Monongah: The Tragic Story of the 1907 Monongah Mine Disaster

12. “We Know So Little About How These Explosions Occur”

12 “WE KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT HOW THESE EXPLOSIONS OCCUR” President C. W. Watson of the Fairmont Coal Company said yesterday that he was now thoroughly convinced that the disaster in the two mines was caused by an explosion of coal dust, but said he could not account for the ignition of the dust unless it had been through the careless use of an open lamp. —New York Times, December 8, 1907 WATSON’S statement, coming as it did on Saturday while the mines were still on fire, the first day after the explosion and before the mine interior had been explored, is suspect. According to Lester Trader, the theory was made up by David Victor, the Chief Safety Inspector for the company on the day of the explosion and was then used by Watson.1 It appears to have been an effort to place the blame for the ignition at the feet of the immigrant miners. On the day of the explosion, Clarence Hall, the nation’s leading mine explosive expert, was at the Naomi mine near Fayette City, Pennsylvania. He had been investigating the causes of the mine explosion that claimed the lives of 34 miners on Tuesday, December 2, four days before the Monongah disaster.2 “we know so little about how these explosions occur” 159 Hall was one of the few federal government experts working within the Commerce Department attempting to come to grips with the terrible toll coal mining was claiming in lives in the United States. At the time there was no federal government agency with responsibility or jurisdiction over mining. Earlier in the year President Theodore Roosevelt had called for the creation of a bureau of mines, to address the question of wasted resources resulting from improper mining practices; as almost an afterthought, the bureau might also be charged with gathering information concerning explosions and methods of prevention. On Friday afternoon as news of the Monongah disaster spread, Hall boarded a train in Fayette City and rushed to Monongah. Upon arriving at Monongah, Hall was interviewed and countered Watson ’s statement. He put the debate about accident causes into its starkest form when he issued the statement: These fearful catastrophes seem to be recurring every short while. Today we hear of one accident in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia. The next day it is Illinois and the following day Montana. They not only are increasing in number, but also growing more terrible in the numbers of persons injured and killed. There is more danger in the deeper mine and when an explosion does occur it kills more men because of the increased number exposed to this danger. When I enter a mine these days it is with fear and trembling. We seem to know so little of these gas and dust explosions. Sometimes I feel that the poor miner has not a ghost of a show for his life when he enters a mine. It cannot be claimed that all these explosions are due to the carelessness of the miners. In this country we do not yet know how much of any given explosive can be used safely in the presence of coal gas or coal dust. The fact that nobody knows where or when these larger reservoirs of deadly gases are to be met within the mines makes the situation doubly serious. 160 chapter twelve What we need is more intelligent legislation, more rigid regulations and better practice connected with all mining operation. To treat trouble just now in bringing about safer conditions is the fact that we know so little about how these explosions occur.3 As the magnitude of the explosion became known, other investigations were added. West Virginia Governor William M. O. Dawson directed Colonel Joseph H. McDermott, then speaker of the West Virginia Legislature and political ally of A. B. Fleming, to act as his personal representative. James W. Paul, director of West Virginia’s Department of Mines and the state’s chief inspector, had already come to the site shortly after the explosion. Paul was familiar with these mines as he worked for the Fairmont Coal Company before his state employment began and indeed would seek employment from Watson in the coming years. Investigative teams also came from the Ohio Department of Mines and the Pennsylvania Department of Mines. By coincidence, French and Belgian mining experts, M. Jacques Caffarul (Inq. Au Corps des mines...