The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-18
Mysticism in West Virginia Against
the Unity of the Miners

organized and unorganized-inside tbs ON
WA and outside Of 1t.
For this purpose, the Central Rank and
File Strike Committee urges you to send dele
gates to its joint meeting in Pittsburgh Pa.
July Is and Is. Delegates should be sent
from rank and file controlled UNIV. of A.
locals, from ninorities In UNIV. of A. locals
that refuse to send official delegates, from in
dependent local unions from locals of the Mine
Workers of West Virginia, from unorganized
miners, etc. The joint meeting must be
thoroughly representative Of the entire in
dustry.
The situation Is ripe for action The min
ers are willing to fight. The coming Joint
meeting provides the means to develop this
fight nationally on the basis Of a common
program of demands Unite and Fight aginst
Starvation and Slavery. Develop your own
local demands and strikes Link up these
strikes nationally in a united front Develop
joint program Of demands for the whole
mining industry. Smash the strike breaking
Lewis machine Support and spread the strikes
In Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Il
nnois and West Virginia"
Wilson either ignores these al-important is
sues and developments or disn1isses them as of
minor Importance in comparison with the re-
turn to union activity Of Keeney who "had an
orange-drink stand and then specialized in gas
and oil :"
Communists are Wilson's targets for sharp
criticism and the West kind of insinuation
Governor Pinchot who personally sponsored the
revival Of the UNfWA as a strike breaking IN
stru1ent, and whose state cossacks are COM
pleteIy at the disposal of the coal operators
and the UNTWA officials for the protection of
scab agreements acknowledged even by the Pitts
EorSf o-4s,
ing conditions worse than those Of some nom
union mines, Is pictured as friend of the min
ers prosecuted by Communists. His demagogic
attempts to deceive miners and boost his poll
dcal fortunes are pictured as sincere efforts in
behalf of the miners One or two quotations
will be enough to show the typical social fas-
c1st method of this press agent of Mysticism:
"rhe Communists ask for conference with
Governor Pinchot, then denounce him as the
operators tool The Governor--"Pretty good
for old politics" the Kanawha miners call him
appeals to the operators to stop evictions,
telling them that whether or not they have
the right to eyict is beside the question:
only to be met by cold reprimand for mot
properly maintaining law, peace and good or
der IN the vicinity In which our mines are
located"
To show that such statements are nothing
ing terrorism as practiced by Pinchot under the
screen Of friendly phrases, it is only necessary
to state that following the "cold reprimand"
from the operators Pinchot ordered the entire
state police force to prepare for strike duty.
One more quotation
"And during the last few days, persons claim
ing to be Communists have turned up in the
Kanawta field-though nobody knows whether
they are really Communists or Department of
Justice agents trying to pin Communism on
Frank Keeney and the Musteites, who have
just been accused, CRAFTY to their disgust, by
former head of the police Of being Communist
egitators"
It Is of conse impossible to set the troubled
mind Of Wilson completely at rest but If he
knows as much about the West Virginia stu
alton as he pretends to- or as much as we do,
he knows that it is a lie to say that nobody
knows whether they are really Communists or
Department of Justice agents, etc"
The West Virginia state police know that the
representatives of the Central Rank and File
Strike Committee, all Communists according to
Wilson, whom they recently forcibly deported
across the Maryland West Virginia state line,
were not Department of Justice agents, but
miners from the Pennsylvania Ohio-W Virginia
Panhandle section carrying on work for the Ma
tsonal Rank and File conference to unite the
struggles in all coal fields.
In passing it might be said that If the Depart
ment of Justice is trying to pin Communism on
Frank Keeney and Musteites it has adopted I'M
usually subtle tactics to discredit Communism
Wilson does not explain what other purpose
could be served by such complicated and diff
ficu1t methods.
ITO be Continued