Labor Revolt in Alabama: The Great Strike of 1894 (review)

BOOKREVIEWS93 his protection. The reason why many Negroes refused to sign labor contracts was not unwillingness to work, but the hope of land division. Contrary to recent interpretations, segregation was strongly developed during Reconstruction and was advanced in part by the Negroes themselves and by northern whites residing within the state. One of the more valuable chapters of this study is the description of the Negro politician, a very different portrayal than that given by James S. Pike in the Prostrate State. Williamson states that few of the Negroes in politics were straight from the cotton rows. Indeed, many were men of real ability, and vivid portraits are drawn of some, such as Francis Cardozo and Robert Smalls. One of the more prominent leaders, W. J. Whipper, advocated giving the vote to women. Williamson ako gives a more favorable account of the scalawags than is traditional. Still, he does not minimize the susceptibility of both Negro politicians and scalawags to corruption. The author represents the new breed of southern historians, who have emancipated themselves from old assumptions and stereotypes, who dig deeply in the sources, maintain a very liberal oudook, and write with sophistication and charm. Clement Eaton University of Kentucky Labor Revolt in Alabama: The Great Strike of 1894. By Robert D. Ward and William W. Rogers. (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1965. Pp. 172. $5.95.) The depression of 1893 was indirecdy responsible for the unionization of the Alabama coal mines. Earlier efforts had achieved only temporary success, the most notable movement ending in 1891 after the United Mine Workers lost a strike involving more than 3,400 men. The next two years of relative prosperity saw little progress. With the depression's advent, however, intolerable conditions provoked action. The number of working days was sharply cut and wages drastically reduced without a corresponding decrease in house rent and supplies, such as gun powder, which miners had to purchase to do their work. Approximately one-fifth of Alabama 's miners were convict laborers who received less than a subsistence remuneration, and almost half were Negroes. Under these conditions, the United Mine Workers of Alabama were organized, October 14, 1893 (national affiliation came in May, 1894). As the miners' representative, the union agreed to accept a 10 per cent wage reduction, provided the companies would make similar concessions. When they refused, a strike was called, on April 14, 1894, which was to last four months and be the largest in nineteenth-century Alabama. By the third week, eight thousand men were on strike, and to the union's delight, Negro members proved as loyal as whites. Despite this, the company slowly won, due to the importation of Negro strikebreakers and the use of state troops. Public opinion played a critical role throughout the dispute. Rural Ala- bamians did not favor the strike and the press became increasingly hostile. The Bourbon governor, Thomas G. Jones, scheduled state militia encampments at Ensley, near the mines, and personally directed the use of troops. Serious incidents occurred when miners, over union protests, dynamited railroad tresdes. Unionists became despondent when Debs's American Railroad Union lost a four-day strike in the Birmingham area July 11. By July 7 the Walker County miners had agreed to a settlement, and troops were withdrawn from Birmingham July 16. They were returned the same day, however, when strikers killed three Negroes and a guard at Village Creek, and the governor pledged their use until the strike's end. Facing defeat, the miners voted to continue their struggle, perhaps hoping for favorable action should the Bourbon candidate for governor, William G. Oates, be defeated by the Jeffersonian, Reuben F. KoIb, in the August primary. As early as February, KoIb had been endorsed by ten thousand miners in Birmingham, and he received their almost unanimous support, a principal appeal being his pledge to end immediately the convict lease system. Labor aided in reducing Oates's plurality to onlv twenty-two votes in Jefferson County (Birmingham), but defeat came in the Black Belt. Following the election, the strike ended when the union leaders accepted a separate contract with T.C.I. While not a victory, it provided a slightly...