The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-20
Mysticism in West Virginia Against
the Unity of the Miners

ers delivered as evidence of good faith. They
want to be able to say in the coal industry as
they have already been able to say in textiles;
Look you foolish old labor leaders, we have
sold out miners as you debut we do it much
more skfully. Raise hell about the profit sys-
tenn even go so far as to call it the capitalist
system, tell the workers they cannot hope for
much while it lasts but that it's toosstrong to
overthrow-and you can make much more profit
for the bosses while arousing less opposition
from the workers whose untutored minds are only
too ready now to belief Communists who tell
them YOU are not to be trusted and should be
kicked out"
This explains also the tender manner in which
John the Baptist Wilson pours the purifying
waters of the Musteite Jordan over the furnished
record of Keeney. Frank the savior energies
secured and shining with an effugence which
must surely dazzle the interested but not too lib
eral readers of the Now Pepubhc and coax many
a reluctant dollar from their pockets.
Fortunately there are $4,000 Communists,
some thousands of miners among them, in this
country who have gazed too long and steadily
into the fiery furnace of the class struggle to
have our eyes blinded by the artificial radiance
of this new gaseous nebula in the Musteite milk
and-waterway. Wilson touches lightly the &C
tivities of Frank Keeney for the decade 10000
in the following paragraph
I'm March $780, the Illinois district held
national convention and tried to set up re-
organized union. In the meantime the West
Virginia leaders of the 1920 days had settled
down by 1924, when the union had completely
expired, as ordinary citizens of Charleston.
Frank Keeney had an orange-drink stand and
then speculated in gas and oil. . But when
the Illinois convention was called they went to
rtyt ~ ILTnr+
their union"
There are two big gaps, and some very neces-
sary explanation is missing in the Wilsonian
Historical record of his hero reminiscent of the
method of the more illustrious President Doctor
Wilson who also could conveniently forget to fill
gaps with material that would be damaging to
his main thesis. These gaps-from 1921 to 1924
and from 1924 to 1930-we can fill quite easily
from the records of the class struggle in the
UAWA and the AF of L and in the coal fields
in these periods
Following the march of 1921, mot 1920, Mr.
Wilson, and the armed struggle of the Kanawha
miners which Keeney stopped on the eve Of vic
tory in return for hypocritical promise of CON
stitutional rights" for the miners in the forth
fled company towns of the southern counties,
the heavy hand of the state descended upon the
miners and about 10 were jailed and charged
with everything from murder to carrying con-
cealed weapons and resisting arrest.
Keeney is personally courageous, as any leader
Of miners has to be, but he is an infant politi-
cally and consequently a political coward In
stead of appealing to the more advanced sec
tons Of the working class and uniting them for
a national campaign in defense of the miners,
he placed all his faith In high priced lawyers
and purely legal courtroom methods Of defense.
The Lewis machine furnished money for this
purpose--after having betrayed the strike-but In
return demanded and received the Liquidation of