Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-09-03
A GLANCE TO THE REAR OF
WEST ViRCINIA'S TWO MOBS
Military Intervention Made Necessary
by the Negligence and Ineptitvde
Of the State Legislature

Nov that the worst has come to the worst
~ in West Virginia, the panic shout of
"Bolshcvism - will be raised again on one
State. On the other there will be the old
cry of "Capitalistic Czarism."
Hasn't Mr. Gompers eaped into print with
an indictment of what he calls industrial au
tocracy, and hasn't Sheriff Don Chain
begun to talk of the miners as a Red Army?
SO all the verbal dust-heaps left in the
wake of war hysteria will be combed again
for epithcts that mean nothing and serve
only to hide the truth that underlies this
tragedy.
The mechanism of civil government was
left to rust in West Virginia.
The gangs and the politicians had their
way too long
The problems that miners and Deputy
Shorifs are trying to solve by blind rioting
should have been solved long ago by the
West Virginia Legislature. which shifted
and shrank and did nothing while irrcspon-
sible and powerful groups of miners and
coal operators watrcd for autocratic power
within the State.
The situation that has resulted cannot
be dismissed with a curse or an epigram.
1t is a dreadful and SOLDERING spectacle. The
disaster-it is nothing lesS-is all inclusive.
Who can imagine the feeling of Pres-
dent of the United States who must sum-
mon one group of Americans to threaten an
other with machine guns?
The sight of Federal soldiers unshipping
artillery to meet an Oncoming misguided
mob; of military airplnnes loaded with
he nrJn sc
angry, child hearted mountanCGrs, is one
that ought TO move every rational mind to
pity and to rage against the people who
made such a elimination inevitable.
The mob that has created tumult in West
Virginia is not composed of foreigners or
aliens or anarchists 1t is made up of
Americans, of men descended from those
who were the first TO fling their lives and
their property into the war for the Union
in LincOln's day. Love of country is
ruling passion with the West Virginia noun
taneCr.
What advantage there can be in misrep-
rescnting and msinterpreting the general
situation in the soft-coal region of West
Virginia Is for the people who attempt that
foolish and dangerous business to explain.
The simple fact is that the State is not
witnessing a conflict between an undisci-
plined mob on one hand and the forces Of
Jaw and order and justice on the other.
1t is In the grip of two unruly mobs fight
ing for supremacy and determined to settle
by guntire n problem Of civil administration
and administrative ethics which the State
authorities wouldn't or couldn't solve
Viewed in one light. military intervention
promises more than the civil law has prom
iscd in the State since mob law, established
with equal fervor by miners and the private
army of the coal operators, became general
in the bituminous field a year ago.
Army rule, hard as it IS. is still far more
democratic than the rule established in the
Guynn Valley by Sheriff Chain and special
agency detectives wearing the badges of
Deputy Sheriffs. 1t is far more democratic
and far more safe than the mob rule with
which the miners have opposed the long
continued semi military dictatorship at the
mines.
The march OF the miners began with the
determination of the union members to cor
rect by violence an abuse of law which the
State itself should have corrected long ago
by risidly limiting the number Of armed
mercenarics which the mine owners are
accustomed to import into the region to
enforce their will and to maintain system
of acknowledged fcudalism.
The miners will probably d!sperse in
Difference to the Federal troops and their
commanders rather than in fear
Mr.. Harding, with obvious reluctance,
did the only thing possible when he ordered
the soldiers into the State.
Wisely commanded, the troops can save
life instead of destroying it. Rule Of some
sort is necessary to avert slaughter.
But what will the West Virginia Legis-
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