# Anthracite coal strike of 1902

vteLabor disputes by sector :
vteAgricultural strikes
1800s
Thibodaux sugar 1887
Cotton pickers 1891
1900s–1920s
Oxnard 1903
Seattle fishermen 1912
Grabow lumber 1912
Wheatland hops 1913
northern Minnesota lumber 1916–1917
Hanapepe sugar 1924
Imperial cantaloupe 1928
1930s
Imperial lettuce 1930
Santa Clara cannery 1931
Vacaville tree pruners 1932
Wisconsin milk 1933
Yakima hops 1933
California agricultural (Santa Clara cherry, El Monte berry) 1933
Great lumber 1935
Stockton cannery 1937
1940s–present
Hawaiian sugar 1946
Puget Sound fishermen 1949
Delano grape (1965–1970)
Salad Bowl 1970
Watsonville Cannery (1985–1987)
Frito-Lay 2021
vteCoal Wars
1870s – 1900s
Mahoning Valley strike 1873
Morewood massacre 1891
Coal Creek War
Bituminous coal strike 1894
Lattimer massacre 1897
Illinois coal wars 1898–1900 (Battle of Virden, Pana riot, Carterville Mine Riot)
Anthracite coal strike 1902
Carbon county strike 1903–04
1910s
Westmoreland strike 1910–11
Paint Creek mine war 1912
Colorado Coalfield War 1913–14 (Ludlow Massacre, The 10-Day War)
Hartford coal mine riot 1914
1920s – 1930s
West Virginia coal wars 1912–21 (Battle of Matewan, Battle of Blair Mountain)
Alabama miners' strike 1920
UMW General Coal Strike 1922 (Herrin massacre)
Indiana bituminous strike 1927
Colorado Coal Strike 1927–28 (Columbine Mine massacre)
Harlan County War 1931–1939 (Battle of Evarts)
vteGeneral strikes
1800s
Philadelphia 1835
Catalan 1855
St. Louis
Scranton 1877
First May Day (Haymarket Affair) 1886
New Orleans 1892
1900s
Sweden 1909
Philadelphia 1910
Vancouver 1918
Seattle
Winnipeg 1919
Germany 1920
San Francisco
Minneapolis 1934
Oakland 1946
Austria 1950
Ghana 1950
Finland 1956
Paraguay 1958
Namibia 1971
Uruguay 1973
Spain 1988
Nepal 1992
2000s
Guinea 2007
Egypt 2008
French Caribbean 2009
Spain 2010
European 2012
India 2016
Brazil
Catalan 2017
Catalan 2019
vteUS manufacturing strikes
1800s–1920s
Cigars 1877
El Paso smelters 1913
Studebaker 1913
Standard Oil 1915
Boston cigars 1919
1930s–1970s
Tampa cigars 1931
Auto-Lite 1934
Kohler 1934
Flint sit-down 1936
Akron rubber 1936
Remington 1936
Ford 1937
Chrysler Auto 1939
General Motors 1939
General Motors 1945
Boeing 1948
Kohler 1954
International Harvester 1979
1980s–2000s
Todd Shipyards 1983
International Paper 1987-1988
John Deere 1986–1987
General Motors 2007
Boeing 2008
2010s–2020s
Oil refineries 2015
Kohler 2015
Jim Beam 2016
Bath shipbuilders 2020
St. Paul Park refinery 2021
Volvo Trucks 2021
Frito-Lay 2021
Nabisco 2021
Heaven Hill 2021
Kellogg's 2021
John Deere 2021
United Auto Workers 2023
vteMetal mining strikes
1800s
Upper Peninsula 1865
Coeur d'Alene 1892
Cripple Creek 1894
Leadville 1896–97
Coeur d'Alene 1899
1900s–1920s
Colorado Labor Wars (Idaho Springs) 1903–04
Cananea 1906
Goldfield 1906–07
Copper Country 1913–14
Bisbee 1917
Anaconda Road 1920
1930s–1970s
Empire Zinc 1950
Murdochville 1957
Inco 1978–79
1980s–present
Vale Inco 2009–10
vteTransport strikes
1800s
Great Railroad Strike 1877
Camp Dump 1882
Great Southwest 1886
Burlington 1888
Buffalo switchmen 1892
New Orleans waterfront 1892
Pullman Strike 1894
1900s–1920s
Chicago teamsters 1905
New Orleans Levee 1907
Illinois Central shopmen 1911
West Coast waterfront 1916
NYC Harbor Strike 1919
Seattle waterfront 1919
Portland waterfront 1922
Railway shopmen 1922
1930s–1970s
West Coast waterfront 1934
Minneapolis teamsters 1934
NYC teamsters truckers 1938
Vancouver waterfront 1935
Gulf Coast maritime 1936
NYC tugboat 1946
USPS 1970
Longshoremen 1971
1980s–2000s
Patco (air traffic controllers) 1981
SEPTA Regional Rail 1983
Pan Am 1985
UPS 1997
Montreal longshoremen 2020
vteSanitation strikes
Memphis 1968
St. Petersburg 1968
Charleston 1969
Atlanta 1977
Atlanta 2018
vteService strikes in the United States
1800s–1920s
Newsboys 1899
NYC waiters 1912
Actors 1919
Boston police 1919
1930s–1970s
Seattle Post 1936
Fleischer Studios 1937
NYC retail 1937
Disney animators 1941
Musicians 1942
Hollywood 1945
Writers Guild 1960
Cleveland convention 1963
St. John's 1966
Memphis sanitation 1968
St. Petersburg sanitation 1968
NYC teachers 1968
Baltimore municipal (police) 1974
Atlanta sanitation 1977
1980s–2000s
Writers Guild 1981
Writers Guild 1988
SF newspaper 1994
Detroit newspaper 1995
Verizon 2000
Broadway musicians 2003
CA supermarkets 2003
UM Janitors 2006
Umpires 2006
Writers Guild 2007
Stagehands 2007
CBS News 2007
2010s
Government (Wisconsin) 2011
Fight for $15 2012–2019
Tacoma nurses 2014
Verizon 2016
Video games 2016
Teachers (AZ, CO, Los Angeles, NC, OK, WV) 2018–2019
Hotels 2018
Stop & Shop 2019
2020s
UC Santa Cruz 2020
University of California 2022
Medieval Times 2023
Writers Guild 2023
SAG-AFTRA 2023
Video games 2024
vteSteel strikes in the US
1800s–1920s
Homestead 1892
U.S. Steel recognition 1901
Pressed Steel Car 1909
Great Steel 1919
1930s–1970s
Little Steel (Memorial Day massacre) 1937
Nationwide 1946
Nationwide 1952
Nationwide 1959
1980s–2020s
USX 1986
Allegheny Technologies 2021
vteNorth American transit strikesStreetcar strikes
St. Louis 1900
Indianapolis 1892
Los Angeles 1903
San Francisco 1907
Pensacola 1908
Columbus 1910
Philadelphia 1910
Indianapolis 1913
St. John 1914
Atlanta 1916
Portland, ME 1916
Bloomington, IL 1917
Twin Cities 1917
Los Angeles 1919
New Orleans 1920
Denver 1920
New Orleans 1929
1930s–1970s
Century Airlines 1932
Philadelphia 1944
New York City 1949
Atlanta 1950
New York City 1966
1980s–2020s
Greyhound 1983
New York City 2005
Toronto 2006
Toronto 2008
Lyft and Uber 2019
vteTextile strikes in United States
1800s
Mill Women 1834
Paterson 1835
Mill Women 1836
New England shoe 1860
North Adams shoe 1870
1900s–1920s
Skowhegan 1907
New York shirtwaist 1909
Chicago garment 1910
Lawrence 1912
Little Falls 1912–1913
Hopedale 1913
Paterson silk 1913
Ipswich Mills 1913
Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills 1914–1915
New England 1922
Passaic 1926
New Bedford 1928
Loray Mill 1929
1930s–1970s
Los Angeles garment 1933
National 1934
Lewiston-Auburn shoe 1937
Montreal Cotton 1946
1980s–2000s
NYC Chinatown 1982 :
The Coal strike of 1902 (also known as the anthracite coal strike) was a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners struck for higher wages, shorter workdays, and the recognition of their union. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to major American cities. At that time, residences were typically heated with anthracite or "hard" coal, which produces higher heat value and less smoke than "soft" or bituminous coal.
The strike never resumed, as the miners received a 10 percent wage increase and reduced workdays from ten to nine hours; the owners got a higher price for coal and did not recognize the trade union as a bargaining agent. It was the first labor dispute in which the U.S. federal government and President Theodore Roosevelt intervened as a neutral arbitrator.

## The 1899 and 1900 strikes

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) had won a sweeping victory in the 1897 strike by the soft-coal (bituminous coal) miners in the Midwest, winning significant wage increases. It grew from 10,000 to 115,000 members. A number of small strikes took place in the anthracite district from 1899 to 1901, by which the labor union gained experience and unionized more workers. The 1899 strike in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, demonstrated that the unions could win a strike directed against a subsidiary of one of the large railroads.
It hoped to make similar gains in 1900, but found the operators, who had established an oligopoly through concentration of ownership after drastic fluctuations in the market for anthracite, to be far more determined opponents than it had anticipated. The owners refused to meet or to arbitrate with the union. The union struck on September 17, 1900, with results that surprised even the union, as miners of all different nationalities and ethnicities walked out in support of the union.
Republican Party Senator Mark Hanna from Ohio, himself an owner of bituminous coal mines (not involved in the strike), sought to resolve the strike as it occurred less than two months before the presidential election. He worked through the National Civic Federation which brought labor and capital representatives together. Relying on J. P. Morgan to convey his message to the industry that a strike would hurt the reelection of Republican William McKinley, Hanna convinced the owners to concede a wage increase and grievance procedure to the strikers. The industry refused, on the other hand, to formally recognize the UMWA as the representative of the workers. The union declared victory and dropped its demand for union recognition.

## The anthracite coal strike

The issues that led to the strike of 1900 were just as pressing in 1902: the union wanted recognition and a degree of control over the industry. The industry, still smarting from its concessions in 1900, opposed any federal role. The 150,000 miners wanted their weekly pay envelope. Tens of millions of city dwellers needed coal to heat their homes.
John Mitchell, President of the UMWA, proposed mediation through the National Civic Federation, then a body of relatively progressive employers committed to collective bargaining as a means of resolving labor disputes. In the alternative, Mitchell proposed that a committee of eminent clergymen report on conditions in the coalfields. George Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, one of the leading employers in the industry, brushed aside both proposals dismissively:
   Anthracite mining is a business, and not a religious, sentimental, or academic proposition.... I could not if I would delegate this business management to even so highly a respectable body as the Civic Federation, nor can I call to my aid . . . the eminent prelates you have named.
On May 12, 1902, the anthracite miners voting in Scranton, Pennsylvania, went out on strike. The maintenance employees, who had much steadier jobs and did not face the special dangers of underground work, walked out on June 2. The union had the support of roughly eighty percent of the workers in this area, or more than 100,000 strikers. Some 30,000 left the region, many headed for Midwestern bituminous mines. 10,000 men returned to Europe. The strike soon produced threats of violence between the strikers on one side and strikebreakers, the Pennsylvania National Guard, local police, and hired detective agencies on the other.

## Federal intervention

On June 8, President Theodore Roosevelt asked his Commissioner of Labor, Carroll D. Wright, to investigate the strike. Wright investigated and proposed reforms that acknowledged each side's position, recommending a nine-hour day on an experimental basis and limited collective bargaining. Roosevelt chose not to release the report, for fear of appearing to side with the union.
The owners refused to negotiate with the union. As George Baer wrote when urged to make concessions to the strikers and their union, the "rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country." The union used this letter to sway public opinion in favor of the strike.
Roosevelt wanted to intervene, but he was told by his Attorney General, Philander Knox, that he had no authority to do so. Hanna and many others in the Republican Party were likewise concerned about the political implications if the strike dragged on into winter, when the need for anthracite was greatest. As Roosevelt told Hanna, "A coal famine in the winter is an ugly thing and I fear we shall see terrible suffering and grave disaster."
Roosevelt convened a conference of representatives of government, labor, and management on October 3, 1902. The union considered the mere holding of a meeting to be tantamount to union recognition and took a conciliatory tone. The owners told Roosevelt that strikers had killed over 20 men and that he should use the power of government "to protect the man who wants to work, and his wife and children when at work." With proper protection, the owner said that they would produce enough coal to end the fuel shortage. They refused to enter into any negotiations with the union.
The governor sent in the National Guard, who protected the mines and the minority of men still working. Roosevelt attempted to persuade the union to end the strike with a promise that he would create a commission to study the causes of the strike and propose a solution, which Roosevelt promised to support with all of the authority of his office. Mitchell refused and his membership endorsed his decision by a nearly unanimous vote.
The economics of coal revolved around two factors: most of the cost of production was wages for miners, and if the supply fell, the price would shoot up. In an age before the use of oil and electricity, there were no good substitutes. Profits were low in 1902 because of an over supply; therefore the owners welcomed a moderately long strike. They had huge stockpiles which increased daily in value. It was illegal for the owners to conspire to shut down production, but not so if the miners went on strike. The owners welcomed the strike, but they adamantly refused to recognize the union, because they feared the union would control the coal industry by manipulating strikes.
Roosevelt continued to try to build support for a mediated solution, persuading former president Grover Cleveland to join the commission he was creating. He also considered nationalizing the mines under the leadership of John M. Schofield. This would put the U.S. Army in control of the coalfields to "run the mines as a receiver", Roosevelt wrote.

## J.P. Morgan intervenes

J.P. Morgan, the dominant figure in American finance, had played a role in resolving the 1900 strike. He was deeply involved in this strike as well: his interests included the Reading Railroad, one of the largest employers of miners. He had installed George Baer, who spoke for the industry throughout the strike, as the head of the railroad.
At the urging of Secretary of War Elihu Root, Morgan came up with another compromise proposal that provided for arbitration, while giving the industry the right to deny that it was bargaining with the union by directing that each employer and its employees communicate directly with the commission. The employers agreed on the condition that the five members be a military engineer, a mining engineer, a judge, an expert in the coal business, and an "eminent sociologist". The employers were willing to accept a union leader as the "eminent sociologist," so Roosevelt named E. E. Clark, head of the railway conductors' union, as the "eminent sociologist." After Catholic leaders exerted pressure, he added a sixth member, Catholic bishop John Lancaster Spalding, and Commissioner Wright as the seventh member.

## Anthracite Coal Strike Commission

The anthracite strike ended, after 163 days, on October 23, 1902. The commissioners began work the next day, then spent a week touring the coal regions. Wright used the staff of the Department of Labor to collect data about the cost of living in the coalfields.
The commissioners held hearings in Scranton over the next three months, taking testimony from 558 witnesses, including 240 for the striking miners, 153 for nonunion mineworkers, 154 for the operators, and eleven called by the Commission itself. Baer made the closing arguments for the coal operators, while lawyer Clarence Darrow closed for the workers.
Although the commissioners heard some evidence of terrible conditions, they concluded that the "moving spectacle of horrors" represented only a small number of cases. By and large, social conditions in mine communities were found to be good, and miners were judged as only partly justified in their claim that annual earnings were not sufficient "to maintain an American standard of living."
Baer said in his closing arguments, "These men don't suffer. Why, hell, half of them don't even speak English". Darrow, for his part, summed up the pages of testimony of mistreatment he had obtained in the soaring rhetoric for which he was famous: "We are working for democracy, for humanity, for the future, for the day will come too late for us to see it or know it or receive its benefits, but which will come, and will remember our struggles, our triumphs, our defeats, and the words which we spake."
In the end, the rhetoric of both sides made little difference to the commission, which split the difference between mineworkers and mine owners. The miners asked for 20% wage increases, and most were given a 10% increase. The miners had asked for an eight-hour day and were awarded a nine-hour day instead of the standard ten hours then prevailing. While the operators refused to recognize the United Mine Workers, they were required to agree to a six-man arbitration board, made up of equal numbers of labor and management representatives, with the power to settle labor disputes. Mitchell considered that de facto recognition and called it a victory.

## Aftermath of the strike

John Mitchell wrote that eight men died during the five months, "three or four" of them strikers or sympathizers. During the extensive arbitration testimony, after company owners made claims that the strikers had killed 21 men, Mitchell disagreed strongly and offered to resign his position if they could name the men and show proof.
The first casualty occurred July 1. An immigrant striker named Anthony Giuseppe was found fatally shot near a Lehigh Valley Coal Company colliery in Old Forge. It was thought the Coal and Iron Police guarding the site shot blindly through a fence. Street fighting in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania on July 30 between a mob of 5,000 striking miners versus police resulted in the beating death of Joseph Beddall, a merchant and the brother of the deputy sheriff.
Contemporary reporting describes three other deaths and widespread shooting injuries among strikers and Shenandoah police. On October 9, a striker named William Durham was shot and killed in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, near Shenandoah. He'd been loitering near the half-dynamited house of a non-union worker and disobeyed an order to halt. The legality of that killing under martial law became a case, Commonwealth v. Shortall, that was taken to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
The behavior and private role of the Coal and Iron Police during the strike led to the formation of the Pennsylvania State Police, on May 2, 1905, as Senate Bill 278 was signed into law by Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker. The two forces operated in parallel until 1931.
Organized labor celebrated the outcome as a victory for the UMWA and American Federation of Labor unions generally. Membership in other unions soared, as moderates argued they could produce concrete benefits for workers much sooner than radical Socialists who planned to overthrow capitalism in the future. Mitchell proved his leadership skills and mastery of the problems of ethnic, skill, and regional divisions that had long plagued the union in the anthracite region.
By contrast, the strikes of the radical Western Federation of Miners in the West often turned into full-scale warfare between strikers and both employers and the civil and military authorities. This strike was successfully mediated through the intervention of the federal government, which strove to provide a "Square Deal"—which Roosevelt took as the motto for his administration—to both sides. The settlement was an important step in the Progressive Era reforms of the decade that followed. There were no more major coal strikes until the 1920s.