A portrait of Gov. Arthur H. James (1883-1973), a Republican who took the side of the “bootleg” miners in the debate over strip mining in the southern anthracite coal fields. He served as Pennsylvania’s governor from 1939-1943. One of his first jobs as a youth was as a breaker boy and mule car driver.
In July 1941, issues between strip mine operators and independent coal miners, also known as bootleggers, boiled over into what became known as the Bootleggers Riot at Donaldson, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The bootleggers attempted to disrupt and stop the strip mining operation conducted by Frank Correale. At first, it was just picketing, but between the private police force that Correale called to the site to protect his legal operation and the State Police who arrived to prevent violence, there was a clash with the bootleggers resulting in a score of injuries among the miners and the private police. In addition, violence erupted at two other sites and property damage included damage to several steam shovels used in the stripping.
The bootleggers believed they had rights supported by the laws of Pennsylvania going back fifteen years to the depths of the depression. Estimates of more than 40,000 of these independent miners believed they had no other way of earning a living and they saw the strip miners as destroyers of the area’s anthracite coal industry because they were using many fewer workers and rapidly depleting the coal resources which would result in the economic death of all the small towns of the region that relied on coal for survival.
On the other hand, the Strip Mine Operators, were running a legal business. For example, the Correale operation had the full support of the United Mine Workers and employed only union miners from the local area. Correale had a lease from the owners of the land and had invested a significant amount of money in setting up the strip mine, including constructing a new breaker. The United Mine Workers supported strip mining over deep mining because of safety concerns- many fewer injuries and practically no deaths.
From past experience however, the bootleggers saw the strip miners as tax cheats. Several of the school districts in the area were on the verge of bankruptcy. The operators would lease the land, strip the coal, and then leave, and the property and school taxes would go unpaid. Also the unemployment rate among miners was very high, and the only choice for most of these skilled laborers was do independent mining (bootlegging). There were other concerns including the limited coal resources, estimated at between 50 and 200 years of supply, but only if extracted in a controlled manner in order to conserve and hold a good price. The strip miners were extracting large amounts of coal and flooding the market with it at moderate prices while walking away with huge profits because their costs were low. The independent miners could not compete.
This post presents articles from a variety of newspapers, July 10, 1941 through July 12, 1941, which describe the Donaldson Riot.
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From the News Journal, Mansfield, Ohio, July 10, 1941, a wire service report:
STATE POLICE AT MINE ROW SCENE
Reinforcements Held Ready After 13 Miners Wounded, 20 Stoned
(By International News Service)
POTTSVILLE, Pennsylvania — State policemen carrying riot sticks and tear gas bombs patrolled Pennsylvania’s lower anthracite region today in aftermath of armed battled between bootleg miners and coal company police at the scene of stripping operations.
Reinforcements were held in readiness of orders of Gov. Arthur H. James to prevent a renewal of outbreaks in which 13 miners were wounded by shotgun pellets and 20 other men were stoned and beaten.
All of those shot or injured in the most serious clash, at the operations of the Correale Construction Company, near Donaldson, 16 miles west of here, escaped with minor wounds. Miners struck by gunshot were among the crowd which stormed a stripping operation and seized a power shovel. Five private policemen were among those given hospital treatment.
In other outbreaks, the bootleggers blew up a power shovel with dynamite, set fire to an air compressor on another shovel at Williamstown, about eight miles from Donaldson, and seized a third shovel after chasing the operator in the western end of Schuylkill County.
The bootleggers contend that surface operations by owners of independent breakers should be stopped.
The operators insist they are engaged in a legitimate business on leased land and should have police protection.
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From the Press-Herald, Tremont, July 11, 1941:
State Police in Donaldson Area After Mine Flare-Up
All’s quiet on the western front today in the Donaldson area where a flare-up occurred between the independent miners and private detectives, employed by the Correale Coal Company, on Wednesday morning, when more than a dozen miners and eight detectives were injured in the battle that occurred on the mountain just west of Donaldson.
The quiet that is prevailing today, however, is a restive lull, for although the bootleggers have gone back to their own workings some of them are threatening to resume their active picketing as soon as the State Police, sent to break up the riot, leave the scene.
The flare-up on Wednesday was the climax of the dispute between the bootleggers and the operators of the new breaker built on the outskirts of Donaldson, the bootleggers objecting to stripping, claiming that their means of livelihood will be destroyed by the strip mining.
Frank Correale, owner of the new breaker and stripping operation, has said that he will not destroy the independent coal workings and that he will buy the coal from those workings, but the miners are adamant in their insistence that stripping be eliminated from the area.
Following the incident on Wednesday, when close to 2,000 men marched to the mountain where the huge steam shovel of the Correale Company is operating, State Police were sent into the area to quell the riot and they have remained on the scene to keep order. The operation of the shovel was resumed yesterday.
Hundreds of bootleggers came from other sections of the county to join in the protest. The private detectives of the Herbert Goesslin Detective Agency, engaged by the coal company, fired buckshot into their ranks and the bootleggers, in turn, manhandled the detectives, inflicting injuries upon at least eight of them.
The injured miners are Oliver Keisling, Tower City; Edward Navitsky, Branchdale; Leonard Barr, Claude Mockler, Clyde Zimmerman, of Tremont; Charles Thompson, Edward Kimmel, Delmar Hand, Donaldson; Ernest Adams, Minersville; Homer Klinger, Evan Erdman, Valley View; Albert Aldenis, Marlin; Carl Zimmerman, Pine Grove; Norman Leverberg, Pottsville; John Scheibley, Tremont; and Warren Reibsane, Muir.
According to word received this morning the condition of Herbert Goesslin, head of the detective squad, is unfavorable, infection having developed in his injured leg.
Some of the Donaldson miners interviewed after the riot expressed themselves as being highly resentful of the destruction inflicted upon property of the coal company by some of the protesting miners, although they are equally incensed over the firing of the shots by the detectives, claiming that the miners intended only to picket the shovel.
The final outcome of the situation is problematic at this point. Sharp clashed occurred in the State legislature when it was proposed that a legislative inquiry be started immediately, with the Senate finally rejecting the demand for an investigation.
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From the Pottsville Republican, July 11, 1941, an editorial:
LET’S HAVE THE INVESTIGATION
There is nothing the people of this region — and that includes not only the bootleg miners, but nearly everyone else — would like to see better than an investigation of the Donaldson stripping situation by a state committee.
When Governor James made his request to the Legislature yesterday for such an inquiry, even to the extent of keeping the Legislature in session to enact remedying legislation, he echoed a wish list that has been uttered in Lower Schuylkill County hundreds of times in the past two or three years.
G. Harold Watkins, our extremely active Senator, always interested in the welfare of Schuylkill County, has persistently urged that something be done to remedy this situation.
The Governor made for himself a lot of friends, not only here, but throughout the anthracite region, by his statement on strippings and the Donaldson case. he demonstrated that he understands the situation perfectly and recognizes strippings for what they actually are. He minced no words, he did no hedging, he called a spade a spade.
Let a legislative committee come into this county and get down to the bottom of matters and they will learn who are the real exploiters. We will wager that by the tie this committee is finished, it will be defending, and not criticizing, the bootleggers for their stand during the past year or two — laws or no laws.
They will learn a whole lot about corporation manipulation, learn why it is that most of the school districts of the county are bankrupted from tax delinquency and why teachers go without pay in a county where some of the richest natural resources in the world are located.
Mingled with this corporation manipulation, they will find how the stockholders are being mulcted to keep a hugh [sic] staff in jobs. They will learn of other intrigue.
They will discover that most of those who have leased or purchased land haven’t the slightest intention of engage in deep mining, but rather are out to take all the coal they can in the shortest possible time and then let the land, its taxes still unpaid, revert back to its original owner.
With hundred of thousands of dollars in their pockets, much of it made with very little labor cost and by the employment of only a few men, they care not how desolated and laid waste is the countryside when they are through. They can move on to greener pastures. Towns like Donaldson will become ghost towns — perhaps Pottsville with them.
The entire future of the lower anthracite field is wrapped up in coal, which it must preserve and mine in such a way that every pound possible will have been taken from the ground. Properly mined, there is enough coal in Lower Schuylkill County and especially in the Donaldson region, to last for several hundred years.
But “with the cream of the anthracite skimmed by strippings” to use the Governor’s own words, there will be nothing left. The water menace which will be created to deep mining when these stripping holes fill up, the cost of reopening mines where surface coal has been removed, will be so great that it is doubtful if anyone will attempt it, even in the face of a national emergency as critical as the one we are now facing. instead the coal that cannot be mined by stripping will remain forever where it now lies, and consumers in far off cities will have turned to substitutes in its stead.
Much had been said and written about bootleg miners, but it is they who are keeping Lower Schuylkill County “going.”
In the strict sense of the word, they may be thieves who steal coal and they may be exploiters, but they are human beings, even as you and I and Governor James, who live and have a right to live. They have families to support and if there is no lace else to turn, who is to blame them?
Place each one of us in the same position which faces these men and we would all be bootleggers.
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From the Morning Call, Allentown, July 11, 1941:
JAMES OPPOSES SURFACE MINING; REQUESTS PROBE
POTTSVILLE, Pennsylvania, July 10 [1941] — Associated Press –Governor Arthur H. James today sided with opponents of surface mining in Pennsylvania’s anthracite field and declared that the practice which led yesterday to widespread disorders — is a serious threat to the hard coal industry.
During the day, 150 State Troopers patrolled areas around three sites where massed miners forced power shovel operators to stop operations. Later, most of them returned to posts elsewhere in the State.
The Governor, urging the legislature to investigate the clashes in which 13 men were wounded by buckshot and 20 others bruised and battered said:
“Uncontrolled stripping of hard coal, especially in the southern fields, easily could result in bottling up where it might never be recovered, enough hard coal to supply the nation’s needs for the next 50 years.”
Boosts Unemployment
Some mine workers long have opposed the practice, which involves stripping of the ground surface from coal veins with power shovels. They argue that it lowers property values and makes fewer jobs than ordinary shaft mining.
Col. Lynn G. Adams, head of the State Police, visited temporary headquarters at Pine Grove today and said his men had been directed to maintain order.
Governor James said State Police would be assigned at any time to break up riots, but asserted he would not “now, or at any time during my term of office use them to protect private activities which I believe to be contrary to the public welfare.”
Frank Correale, lessee of one of the stripping operations, said private policemen were hired to protect the property after State officials had “ignored repeated requests for State Police protection.”
‘Bootleggers’ Oppose Stripping
Strongest in opposition to coal stripping are the so-called “bootleg” miners — men who operate their own make-shift workings on land that frequently is owned by the major coal companies.
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From the Sunbury Daily Item, July 11, 1941, an editorial:
Reaping the Whirlwind
Shrill cries being heard in Harrisburg these days over the so-called anarchy evidenced in a pitched battled at Donaldson, Schuylkill County, between bootleg miners and their friends on one side and state motor police and coal company guards on the other, are not likely to strongly impress Pennsylvanians who are able to remember what has been happening on the coal front during the past fifteen years.
Members of the Senate, rejecting move for an investigation were free in placing blame for the rioting and bloodshed and where the onus was shunted quite naturally depended upon the political affiliation of the man behind the gun.
The charge was made that the Governor and the head of the state motor police and attorney general had been apprised in advance of the Donaldson situation and had failed to act. Senator Dent observed tat “if we let this go unnoticed, we are going to say to 40,000 to 60,000 bootleg coal miners that you can of your own free will, and in your own time, destroy legal industry without fear of repercussion from the Governor or State authorities.”
Senator Harold G. Watkins, of Schuylkill County, charged bootleg mining under Governor Earl “received the encouragement that led to its strength.” Senator James A. Geitz blamed the New Deal for “riots, disturbances and stoppage of production” and demanded to know what had been done to stop such disorders.
Yet the Donaldson clash, involving an effort on the part of bootleg miners, through sheer force of numbers, to prevent a coal company utilizing an operation in which it has invested $200,000 on the ground that it would be injurious to illegitimate mining, is but one in a continuing series of incidents that smack strongly of civil war.
The tragedy lies not so much in bootleg mining, which quite logically has become the only means of livelihood of entire communities through gradual encroachment upon legitimate operations, to the detriment of both the mine owners and the bootleggers. It is to be found rather in the lack of moral courage in the Governors of Pennsylvania during the past fifteen years. The obvious reason is that there are thousands of voters in the rinks of the miners to every single coal company stockholder or individual mine owner and votes are too often considered above moral issues. Appeasement ever pays off in its own coin.
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From the Philadelphia Inquirer, July 12, 1941:
CIO Threatens Force If ‘Bootleg’ Miners Continue ‘Strip’ Riots
By J. Clayton Cook, Inquirer Staff Reporter
POTTSVILLE — June 11 [1941] – Schuylkill County’s insurgent ‘bootleg’ miners were bluntly told today that any force they might use to prevent strip mining would be met with equal force, if necessary, by the United Mine Workers of America (CIO).
The warning was served on them by Joseph Kershetsky, newly elected president of District 9, UMWA, as State Troopers still stood guard over stripping operations where violence flared on Wednesday.
APPROVED BY UNION
The surface mining had been halted at three sites by the angered “bootleggers,” 10 of whom were shot in a pitched battle with company police at Donaldson, 16 miles from here. Machinery was smashed and dynamited at two other places, Kohler’s Gap and Good Spring.
Kershetsky declared that the stripping operation at Donaldson done by the Frank Correale Company, had been approved by the union, that union men were working on the job and that “interference with our men must be stopped.”
TO VISIT GOVERNOR
More than 200 of the bootleg miners meeting tonight in the P. O. S. of A. Hall at Donaldson, named a delegation of ten to go to Harrisburg to ask that the State Police be withdraws from the scene of the battle. Originally they planned to send the delegation to the capital tomorrow, but then decided to ask the Governor first for an appointment.
Holding a “post mortem” on Wednesday’s riot, the bootleg miners said that company police starter the battle.
During the day, E. A. Delaney, a representative of the State Attorney General’s office came here to make an investigation, and after contacting a number of officials, returned to Harrisburg.
At Harrisburg today, a resolution calling for an investigation of Wednesday’s rioting at Donaldson was reported out by the Senate committee on State Government, and will be placed before the full body tomorrow. It is expected to pass without trouble.
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From the Harrisburg Evening News, July 12, 1941:
WORKERS FAVOR STRIP MINING
POTTSVILLE, July 12 [1941] — Strip mining today had the approval of the United Mining Workers of America while surface operations proceeded in Schuylkill County anthracite fields under the protection of State Police. Several days ago clashes occurred at three strip operations resulting in injuries to nearly a score of miners.
Joseph Kershetsky, new president of the CIO union’s District No. 9, gave the union’s approval to strip mining and announced that “forceful means, if necessary” might be used to prevent interference with the miners. Independent miners, who contend that strip of ground surface from coal veins with power shovels makes fewer jobs for miners, planned to confer with Governor James in an effort to halt the operations and have him order the 150 State Police from the workings.
Kershetsky said the “bickering and annoyance of the independent miners is without justification and is very short-sighted. It is retarding a very valuable asset to the community.
Representatives of the 4000 members of the Independent Miners’ Association, meeting at Donaldson last night, voted to ask Governor James to withdraw the police and named a delegation of eleven men to meet the Governor on Monday.
With J. L. Maloney, Pottsville attorney, as spokesman, the delegation includes: John A. Gottschall, John Lucas and Thomas McCann, of Branchdale; Clyde Machamer, Tower City; Joe Mahoney, Minersville; John Hamershy, Newtown; Arthur Lewis and George Searer, Tremont; and Arthur Lewis, of Reinerton.
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Portrait of Gov. James from Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission.
News articles from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.