Next Time We Strike

V. Intermission for the United Mine Workers of America, 1905-17

Chapter V Intermission for the United Mine Workers ofAmerica, 1905-17 The controversial end and bitter aftermath of the 1903-4 strike angered Utah coal miners about the role of the UMWA. This hostility and the union's preoccupation with other issues halted all UMWA activity in Utah until 1918. Nevertheless, worker unrest continued in the Utah coal fields as the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) attempted to salvage the 1903-4 strike for organized labor, and as newly arrived Greek . immigrants molded themselves into a new type of Utah coal miner. The WFM was organized in 1893 in Butte, Montana, by forty delegates from western metal-mining camps. The catalyst for the organization was the 1892 Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, strike where strikers, opposed to a proposed wage reduction, battled company guards. Major strikes occupied most of the early history of the WFM, including strikes in Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1894; Leadville, Colorado, 1896; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 1899; Telluride, Colorado, 1901; and Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1903. Initially part of the American Federation of Labor, the WFM left that organization in 1896, charging that Samuel Gompers, AFL president, concentrated on the East and that the AFL was reluctant to raise large sums of money to aid the WFM with its strikes. In 1898, the WFM sought to promote the interest of all western unionists by organizing the Western Labor Union in Salt Lake City as a counterpart to the AFL. The WFM desired to emphasize industrial unions in contrast to the AFL's perceived emphasis on craft unions. Despite repeated pleas by the AFL for reaffiliation , WFM leaders felt that the gulf separating the two organizations was too great, and in 1905, the WFM played the leading role in organizing the Industrial Workers of the World, considered by historians as America's most radical union. 81 The Next Time We Strike Although the interests and objectives of the WFM and the UMWA were similar, the UMWA and its president, John Mitchell, remained an active and vital part of the AFL. This philosophical and political difference led WFM leaders to criticize the conservatism of UMWA leaders and their handling of the Utah coal miners' strike. As a militant union, the WFM was willing to step in where the less committed had failed. The Utah coal miners' situation provided the challenge and opportunity. Even before the 1903 strike began in Utah, Charles Moyer, president of the WFM, remarked, "John Mitchell need not be surprised should his membership turn their faces to the West, seeking affiliation with organizations which have sent out their message to the world, that as labor produces all the wealth, such wealth belongs to the producers thereof.ll1 In March 1905, in a letter to the editor of the Eastern Utah Advocate, Louis Viljiquist announced, "The Western Federation of Miners Union has taken the Carbon County strike under its care and all the strikers had joined the Western Federation."2 Viljiquist's report was somewhat overstated , and at the 1905 annual convention of the WFM, held the last week of May in Salt Lake City, President Charles Moyer reported on the Carbon County situation. He noted that in February 1905, he received a charter application from 100 coal miners in Utah. In their letter of application, the miners explained that they had been members of the UMWA and, in response to the union strike call, had endured great suffering, including losing the homes they had built on company ground. With the strike lost, John Mitchell was now asking them to return to work. This would be impossible unless they disbanded their union. After an investigation of the Carbon County situation, the executive board of the WFM voted unanimously to charter the coal miners and to provide whatever assistance the treasury would allow. Moyer, sensitive to the plight of the Utah strikers, maintained, "If there was ever a body of men worthy and entitled, not only to the consideration of the Western Federation, but to organized labor in general, it is the striking coal miners of Utah, deserted by the organization of their craft."3 However, Moyer was quick to review the recent struggles of the WFM, and although offering moral support, he cautioned that the WFM would be unable to provide financial assistance to continue the strike. Undaunted in its primary desire to maintain its union organization, the Carbon County group pursued its request, and in mid-March 1905 a charter was granted. The WFM rendered aid through its...