must be done about the matter.

Hal had never learned to pound desks; but he had practiced arguing on Edward, and having once got started, he kept on, so fast that the little Governor could not get in a word. He told of incident after incident which he had seen with his own eyes—the violation of law after law, even of fundamental constitutional rights. After he had gone on for half an hour, arguing, exhorting, he saw tears of distress in his victim's eyes. “Mr. Warner, what can I do? I tell you frankly—I don't understand about coal-mines. I'm a ranchman—that is the only business I know. They keep telling me that conditions are peculiar in this state—there are reasons, for instance, why there should be so many accidents. What can I do?”