By William “Skip” Deegans
West Virginia’s Governor Morrisey isn’t the first West Virginia governor to order National Guard troops on a controversial mission as he has done by recently sending them to Washington, DC. During the mine wars when the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) sought better pay and working conditions for miners in southern West Virginia, the coal operators resisted with the help of their armed detectives and company-controlled sheriffs. In 1921, Governor Ephraim Morgan, an ally of the coal operators, sent the National Guard along with more than 100 cases of army rifles owned by the State Police to southern West Virginia to protect the operators. The unrest led to the famous march of “red neck” miners over Blair Mountain en-route to Logan County when United States President Warren G. Harding sent 4,000 U. S. Army troops to stop them. The miners, many of whom were veterans, were bombed with tear gas, explosive powder and metal bolts dropped by Army planes. The miners refused to fight against their own government, and the march was halted. The photo shows the National Guard at Cabin Creek in Kanawha County. It would not be until President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s that miners would be guaranteed the right to collective bargaining.
Sources: The Wheeling Intelligencer, Evening Journal, New York Times, Economic Policy Institute.
