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Archives - Summer 2005.
Clarence Darrow for the Miners

The Defender of the Downtrodden Takes on the Coal Companies

by Michael McHale

American labor made great forward strides in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Reform was championed in the press and on soap boxes. Reform echoed in the Vatican through Pope Leo XIII. Women's groups and the muckrakers joined the effort. And the Progressive Movement went into full swing when it gained its staunchest advocate in the White House.

In Pennsylvania's hard coal region little had changed since 1870s. By 1902, local unions were not faring any better than when John Siney organized the Workingman's Benevolent Assosciation. Unionized miners were still being blacklisted. Their families still paid double for goods at the company store. It was still a case of the companies "mining the miners."

Despite this apparent helplessness, public support was gathering on the miners' side. Much of it grew as they read of the uncaring attitudes of the companies toward them. What solidified it was the outlandish statements made by George Baer, the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company's president.

On July 17, 1902, Baer responded to a critical letter he received from Rev. William Clark of Wilkes-Barre. In it, he stated that the affairs of labor should be handled "...not by labor agitators, but by Christian men of property to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country and upon the succesful management of which so much depends." Clark forwarded it to the press and it was published. What became known as the "Divine Rights Letter" infuriated both the miners and mine owners.

Industry took a different view of the Strike of 1902 as boilers and blast furnaces shut down. Especially hard-hit was J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation. Morgan was in London that summer, overseeing his marine empire and attending the coronation of Edward VII. Through letters and the British press, he learned of the powder-keg situation created by the ongoing strike. President Theodore Roosevelt also had growing concerns, and crossed party lines to affect settlement before things got nasty. He called for a conference among all involved.

The group met in Washington on October 3, 1902. Representing the miners was the towering presence of John Mitchell and the United Mine Workers. The union was suffering at the time and the companies sought to crush it for good. On the companies' behalf was George Baer. At once Baer ruffled Roosevelt's feathers with his ill-conceived statements, such as his referring to the administration as a "contemptible failure."

Led by Mitchell and Baer, a half-dozen men from each side faced Roosevelt and his men. Later Roosevelt would recall how Mitchell remained gentlemanly and calm through the proceedings while Baer interrupted and ranted and raved over everything that Mitchell said. He accused the President of "consorting with a set of outlaws."

Of Baer, Roosevelt would say, "If it was not for the high office [I held] I would have taken Baer by the breeches and chucked him out of [the] window." This sort of bickering continued without resolution.

Where Roosevelt had failed, J.P. Morgan would succeed. Urged by Roosevelt and Secretary of War Orrin Root, Morgan brought Baer aboard his yacht, and for a number of days held the businessman at bay until he agreed to terms.

The victory would prove to be a hollow one. In spite of increased wages, the cost of living far exceeded the gain the miners received. Mitchell was forced to compromise, and the union was closer to collapsing. The October meeting was only round one in the miners' fight. More would have to be done to bring their plight to the general public. Mitchell filed what was to be a winning gambit: he went to the man who had established himself as the greatest progressive of all, Clarence Seward Darrow.

Darrow's successes in defending the rights of labor in Illinois and Wisonsin were well-known nationally. The Hearst newspaper empire had elevated him to a national hero. His patrician air and rumpled appearance graced front pages frequently. John Mitchell rightly felt that Darrow would bring the notariety sorely needed to bolster his aims. Darrow agreed, and the main event was about to begin.

Throughout his career, Darrow was a staunch defender of the poor and the downtrodden. Leaving his stately Chicago townhouse where he was well known in the Windy City's intellectual circles, Darrow headed for the anthracite fields.

Darrow's union sympathies had developed earlier in his career in the 1890s, when he worked for the Chicago and North Western Railway. During the Pullman Strike in 1894, the "sophisticated country lawyer" found himself siding with the unions rather than his employers, and he subsequently offered to represent the other side!

Upon arriving in Wilkes-Barre Darrow toured the area, learning all that he could about the region and the miners' lifestyles. He quickly discovered that more than wages and high prices were at stake here. Darrow believed that the very survival of the miners and their families hung in the balance. He found their treatment by the coal companies to be deplorable and conditions in the mines unbearable. The famous defender of the downtrodden would soon face off with the big companies—and George Baer.

Baer for his part was continuing to raise eyebrows with his ill-conceived comments. When asked about the rude treament of immigrant miners by the companies, he replied, "Suffer? Why, they can't even speak English!"

Coal Commision proceedings dragged on through the winter of 1903, first in Scranton then later in Philadelphia. Both sides were well represented. Darrow handpicked team of lawyers who had once worked in mines represented the union. The mine owners hired 23 lawyers on their behalf, led by George Baer.

Prior to the hearings, some members of the Commission were taken below by Darrow. It would be a short visit. They complained of "uncomfortable conditions ... and dampness" in the mine. Before the first gavel blow, Clarence Darrow had fired his first salvo.

Darrow's main thrust would be to show that the mine owners were truly mining the miners. Through the "science of economics," he endeavored to show how the companies were reaping profits in excess of being financially injured by raising wages as they claimed. Which was more important, he asked, mining coal or earning dividends? Coal, after all, was King, and mining and selling it was paramount to the owners. The well-being and survival of those who mined it and their wives and offspring were trivial. This was the theme to which Darrow would expound through the course of the hearings.

The companies' mouthpiece's response to this was classic George Baer: "Are you going to wait in hope of getting enough money in a day to support [the miners] for a year?"

In response, Darrow set out to show that the owners were taking in far more than was on the books. The comptroller at the Indian Ridge Colliery in Shenandoah freely admitted that the miners were getting less than shown in his books.

Miners were called to the stand by Darrow. One by one they would testify about conditions below, and the high risk of death and disease that constanly hovered over them. They told of filthy conditions and poor ventilation. Families were being evicted from company houses and their belongings dumped on the streets. Such behavior shocked those who read daily reports of the hearing.

In turn, the respresentatives for the owners claimed that the union was nothing more than a gang of rowdies. Zeroing in on a handful of hothead miners, they tried to prove their point, while ignoring the overall picture of the conduct of miners during the Strike of 1902.

Using a tactic he would perfect 20 years later during the famous Scopes Trial, Clarence Darrow brought George Baer to the stand. He used Baer's lack of tact against him.

Upon bringing up the subject of child labor, Baer replied, "The unions are corrupting the children of America by letting them join an illegal organization." To this, Darrow jumped up and said, "If the children had not been in the mines they could not have joined!"

In explaining the Divine Right Letter Baer said, "God in His infinite wisdom has bequeathed the management of industry to Christian gentlemen. We cannot interfere with the divine right of the stockholder." Baer continued along these lines while his colleagues shook their heads.

Through the press, the eloquent Darrow would bring the American public family firmly into his camp. At a time when the course of Reform was in full swing, Baer was cast in the public's eye as the villian. He was seen as a prime example of the rampant capitalism of the day, and Darrow as the advocate of the individual. Yet Baer's general attitude as to the role of management was a reflection of industry's philosophy as a whole. A few memebers of the Coal Commission had a background in management.

As the hearing drew to a close in March of 1903, each side presented its final statement. Baer gave an impassioned plea to the Coal Commission and seemed to be winning them over. But Clarence Darrow was at his prime, and for seven hours kept everyone spellbound.

He summed up his plea to the accompaniment of enthusiastic applause: "Our country, our civilization, our race, is based on the belief that for all his weaknesses there is still the divine spark that will make him reach upward for something higher and better than anything he has ever known."

On March 11, the Coal Commission awarded the United Mine Workers several of its demands. Miners were given a 10% wage increase, a nine-hour day and Sundays off. The package included bonuses for larger-capacity mine cars and benefits from increased coal prices. Engineers and specialities got an eight-hour day. Though this represented only about 40% of all demands, it was a solid victory for John Mitchell and the United Mine Workers.

For Clarence Darrow, it was the beginning of the greatest decade of his career. The rumpled clothes, wayward lock of hair, suspenders, and mesmerising delivery would become legendary in American history. His quest to liberate the working man would continue in spades.

In 1908 the now-famous defense attorney would defend Bill Haywood and other leaders of the Western Federation of Miners, who were accused of the bombing/assination of the former governor of Idaho.

He successfully defended Ossian Sweet in 1925. A black doctor accused of shooting a member of a white mob that had gathered in front of his Detroit home. The huge crowd 1,000-strong aimed to convince Sweet to move out of their all-white neighborhood.

Also in the 1920s, in one of the most famous trials in American History, Clarence Darrow defended high school biology teacher John Scopes who stood accused of illegally teaching the theory of evolution in his Tennessee classroom. William Jennings Bryant represented the Fundamentalist crusade to eliminate Darwin - and his theories - from Dayton schools.

Interestingly, the Scopes Monkey Trial actually has a curious connection with coal: the whole thing was actually the idea of George Rappalyea, a 31-year-old coal company manager. He showed his buddies a copy of newspaper announcing that the American Civil Liberties Union would take the case of anyone willing to challenge Tennessee's new anti-evolution statute. The group quickly decided that such a trial would put Dayton, Tennessee on the map—and it worked.

In 1918, reflecting on his 61st birthday, Darrow told friends at a dinner in his honor: "I have always yearned for peace, but have lived a life of war. I do not know why, excepting that it is the law of my being. I have lived a life in front trenches, looking for trouble."

He certainly found trouble in the Pennsylvania coal region in 1902.


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