Author Archives: advocate

Killing for Coal, America’s Deadliest Labor War

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This book by Thomas G. Andrews begins with a description of the United Mine Worker strike in Colorado in 1913  that lasted several months. Violence could finally no longer be contained, and on April 20, 1914 open warfare broke out between the Colorado state militia and “…hundreds of striking coal miners of more than a dozen nationalities.” The canvas tents at Ludlow where the miners and their families were living caught fire, and two women and eleven children were asphyxiated in their cellar hideout. The book does not speculate on which side fired the first shot, but both sides blamed the other. There were many killed by the time the “Ten Days War” ended when President Woodrow Wilson sent in federal troops. The author says that a key premise of current politics continues to be that fairness and justice for working people must be achieved “…through intervention of national unions, the Democratic Party, and the federal government.”

I highly recommend the book. It is well and fairly written, and has fascinating history about the history of Colorado, the land, the environment, the people, and the conflicts between coal miners and mine owners.

The origin of opening the coal mines of Colorado is traced to William Jackson Palmer who had his apprenticeship studying the coal mining industries of England, and he was appalled at some of the working conditions he observed in those mines. “Mine work seemed to turn boys into drones, women into men, and manly laborers into ‘an inferior class of beings’.” Palmer didn’t immediate building a coal mining empire. He organized a Union light cavalry unit to fight in the Civil War. He was a brevet general by the end of the war and thus was the highest ranking Quaker on either side of the conflict. The end of the war freed Palmer to begin building an empire seeking to extract coal, or “buried sunshine” and begin powering the transformation of Colorado. Industry (mostly blast furnaces and smelters), trains, and homes were fueled. Farming prospered because there was energy to pump irritation water out of the Ogallala aquifer. Of course the air smelled of smoke from the burned coal. A Denver Post cartoon celebrated the end of a strike in 1899 and “…depicted the welcome return of inky black billows to the urban skyline above a caption that said…Prosperity.”  Beneath “…the glitter of gold and silver (of Colorado mining) lay the grime of coal.”

Palmer stated that he intended to pay workers enough to have some left for saving and investing. He also gave them the opportunities for stock options and profit sharing. Coal barons who followed were less interested in the welfare of the miners.

The descriptions of the broad diversity of the nationalities of the coal miners, or colliers, who were lured to Colorado from far reaches of the world by the promise of well-paying jobs, is an interesting component of the book. Agents developed credit systems for destitute people who wanted to immigrate and the transportation lines profited as the number of immigrants swelled. The harsh conditions made me wonder why someone would travel across the planet to work in the mines. One mine inspector wrote that “…it seems that death lurks…” Electrification brought exposed wires, cages carrying the workers to the depths sometimes smashed, and power drills created clouds of choking dust. These hazards were added to the risk of death from explosion, cave in, carbon monoxide and other toxins in addition to  the physical problems from working deep underground in heat with poor lighting and performing back-breaking labor. George Orwell once wrote, “Watching coal-miners work you realize momentarily what different universes different people inhabit.” There were 1,708 Colorado mine deaths between 1884 and 1912.

There are some descriptions of the mines that are on the light-hearted side. The mines were often inhabited by large numbers of mice, and the men welcomed and fed and even named them. The men found the playful and harmless creatures a welcome distraction from the long hours working under dangerous conditions. The mice were also the miners “canaries,” since they were very susceptible to very small amounts of carbon monoxide and were vibrations that warned of a roof cracking overhead. The miners watched the mice closely and responded if one keeled over or scurried away. Mules were a different story. The animals were bred to be either quite large or small, to match the height of the mines. However, almost all of the mules contributed to earning the description “stubborn as a mule.”

The men were paid by the tons of coal they mined and not for “dead work” involving activities such as building supporting timbers. They would gamble with their lives by skimping on erecting support structures to maximize the time they could be mining coal. The toiling men and animals depleted oxygen by breathing heavily from their labors, and made them, among other symptoms, indifferent, because of the low oxygen content of the mine air. There were atmospheric conditions the miners called “stinkdamp” (hydrogen sulfide), “blackdamp” (carbon monoxide mixed with other noxious vapors), “afterdamp” (heavy concentrations of carbon monoxide), and “firedamp” (methane).

The latter part of the book describes how the union grew stronger as the resentment for the working conditions and pay of the miners increased. The story is told with significant human interest insights. As an example, it is told how an African American working with an Italian immigrant enjoyed pointing out that at the end of the shift they were both black. But there was little if any humor in the dealings of the companies with the union, and labor relations worsened steadily. The union made seven demands when they went on strike in 1912. The first demand was that the union be recognized. The other six demanded better pay, better working conditions, and ending the “company town” practice. Colorado Governor Ammons initially chose not to intervene. He was warned of the volatility in the Ludlow camp, and relented to send state militiamen after there had been several gun battles.

Ammons summoned three Union officials and three key company executives to his office for a marathon negotiation to settle the strike. The company officials announced they were ready to agree to all of the union demands with the exception of recognizing the union. The union men held fast to that being the most important demand. They said “…that only through a union could they educate green men, settle grievances, and uphold the miners’ self-determined laws of safety and mutualism.” The meeting therefore failed to reach an agreement, and outrageous behavior continued on both sides while the people of Colorado worried about a “coal famine.”

President Wilson responded to the escalating violence by sending in federal troops, and the strike zone was declared “silent.” The costly fifteen-month struggle was ended by a unanimous vote by the miners.

My favorite line in the book is in the Acknowledgments, where the author describes the struggles at researching the complex history and writing the book. He writes, “History isn’t Rocket Science—it’s harder.”

Kitty Corner

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The actual phrase is cater corner, and cater is from the French word “quatre” (four).  It means directly and diagonally across. It was Americanized by replacing the unfamiliar “cater” with the familiar “catty” and then “kitty.”  Phrases.org explains replacing an unfamiliar word such as cater with a familiar one is called “folk etymology.”

General Sherman’s Christmas, Savannah, 1864

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My brother sent me this book, and he knew I would be interested in the content. It describes the march across Georgia after Atlanta fell to Sherman’s army. I should mention there is family interest before I book. Elijah Tilton was married to one of a Brooke sister who was an aunt of our grandmother. Elijah was a member of the 92nd Illinois mounted infantry and part of Sherman’s army when it was advancing on Atlanta. Two of his sons, George William and Cornelius (or Commodore) and two other Tiltons, Orrin and Alfonso, were also part of the unit. The unit was assigned to the reckless and not very admirable General Kilpatrick on May 7, 1864 (according to Elijah Tilton’s diary for that year), and “Lil Kil” is a central figure of the book. I don’t recall any of the incidents mentioning Kilpatrick that were complimentary. Elijah never mentions weapons except for hearing cannons fire, but his unit was one of those issued the Spencer rifles, which are mentioned in the book.

Elijah died of dysentery on October 6, 1864 (more soldiers died of disease than from combat) but his sons and the other relatives were there for the fall of Atlanta. We lose the family connection with the book when the surviving Tiltons were assigned to the forces heading for Tennessee when General Sherman prepares to begin his march across Georgia. They were therefore part of the army commanded by George H Thomas that defeated John Bell Hood at Nashville December 15-18, 1864. It was undoubtedly chance that sent those ancestors into Tennnessee instead of into Georgia and eventually South Carolina. However, that might make the book easier to accept by our son and his family who live in Fort Mill, South Carolina and his in-laws who live in Columbia. Sherman quite unpopular in South Carolina.

I’ll begin my review after that lengthy introduction. The book by Stanley Weintraub provides details of Sherman’s army marching across Georgia to Savannah in late 1864. The destination was a secret when the march began, but it wasn’t a particularly well-kept secret. The plan was to make “Georgia howl,” by destroying anything that could support the Confederate war effort. Railroads were ripped up and the rails twisted around trees in “Sherman’s bowties.” Most of the livestock was taken along with the stores of food necessary to feed 60,000 marching soldiers. Baled cotton and mills were burned along with homes of those who dared to show open allegiance to the Confederacy or their revulsion toward the Union. One woman who unwisely spit at a soldier had her home burned. One woman told a captain “Our men will fight you as long as they live and then these boys (her sons) will fight you when they grow up.” A man was quoted as saying war wouldn’t end until all the men and women were killed, and “…it won’t be ended then, for we’ll come back as ghosts to haunt you.”

There were many accusations that Sherman’s “bummers” were harsh to the citizens they encountered. There is no doubt there was significant thievery, because the route of march became littered with all manner of abandoned loot. There were accusations of rape and murder, although the author believes there were more accusations than actual outrages. Sherman’s men came across emaciated men dressed in rags from the Andersonville prison, and that undoubtedly gave some of them reason to behave in anger. The army came across an abandoned prisoner of war site at Millen that had no shelters and no water. There were burrows where the prisoners had lived and a large burial ground. One officer wrote that what he saw gave him a “…renewed feeling of hardness toward the Confederacy.”

Sherman and his troops marched 300 miles in twenty-four days. Most of the casualties were in a single a battle at Fort McCallister, There were more than two hundred listed as missing and presumed dead. Most of those were “bummers” who did the foraging.

Sherman would write about the accusations issued against his men that they had been, “A little loose in foraging, they did some things they ought not to have done, yet on the whole they have supplied the wants of the army with as little violence as could be expected…”  An order was issued ordering that anyone pillaging or burning a home without being ordered to do so would be shot, but none of the soldiers were charged with those crimes.

One controversial event was that Sherman ordered prisoners of war to move in front of the column with shovels searching for “torpedos” (mines) after one exploded and tore the right foot off an officer.

With a few exceptions the army did not meet much organized resistance. They seldom came across a farm, plantation, or town that hadn’t been deserted by men. They were greeted as liberators by blacks, and thousands of the freed slaves joined in the march. Sherman was said to not think highly of blacks, and tried on several occasions to convince the followers to go back. The author observes that they required rations and slowed the movement of the army. One sad event was that the army pulled the pontoon bridge from a river they had crossed, which stranded the thousands of blacks. Some tried to swim the river despite the fact they couldn’t swim. Some union soldiers tried to push logs to them for rescue, and many were disturbed by what happened. Most of the blacks were left to be recaptured by Confederate soldiers and a very uncertain fate.

There were also acts of kindness. Two girls estimated to be three and five were found in an abandoned home dressed in burlap bags with holes cut for their heads and arms. They were fed, bathed, clothed, and taken along by the army. They eventually found their way to homes in the North after being transported there by soldiers who had been released from duty after their enlistments had ended. Women often welcomed officers into their homes, because they had undoubtedly heard the stories about what had happened to others earlier in the march.

Sherman’s army did begin to run low on provisions as they approached Savannah, and there was concern that the only path to the city was on narrow causeways through the swamps. However, the confederates decided not to defend the city and pulled out during the night over a makeshift bridge. The action is said to have kept Savannah “…relatively safe from the destruction wreaked upon other cities visited by Sherman’s marchers through Georgia.” Sherman telegraphed, “To His Excellency President Lincoln, Washington, D.C.: I beg to present you as a Christmas-gift the city of Savannah…”

Widow’s Peak

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Yahoo Answers says the distinct point in the hairline in the center of the forehead was called “widow’s peak” from the belief that it was an omen of early widowhood. The sharp point of hair has also been associated with villains such as Count Dracula.

Superfreakonomics, Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

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Some of our Grandchildren are occasional or even frequent readers of this web site, and this book contains heavily mature information. I don’t want them to read this book.

I reviewed Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner last week, was absolutely fascinated with most of that book, and highly recommend it (even to the grandkids, despite some “mature language”).  I wasn’t as fascinated with Superfreakonomics, but it has some great information.

You will know if you read my blog postings that one of my favorite subjects is global warming and what I believe to be the lack of solid scientific basis for most if not all of the dire predictions. I recommend that everyone should read Chapter 5, which is titled “What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have In Common?” It describes how the New York Times published an article quoting climate researchers who argued “this climatic change poses a threat to the people of the world.” Newsweek “…cited a National Academy of Sciences report…that climate change ‘would force economic and social adjustment on a worldwide scale’.” Both articles were published in the mid-1970s and were predicting the effects of global cooling. Average temperatures had fallen 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit from 1945 to 1968 and Newsweek declared that the decline “…had taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.” I won’t be surprised if the global warming predictions turn out to be just as inaccurate as the global cooling predictions being hyped in the media in the 70’s.

On the subject of predicting climate change, Superfreakonomics observes, “…even the most sophisticated climate models don’t do a very good job of representing…variables, and that obviously makes predicting the climatic future very difficult.” The predictions have obviously been that temperatures will continue to rise with increasing levels of carbon dioxide. However, temperatures have actually been mostly dropping the last few years. That insult imposed on the models by Mother Nature was termed a “travesty” by one of the prominent advocates of global warming.

I will summarize some fascinating information you will find in the book:

*  Drunk walking is proven to be much more dangerous than drunk driving (“…friends don’t let friends walk drunk”)

*  “Smile Train” began saving girls in India with cleft deformities by offering $10 for those delivered to the hospital to offset the $2.50 paid to midwifes to smother them

*  Many (60%) Indian men have penises too small to fit commercial condoms (Marketing suggestion: make a smaller condom and list it as “…tight to enhance sensitivity…”)

*  Horses in the 1900s caused a higher rate of deaths compared to autos today and caused immense health issues because of the huge amounts of manure

*  The media has “…never met an apocalypse it didn’t like…”

*  There were “…chilling tales of rampant shark carnage…” that resulted in the title “Summer of the Shark” in 2001 despite the fact there were an average number of attacks (68 with 4 fatalities)

*  Between the thirteenth and nineteenth century there were as many as a million European women executed for witchcraft after being blamed for bad weather that caused crop failures

*  Realtors take a 5 percent commission to sell a home while FSBMadison.com charges $150 to list a home

*  A Chicago prostitute is more likely to have sex with a cop than to be arrested by one

*  School children are currently likely to be taught by the college graduates with the lowest academic achievement since higher performing women are now becoming doctors, lawyers, etc. instead of teachers

*  Muslim women who become pregnant during Ramadan are more likely to have a baby with disabilities because they fast from food and drink during the day during that entire month

*  Terrorists are likely to be better educated and come from families who aren’t poor

*  There were 1000 extra traffic deaths after 9/11 because people drove instead of flying

*  Increased border security after 9/11 reduced foreign imports of marijuana to California and resulted in a boon to local growers

There are many more interesting facts, so you’ll have to read the rest of the book after you read the fun chapter on global warming.

Flash in the Pan

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This expression is used to describe something that seemed to have great promise but doesn’t “pan out” (prove) to be of lasting value. It apparently has two legitimate origins. Wiktionary says it came from the small charge of powder in the firing pan of a flintlock rife igniting but failing to ignite the powder that fired the ball. There was an impressive flash, but it was ineffectual. The Phrase Finder writes that the expression was also used by California Gold Rush prospectors who “…became excited when they saw something glint in the pan, only to have their hopes dashed when it proved not to be gold but a mere ‘flash in the pan’.”