CULTURE, CLASS, AND POLITICS IN MODERN APPALACHIA: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF RONALD L. LEWIS

Mining Reform After Monongah: The Conservative Response to Mine Disasters

253 Mining Reform After Monongah: The Conservative Response to Mine Disasters Jeffery Cook ONE OF FAIRMONT COAL COMPANY’S most modern operations was located in Monongah, West Virginia. In fact, Monongah’s interconnecting mines, No. 6 and 8, were considered the jewels of the Fairmont Field, safe and “up to date in every way.”1 The two mines spanned several hundred acres, and by best estimate, the company possessed over one hundred acres for development. By 1907, these operations led the state in machinemined coal, producing 433,285 long tons with the aid of fourteen cutting machines.2 Governor Aretas Brooks Fleming and his associates were so proud of the Monongah operations that visiting dignitaries often concluded tours of the Fairmont coalfield at the Monongah plants.3 Moreover, the company was convinced that the Monongah operations were among the safest mines in West Virginia.4 Monongah Superintendent A. J. Ruckman, for example, responded to a young woman’s query about the safety of No. 8, opining that “some mines might be dangerous, but this one was as safe as her parlor at home.”5 In spite of Ruckman’s optimism and the company’s pride, in the blink of an eye the Monongah operation was transformed from a showplace into the worst coal mine disaster in American history.6 On a damp Friday morning, December 6, 1907, simultaneous explosions occurred in Fairmont Coal Company’s No. 6 and 8 mines; fire and dust CULTURE, CLASS, AND POLITICS 254 cascaded from both. A large cloud of smoke spewed from No. 6 and one hundred feet of the mountainside was completely blown out by the blast, leaving a giant crater where the No. 8 mine entrance had once been. The force of the explosion broke windows in houses, buckled the pavement, and produced tremors that were felt six miles away in the distant towns of Fairmont and Grafton. Monongah residents quickly converged on the mines and stood in a state of confusion, watching, praying, and waiting for some word on the status of their family members. As the pit mouth billowed what one observer described as “dirty white smoke,” the situation looked hopeless. Of the nearly 400 men and boys who reported to work, only one man, Peter Urban, managed to escape through an air hole to safety.7 Fleming and his fellow operators were stunned by the Monongah coal mine disaster. If this was truly a safe operation, how could a disaster of this magnitude occur? Fleming and many contemporary mine owners failed to recognize the full implication of mine mechanization. Machinery introduced new dangers to the mine and the miner, and these hazards had to be addressed by an active ownership. Unfortunately, it took the December 6, 1907, Monongah mine disaster and the deaths of 361 men and boys to drive the point home. Reluctant Reformer As if the Monongah disaster and the wave of mine explosions that swept the nation were not sufficiently perplexing, coal operators encountered another challenging problem during the first decade of the twentieth century : the relationship of their conservatism to the changing political culture. Conservatives were beleaguered, and frequently repelled, by the country’s movement away from free markets, laissez-faire, self reliance, and limited government toward the world of the centralized state. Conservatives had traditionally looked to Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson for strength, but now some embraced reform rather than resisting it. After the Monongah explosion, Fleming adapted to the modern industrial society by organizing a powerful group of coal operators, mine inspectors, and scientific experts to push for the establishment of the Bureau of Mines in 1910. His support for the bureau, however, was not so much a break from the past as an extension of the limited government doctrine.8 MINING REFORM AFTER MONONGAH 255 In terms of politics, finance, and the law, there was no detail too insignificant to escape Fleming’s notice, so why did the Monongah disaster occur? Was it simply due to a greedy capitalist who failed to maintain a safe workplace ? A historian of coal mining safety in the Progressive era, William Graebner, explained mine safety through the competitive framework.9 Graebner dismisses corporate greed and asserts that “industry economics ensured that operators would view safety not as efficiency, but as an expense to be avoided.” Therefore, only the largest coal corporations could afford to comply with...