The Connecticut labor news., 1921-09-09
GOMPERS POINTS OUT TRUE CAUSES
 OF MINE WAR IN WEST VIRGINIA,
 PLACING BLAME ON PRIVATE OWNERS

2l ,OOO acres. All of these various things appearing III the testimony might be cited as causes leading up to the con u1t1OnS winch the committee investigated. However, It IS the opinion Ot some ot the committee that the cause of all this trouble Is deeper and more fundamental. he baslC cause IS the private owner
 sh1p Ot great public necessities, such as
 coal this coupled with human greed
 incident to such ownership, has brought about the deplorable and un-AmeriCan conditions ill the West Virginia coal fields
 under Investigation.
 i In relation to the hired gun men who have brought the administration of law Ill West Virginia to the point of abso- lute collapse and whose most recent ac- | tiv1ties have been brutal and lawless be- yOnd description, Senator Martin re- ported:
 in no spirit of malice or hatred. but with view that the country, through knowledge of the true conditions, may l right the wrong, 1 charge that the hiring Ot armed bodies of men by private mine owners and other corporations and the use of steel armored trains, machine guns, and bloodhounds on defenseless men, women and children Is but little Way IGlllONGu IIOIIl Dd1DdI1STl. The 1914 Senatorial committee found a complete breakdown of civil law and i'll depicting the lengths to which coal
 mine autocracy was carried officially re- ported that during the period of martial law the court martial before which of- lenders were tried deemed itself bound only by the orders of the commander Ill chef, the governor of the state, and i'll +o +1, of the United States or the statutes of West Virginia relative to the trial and punishment of parties charged with crime"
 l he senators found that during this higfl-handed reign the civil courts were open and holding their regular terms It also was found that the court martial inflicted punish1nents "unknoWn to the statutes or in excess of the punishment provided for such offenses under the laws of the state.'
 The report of the most senatorial com nittee has not been printed and 1 un- derStand Is not to be for reasons of which 1 am unaware. It is fact, how ever, that this recent investigation strengthened the findings of the earlier inquiries and SuSta1nS every contention as to the conduct of the mine owners of West Virginia and their complete disre- gard for the constitution of the United
 States and the laws of their own state. The trouble in West Virginia will not be cured by forcing men into submission
 while allowing continuance of the evils against which they have so desperately protested. l join with all Americans i', deprecating the violence in that state, but
 1t is worse than useless to deal with the urface manifestations while allowing the deep, underlying plutocratic criminality to continue uninter fered with and un- checked.
 The United States government can do great service by destroying government by gun-men, by restoring civil govern nent uncorrupted by coal mine autocracy and by giving to the miners an oppor- tunity to secure justice and to be free
 from prosecution in enjoying their con- stitutional rights.
 Unless the government does this it adds to the shameful record and helps to perpetuate the era of crime and brutal ity.