-Caveat Lector- from: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/simunye/coalmine.html <A HREF="http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/simunye/coalmine.html">Coalmine history </A> ----- Lithuanians in the coal Mines In 1869 the first Lithuanian community was established in Danville, Pennsylvania. Five Lithuanians, Jonas Bobinas, Jurgis Reklys, Jozas Slavickas, Raulas and Jurgis Dziaulas, arrived to lay track for the railroad. By 1872 Danville had 200 Lithuanian settlers. By the 1930's there were over 10,000 Lithuanians in the Shenandoah area alone. Immigrants were not always welcomed with open arms. In 1904, Peter Roberts commented in Anthracite Coal Communities upon the treatment the new immigrants received: "They were abused in the press and on the platform, maltreated in the works and pelted on the streets, cuffed by jealous workmen and clubbed by greedy constables, exorbitantly fined by justices of the peace and unjustly imprisoned by petty officials, cheated of their wages and denied the rights of civilized men, driven to caves for shelter and housed in rickety shanties not fit to shelter cattle...." In 1917 after leasing the Ziegler Mine in Illinois to others, Joe Leiter contracted to have one hundred houses built in the town of Ziegler. When asked for specifications he exploded, "Oh hell, build them as cheaply as possible, just one degree from a hog pen. That's all these people need down here. They'll just tear them down anyway". A variety of factors--the need to save at all costs, the desire to return home, the drive to improve their standard of living, and above all, lack of choice, enabled the new immigrants to tolerate poor living conditions and to prosper. Mine Conditions Until the 1860's Pennsylvanias' anthracite region produced more coal than the rest of the country combined. Miners might walk underground a mile or more to reach his workplace. In 1870, one mine had nine miles of underground passages while another extended for fifteen miles. Crawling and climbing would describe how miners got to their underground rooms in some cases. The workplace could reach from two to twenty feet high. "I have known men become so weak, working among the bad air", complained one Ohio miner in 1871, "that they could not walk up out of the slope". Lack of ventilation also affected the owner or operator of the mines as they could lose an entire mine in an explosion. Many operators continued operation relatively untouched by problems of mine ventilation until gasses, great depths, and heavy loss of life called the law down on them. In some coal mines, underground fires were not unusual. Mine fires are difficult, if not impossible, to put out. In Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Navigation Coal company fought a fire ignited in 1859 for eighty years. In 1897, in the Shenandoah area alone, 41 Lithuanian miners lost their lives underground. In 1909, in the Cherry mine of Illinois an explosion caused the death of 384 miners of which 23 were Lithuanian. In one mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the huge rat population ate the soap, drank the lamp oil, chewed at the feet of the mules and dined on the miners' dinners, and not only when offered. "Many a time a miner would be compelled to fight with hordes of hungry rats that disputed with him for the possession of his lunch", stated one published account. One mine operator had enough and called a halt to mining, brought the mules up and had poison put around the workings. Three days later the miners returned to load dead rats into the coal cars. The carcases filled three mine cars holding a ton and a half each. The possibility of death or severe injury clouded the days of the miners and those of his wife. From 1839 through 1914 , more that 61,000 men died in the coal mines of the United States. Most, nearly 50,000, died between 1870 and 1914. A fall of a roof, a sidewall, or of coal, accounted for about half of all underground deaths. Most of the victims were in ones and twos with little publicity. Haulage accidents-- being crushed between a coal car and the sidewall, between two cars, or being run over was killer number two. Thirdly, mine explosions and accidents involving explosives escorted an equal number of workmen to oblivion. If death in the mines occurred commonly, ill health may have been virtually synonymous with the occupation. "Look at the man forty years of age, that had dug coal all his life", stated an 1886 issue of the Union Pacific Employees Magazine. "A deformed wreck, physically, if not mentally...Look at the number of miners with broken bones; the number with burns; with stooped shoulders; with weak and impoverished blood; with rheumatic pains from working in water; with affected lungs from working in bad air. A physically sound man fifty years of age, who has dug coal all his life, is almost impossible to find". Massacres of Miners Around 1890 the United Mine Workers of America was formed bringing together the individual coal miner unions in the eastern United States. The Lithuanian coalmine workers around Shenandoah had about 4,000 members when they joined the UMWA. The miners were predominately Lithuanian, Polish, Slavic and Italian. In 1897 a strike was called and involved about 150,000 miners. Some mines continued to operate. One of them was the Lattimer Mine in Luzerne county about five miles from Hazleton. On September 10, 1897, about 500 striking miners decided to march to Lattimer in an attempt to try to get the miners there to join the strike. Their way was blocked by the Sheriff of Luzerne county with about a hundred deputies. The Sheriff approached the miners with a pistol in each hand. One of the miners that could speak some English tried to explain that they were unarmed and didn't want trouble but to merely talk to the miners at the Lattimer mine. The Sheriff got angry and attempted to pistol whip the man he was talking to. In trying to defend himself the miner knocked one pistol out of the Sheriff's hand. The Sheriff exploded and called upon his men to fire into the crowd. When the shooting stopped there were 21 dead miners and about 55 wounded. Among the dead were Antanas Grikas, Jonas Tarnavicius, Pranas Keidelis, Jokubas Tamosiunas and Rapolas Rakevicius. After the shooting, as the wounded were being cared for, the deputies were laughing and joking. This conflict enraged the nation and caused the UMWA to rapidly grow into a giant organization. There were some references to the UMWA as the "Lithuanian Union". In 1922 the Herrin Massacre occurred when 2 striking coal miners were killed while trying to stop operations at the Southern Illinois Coal Company strip mine near Herrin, Illinois. One of the miners was Lithuanian Joe Pitkewicius. About 6,000 mourners attended the funerals. This caused some union miners to attack the mine and take captive mine guards and non-union "scabs". The union miners then proceeded to cold bloodedly murder 19 men. There were no Lithuanians involved in the murders. The bloodstained history of conflict in the coalfields shows that before 1920, at no time and in no place did strikes or even bloody mine wars take more lives than did underground accidents. The public might be aroused when gunshot wounds caused death in the coalfields but for the miners nothing that happened above the ground, not even a gun battle, was as dangerous as going to work in the morning. Women in the Coalfields The women's work in the coal communities supported the miner's work underground. The lot of the miner's wife was hard. Physically taxed by the frequent childbearing, worn down by unremitting labor from dawn to dusk, these women produced a significant number of daughters who chose to remain single rather than follow in their mothers' footsteps. In the early 1920's, the U.S.Women's Bureau issued a remarkable report on the condition of women living in the coal communities. By then, they comprised some 500,000 women, of whom about 370,000 were wives. The rest were unmarried daughters over the age of 15. The wives "cooked and cared for" more than half a million mine workers, more than 100,000 of whom were boarders and lodgers. Among the women who did this was my gra ndmother. This is not to mention the work of caring for more than a million children. To bring this down to the individual level, for more than half of the wives, "the daily tasks were measured by the damands of households ranging from 5 persons to 11 or more". About twenty percent of the wives contributed money to their households, mostly by taking in boarders-- single mine workers or married men living without their families. As late as 1920, only fourteen percent of a sample of 71,000 coal camp dwellings had running water. Where it was provided, running water often consisted of one spigot in the kitchen. The hauling of water, often from a fair distance, became an onerous task, especially considering that every working male in the household had to bathe, usually in a tub in the kitchen, every night. Originally posted by George Rodgers July 1997 , Updated Oct 1997 MP ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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