The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-01
July 80, 1881.

July 30, 1881.
American Civil Liberties Union,
100 Fifth Ave, New York. N. Y.
Gentlemen: We have received your
letter Of July %, which we note has
already been given to the press, and
on the basis of which newspapers of
Pittsburgh are conducting vicious
campaign for the suppression of the
National Miners Union. We call
your attention especially to the edi-
torial in the Pittsburgh Press of
July rs, which says, under the title,
"a Common Enemy" 1.-THE National
Miners Union has become COM
mon enemy to everyone. Even
the Civil Liberties Union has
found it necessary to rebuke this or
ganizaion for the disgraceful occur
renee at Canonsburg, when mem
bers of the N. M. U. broke up by
violence a United Mine Workers
meeting and provoked a riot"
You address us in your letter as
Friends" but it is surely an un-
friendly act on your part to thus
provide with ammunition of however
inferior quality those seeking in
every way to smash our organiza-
ton and to crush deeper into starva-
ton the 10000 miners now striking
against starvation.
The fact that you take this action
without consulting us as to what
really happened at Canonsburg is a
further disgrace to you.
The facts about the Canonsburg
meeting are as follows: Murray,
Pagan, Danich, O'Leary, and other
officials Of the U. M. w. held fake
mass meeting in Curry Field, July
49, To this meeting they brought
truckloads Of their gangsters, pro-
fessional scabs, bootleggers, county
employees, and business men enlisted
on their side. The only miners they
had were few individuals from
Pittsburgh Terminal Mines who had
been forced back to work by terror,
evictionS, and violence, under the u.
M. W. strikebreaking and wage cut
ting contract in these mines. These
men were told they would be fined
81 each If they refused to come. For
chairman of tn, meeting, Pagan and
Murray secured Burgess Cook of
Canonsburg, who arrests those COL
lecting food for the striking miners.
Pat Fagan's last words, Just before
the miners in his audience drowned
out his voice by angry jeers and de-
nunciations were: You'll have to
join the U. M. w. whether you like
it or not!"
Two thousand miners of Canons-
bur- and vicinity, meeting in Beck S
field, reused by the treachery of the
U. M. w. officials and by the u M.
w. conspiracy to starve miners and
their families, voted to picket and
demonstrate against the Pagan
Murray meeting.
The miners marched in disciplined
fashion through the streets of Can
onSburg, cheered by the townspeople
on the way, and entered Curry field,
where some 400 persons were assem-
bled. The miners denounced Pagan
and Murray as agents of the coal
operators, sand were thereupon at
tackled by the U. M. w. hired thugs.
The miners retaliated with vigor and
the U. M. w. gangsters fled in dis
order. Such miners as were brought
by Pagan to his meeting refused to
assist his thugs and immediately
withdrew and left the field as soon
as their trucks could be moved.
lAs you say yourselves, the U. M.
w. has many times attacked our
meetings, not merely through an IN
armed protest as the miners of Can
onsburg approached Fagan's meet
ing, but with clubs and guns. The
U. M. w. gunner have murdered
many Of our members, notably in
the killing of George Moran, dele
gate from Bentleyville to the 1928
convention in Pittsburgh. The U.
M. w. Lewis Cappelini regime in the
Anthracite has long list of murders
to its credit, including the deliberate
assassination of Campbell and Riley
with machine guns. The U. M. w.
is not an organization of miners, and
those miners nominally members
are forced members, compelled to