Coal miners -- United States -- Fiction; Coal mines and mining -- United States -- Fiction; Labor movement -- United States -- Fiction
The Court decision first gives an outline of the case, using for the
most part the statements of the counsel for the defendant, Farr; so that
for practical purposes the following may be taken as the coal companies’
own account of their domain: “Round the shaft of each mine are clustered
the tipple, the mine office, the shops, sheds and outbuildings; and
huddled close by, within a stone’s throw, cottages of the miners built
on the land of, and owned by, the mining company. All the dwellers in
the camp are employés of the mine. There is no other industry. This is
‘the camp.’ Of the eight ‘closed camps’ it appears that practically the
same conditions existed in all of them, and those conditions were in
general that members of the United Mine Workers of America, their
organisers or agitators, were prevented from coming into the camps, so
far as it was possible to keep them out, and to this end guards were
stationed about them. Of the eight ‘closed camps’ one of them, ‘Walsen,’
was, and at the time of the trial still was, enclosed by a fence erected
at the beginning of the strike in October, 1913: Rouse and Cameron were
partly, but never entirely, enclosed by fences. It is admitted that all
persons entering these camps and precincts were required by the
companies to have passes, and it is contended that this was an
‘industrial necessity.’”
The Court then goes on as follows:
“The Federal troops entered the district in May of 1914, and the
testimony is in agreement that no serious acts of violence occurred
thereafter, and that order was preserved up to and subsequent to the
election, and to the time of this trial.
“It was under this condition that in July, 1914, the Board of County
Commissioners changed certain of the election precincts so as to
constitute each of such camps an election precinct, and with but one
exception where a few ranches were included, these precincts were made
to conform to the fences and lines around each camp, protected by fences
in some instances and with armed guards in all cases. Thus each election
precinct by this unparalleled act of the commissioners was placed
exclusively within and upon the private grounds and under the private
control of a coal corporation, which autocratically declared who should
and who should not enter upon the territory of this political entity of
the state, so purposely bounded by the county commissioners.
“With but one exception all the lands and buildings within each of these
election precincts as so created, were owned or controlled by the coal
corporations; every person resident within such precincts was an employé
of these private corporations or their allied companies, with the single
exception: every judge, clerk or officer of election with the exception
of a saloon keeper, and partner of Farr, was an employé of the
coal-companies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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