The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-20
The Coal Terror
in Pennsylvania
BY ROBERT CRUDEN.


THE same ruling class terror which put Sacco
and Vanzetti to death is today attempting to
shoot and starve into submission the forty thou
sand miners and their families on strike in Ohio
and Pennsylvania. On August 3D. the anniver-
sary of Sacco and Vanzetti, workers the world
over will protest the terror of the bosses
In Pennsylvania the deputies and coal and
iron police, protected by state troopers have al
ready killed two and wounded over fifty strikers.
The killing of one striker, Peter Zigarec, was
accompanied with almost unbelievable brutality.
He was shot down when deputies at the Wild
wood mine of the Butler Consolidated Coal Com
pany opened fire on a group of pickets AS the
men rushed for cover they were ruthlessly shot
down. z1garec shot in the stomach was left in
the road, Wr1thing in agony, while the deputies
refused even to give him water. A young striker
shot in the head, was dragged into house bv
comrade and Immediately deputy threw a tear
gas bomb into the room where the wounded
striker lay 1t was not until Is minutes after the
shooting had stopped that newspaper men sue
ceeded IN having the wounded men taken to a hos
pital-and then they were taken in fve-ton
dump truck! zigarec died on the way
Mike Phillipovich, storekeeper who was SYM
pathetic to the strikers was shot down when
deputies acting under orders from a mine sllper-
intendent at Arnold City fired into a groun of
pickets gathered in front of his store -Four min
ers were seriously wounded but Phillipovich was
shot dead-we counted fourteen bullet holes in
the wall before which he had been standing!
Miners told us that he had been deliberately
picked off because of his strike activities.
The list of wounded is a long one. Let it suf-
flee to mention Joseph Vargo, 16 years DID, shot
by deputy and then shot in the chest bv the
same man when he was on the ground: Joe
Thornton, doing strike work in Greene County.
dragged from his car and blackjacked and shot
in the lungs when he attempted to escape. three
picketS shot at the Kinloch mine and left bleed
ing on the road while deputies called for state
police to help them drive back the picketsl
The state police "Cossacks", have been rem
dering yeoman service to the coal barons At
the WeStland mine of the Pittsburgh Coal Com
pany they attacked picket line and injured
score OF strikers When the deputies shot the
miners at wildwood they were not present but
they were present when the deputies without
warrants, ra1ded the homes of miners and
smashed furniture and arrested those they found
at home. The state police mounted guard when
the deputies arrested 46 strikers for rtoting" at
wildwood. When the deputies gassed and
dubbed pckets at the Ellsworth mine the state
police refused to "inserfere" but when pickets
tried to prevent deputy from slugging Negro
picket at the Mollenauer mine the state troopers
maintained "order" by rushing the picket line
and arresting the Negro!
Liberty in the mine villages is non-existent
Richeyville, owned by the Vesta Coal Company
is barricaded with wooden fence topped with
barbed wire. To get in or out of this patch"
you must have company permission and must
convince an armed guard that you have bust
ness in the village. In this village men are be-
ing forced to work at gun-point, as they are in
the Kinloch mine and at the Crescent mine of
the Mellon-owned Pittsburgh Coal Company
Strikers who managed to get out when the strike
began have been unable to get back to their
families, who are held prisoners in the patch.
Meetings in the mine villages are impossible The
distributor of union propaganda does it at the
risk of his life. The Pittsburgh Coal Co., for
example, has mounted machine guns at it's
Crescent mine and dared strangers to enter the
village-and compelled workers and their fami-
lies to stay in! And in this they are backed by
the law-the villages are on company property
and anyone there without permission from the
company is trespassing and liable to a prison
sentence
In spite of this the miners and their families
are holding out, waging daily battle against
bullets and hunger. Four years after the legal
murder of Sacco and vanzetti, when workers
will demonstrate and protest on August %, the
terror of the ruling class, the miners of Pennsyl-
vania and Ohio send to the world working class
the message of these martyrs of the American
proletariat. Treasure our suffering our sorrow,
our mistakes, our defeats, our passion for future
battles and for the great emancipation"