(Not) This Date in American History

The last fourteen men alive in the Main West shaft of Centralia Coal Company's Mine #5, knowing that there was no hope of rescue, scrawled their messages of love on what scraps of paper they could find. "My dear wife: Goodbye. Name the baby Joe so you will have a Joe. Love, all. Dad."

At 3:29 pm, March 25, 1947 there was an explosion in the Main West shaft that killed one hundred and eleven men. Coal dust caught fire and spread along the shaft of the mine, killing some men instantly, choking others to death with dust and gas. While a tragedy, the explosion was not a surprise. Reports from an Illinois state inspector of mines repeatedly warned of the excessive dust in the #5 mine. The federal government had also warned of the dust, finding thirty-three major safety violations that could cause a disaster. The local union had written several letters to Illinois political figures and the officers of their parent union, the United Mine Workers of America. Unfortunately for the men of Local 52, their union was deeply involved in the effort to make unions a integral part of America, and the focus on the big picture meant that sometimes the concerns of the individual worker had to be sacrificed for the greater good.

The job of mine inspector in Illinois was a patronage job, usually going to men more concerned with cashing their check than keeping the mines safe. Illinois was the third largest coal producing state in the US at the time and coal was a factor in state politics. As such, most mine inspectors spent their time in company offices talking to company officials. When down in the mine, they were happy to be escorted by company officials, eschewing contact with the miners themselves. But the man responsible for inspecting the Centralia mine was different. Driscoll O. Scanlan rarely talked with mine mangers, preferring to spend his time with the miners in the mines. Scanlan knew that Mine #5 was a disaster waiting to happen. He told his bosses this in every report he sent them from February 1942 to March 1947.

Scanlan's reports hit the desk of Robert Weir. Weir worked under the Director of Mines and Minerals, Robert Medill. Medill's appointment as Director was a payback for political favors done for the Governor, but he was also supported by the United Mine Workers of America and the Progressive Mine Workers. Weir earned his job through the recommendation of the UWMA. When Scanlan's reports detailing the appalling conditions at the Centralia Mine came in, they were stamped "Received" and passed through Weir to a secretary who would type them up and forward them to the owner of the mine with the request that he please comply with the recommendations made. Weir signed the letters and they were mailed off to the Centralia Mine manager. This happened on a quarterly basis for some three years, but the Centralia Coal Company never responded. When they did begin responding, they did little more than issue promises to do better and excuses about manpower shortages.

When the men of UMWA Local 52 turned to their union for help, they got no response. The UMWA at the time was tied up in a high level struggle with the federal government over control of the mines. The tripartite arrangement John L. Lewis, President of the UMWA, had helped negotiate--where the government took control of the mines and the UMWA negotiated a central contract with the largest mine owners through the government--was not working out as he had expected, as the Supreme Court had just ruled that the miners had lost their right to strike when the government took control of the mines. Moreover, at the state level the UMWA was more concerned about enforcing union discipline and working with the state bureaucracy than protecting workers.

In 1932, the fifteen thousand southern Illinois miners, believing that Lewis had betrayed them in siding with coal operators over a contract dispute, had marched in Mulkeytown, Illinois in a attempt to shut down the mines and force the UMWA to consider reforms. Their march was met by a "sheriff's army" that routed the miners and crushed the picket. Soon thereafter, however, the miners would form the Progressive Miner Workers union, a union based on the idea of community-based unionism, with an emphasis on local control and moving the union beyond bread and butter issues. Unfortunately for the PMW, Lewis was a very powerful man in Illinois and had a seat on the newly formed National Labor Relations Board. The Progressive Mine Workers had no luck getting their union recognized in Illinois or by the NLRB, but, instead, faced continued government interference with the operation of their union.

Lewis' response to the trouble stirred up by the PMW was to suspend the right of UMWA's District 12 (Illinois) to elect it's own leaders. He installed Hugh "Spud" White in the president's chair as a proxy. White understood that it was his job to keep internal dissent under control and to maintain the co-operative working arrangement that the UMWA had built with the Illinois Governor's office and the Mining Board. That the UMWA had managed to install one of their own, Murell Reak, on the Mining Board (in addition to having a hand in selecting Director Medill and being able to effectively appoint his deputy) might be seen as a victory for labor. That all of these men, throughout the tragic story of the Centralia Mine #5, ignored all pleas from Local 52 and dismissed all safety reports of hazardous conditions in the interest of maintaining their friendly relations with the state government cannot.

Over a period of two years, from March 1945 to March 1947, the miners of Local 52 repeatedly petitioned the government and their union for help in enforcing the law. The Mining Board did visit the mine and perform a special "inspection," but by all accounts, they merely talked with the mine managers and went on a short ride through the main, cleanest sections of the mine. The Mining Board's subsequent report noted that there were some significant safety violations in the mine, but did little more than send the standard letter requesting that the mine owner see to these issues as soon as possible. When Local 52 would ask Spud White for help, he used the Board's report as a shield, claiming that it was the government's job, not the union's, to enforce mine safety.

John L. Lewis cried at the gravesides of the men killed in the Centralia Mine. He used the occasion to call for a six-day period of mourning, thereby instigating a nationwide strike he could use for leverage in his battle with Secretary King. The Centralia Mine Company was fined $1000, the maximum amount it could be fined for the two safety violations a jury found it guilty of. Mrs. Joe Bryant, who named her newborn daughter Joedy, received $1000 from the UMWA's Health and Welfare Fund, which was a major achievement of John L. Lewis' tripartite negotiations. Her husband's funeral expenses and bills accounted for most of this money. She and her remaining seven children (she also lost a son in the mine) would have $24 a week from the state for five years and then $20 a week from Social Security until Joedy turned eighteen.

Much of the information for this post came from:"The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped." John Bartlow Martin. Harper's Magazine, March, 1948.

This post should be part of the series "This Date in American History." The (Not) was necessary because a couple of "This Date in History" websites dated this event as May 25, 1947. Not until I was into my research did I notice that the event actually took place on March 25th.