The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1920-09-17
FEDERAL TROOPS
IN WEST VIRGINIA

The sending of troops to West Vir-
ginia, where coal miners are making
stand against the persistent and
brutal tyranny of coal operators, is
Just what the workers have been de-
manding for months. They have
made several appeals to the federal
government to send soldiers there to
Ire-establish constitutional guarantees
and check the encroachments of the
employers upon the rights of the
citizenship.
In certain sections of West Vir-
ginia the operators have been ruling
with mob law. They have maintained
gangs of cut-throats who have in
vaded the lives and the properties
of every man and woman who re-
fused to accept their will as the
supreme authority. Men have been
killed for no other offending than
refusual to bend to the bludgeon of
deputy sheriffs or to depart when
told to do so by the operators to
keep the workers in subsection.
1t IS significant that while the
workers appealed over many months
for relief from an intolerable situa-
ton, action was not taken until the
property of the operators was in
jeopardy. Human rights were dis
regarded, but property rights are
still sacred in West Virginia. A curt
telegraphic request from the opera
tors association did what the united
demand of the decent citizenship
could not accomplish.
fThat tho Nvorlyapc will main fro,,,
the appearance of federal troops is
unquestioned, temporarily, at least,
they will be freed from the murder
Gus reign Of gunner who are re-
tanned by the operators. Human life
will be sacred, and the right of the
workers to improve their conditions
will be recognized.
The government should do more
than send its troops into the disaf-
fected district. 1t should institute
a sweeping inquiry into the methods
Of the employers. 1t should insist
that the laws and constitution of
that state be respected. 1t should
make an end, for all time, of the
system of coercion and oppression
that has enabled the West Virginia
operators to maintain a state of feu-
dalism and deny to Americans the
right that Americans elsewhere
possess without question or hindrance
West Virginia is a fostering sore
and contains enough of menace to
Justify all the attention the govern
nient can give it. It's workers are
determined that they shall be safe
guarded in their rights, and that
they shall not be interfered with
when they are acting in lawful and
orderly manner.
Privilege, so far as it affects the
coal industry, is making its last
stand in the lower counties of West
Virginia. There it has set up an
over-lordship that is characterized by
brutality, inhumanity and greed. 1t
has been provocative of great deal
of violence, and there will be recur-
rent disorder just as long as free
men are denied the rights that are
guaranteed to them by their gov
ernment.
1t is high time that we know
whether yroup of cold-blooded and
inhuman mercenaries are more pow
erful than the government of this ma
IlOil. lHdC Is lle ISSUE Ill west Wiz
ginia. Whether the people or the
coal operators shall control the lives
and destinies of millions of worthy
men and women who ask only that
they be permitted to work out their
own salvation under conditions less
calling and degrading than those
that have been imposed upon them
for several years.
The government has a real job
ahead of it, and it should proceed
fairly and without prejudice to
cleanse that social ulcer that is
poisoning the entire citizenship of
great state and making liberty a
mockery and byword.