The Coal Wars of West Virginia

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Humans have struggled to gather resourcesfor hundreds of thousands of years.
These resources provide security to ourlivelihoods, and few things were more
precious as a resource than coal was overthe last couple hundred years.
Even to this day, coal makes upa big chunk of our energy resources.
And with something so important,you'd imagine that people
gathering this resource would be treatedwith the utmost respect.

(00:21):
This is sadly not the case,and today we are looking into the blood
soaked coal fields to discuss the coalwars, how miners in West Virginia
tried to make a stand to be treated fairlyby the companies that generated that.
They generated massive wealth for KingCoal, as is sometimes referred to.
And how this king was a tyrantto the people that made it strong.
We will be talking about hired agentsusing machine guns and airplanes on mine

(00:45):
workers, massive armed uprisings, thelikes of which the country had not seen
since the Civil War, which, you know, itwas also still healing from at this point.
All that and more on another episodeof the Remedial Scholar that sanction
headmistress history, I feel I was denying
a critical need to know

(01:07):
information.
Belong to the family.
That step in your remedial class.
Welcome everyone to the remedial scholar.
I am your host, Levi.

(01:28):
I hope you have all been wellsince the last time we saw one another.
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(01:48):
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(02:11):
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(02:31):
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So I'll go ahead and try that out.And that's it.
That's enough of this for this malarkeythat I got going on.
Time to get down and dirtyand take the elevator down
to the depths of the earth in that dark,dreary dungeon that many have called home.

(02:54):
And some still remain the coal mines.
Of course,this episode isn't just about coal mining.
It is such more broad episode than that.
Coal, specifically the coal industryseems to me like one of those occupations
that show the absolute limitof how rough you can treat employees.
I'm sure you've seen the images
of children covered in coal dustfrom the 19th century,

(03:14):
and despite their supposed restrictionson many occupations, that still occurred,
especially in like ruraland more poor communities
and occupation that was producingand still is, an in-demand product.
Not treating the workers who werethe bedrock of this production fairly.
This whole story is wildin terms of both what, people put up with

(03:38):
from the coal companiesas well as how close this
was to being a much bigger issuethan what it was, that it ended up being,
which is saying something
because it's still pretty majorin implications and results.
There's a reason why people consider thisto be America's second civil war.
That is, that issaid along the lines of this topic
in many articleand podcast and documentary alike.

(04:01):
So this topic also almost immediatelyconjures
up songs and images in my headabout the coal mines.
Speaking of, I think, yeah.
Now here I think we need to change the, background music to fit this topic
a little bit better.
Here.
Yeah. That's better.
This sounds nice, right?
It fits the atmosphere.

(04:22):
Only has some, er, banjo or something.
Anyway, as I was saying,I had seen pictures both online
and in books of coal miners
and the rickety looking equipment,the towers of mechanized belts
that transported the coal from the shaftto processing trains,
processing or trainsfull of coal passing by.

(04:42):
I can't read also,when I came across this topic,
I had two songs that came into my head.
One I will tell you about now,and one towards the end.
The first one is dark
as a dungeon, which was originally writtenby Merle Travis in 1946.
Travis had grown up in Kentuckyand has a number of songs
which discuss the plight of coal minerand other economically

(05:02):
disenfranchized thingsthe people of Appalachia have faced.
Now people from all over have covered thissong from Gordon Lightfoot.
Dolly Parton.
The first time I heard the song
was not from Merle, Dolly or Gordon,but a band performing at a local bar.
They did it, did a rendition of this song,which is actually a lot closer
to John Cowan's version.
Cowan or Coen, I guess.

(05:24):
I don't know.
And the singer in this bar,like in this band that I saw,
he had that real crazy pipe.
See, he can sing.
And the band is calledthe Davison Brothers.
Davison, not Davidson.
Davison Brothers Band.
So you can look it up.
You know, it's a really good song.
And then the John Cowanor Coen version is also great.

(05:45):
I believe he was the one who decidedto add some lines, including the,
talking about the diamond minersof South Africa and one of the verses,
which is pretty cool.
So anyway, the song starts out
nicely enough says, come listen,all you fellas so young and fine.
All right, very nice. Okay. It continues.
Seek not your fortune in the dark,dreary minds.
It will form as a habit.And seep in your soul.

(06:07):
Till your heart and your blood run.
Black is the coal.Jesus Christ. All right.
Chorus.
Girls, because it's dark as a dungeonand damp as a do.
Where the dangerous double.And the pleasure so few.
Where the rain never falls.And the sun never shines.
Because it's dark as a dungeon.
Way down in the mines.
All right, so we just really got real,real dark right away, which is fine.

(06:31):
I like, one line from the middleis pretty powerful and speaks
to how people felt towards the companiesand how they believe
the companies viewed them.
It goes from West Virginiadown to Queensland, both black
men and white, and those miners are mulesin the company's eyes.
So, where the digging of preciousdiamonds or number nine coal.

(06:53):
There is no escaping, Lord,that life in the whole last verse,
also pretty intense, goes well,I hope when I'm gone
and the ages do roll, that my bodywill blacken and turn into coal.
And then I look from the doorof my heavenly home.
And I pity the poor minerwho's been digging my bones.
So why the heck would anybody volunteer

(07:14):
to do a jobthat is turned into a folk song?
Tragedy, right? What?
What brought things to this?
Where?
Where the cautionary talemakes an amazingly depressing song.
Hauntingly beautiful in imagery and tone,but sad as hell.
Well, to understand the full story,we need to consider the context of where
America was, socially, economically,and even technologically.

(07:35):
While coal has been around a lot longerthan the United States,
the two have endured a lot of historyin the past 200 years.
But we need to get to the bottom of it.
So let's dig into it. Yeah.
That's right. Yeah.
Catchy with the pun. You're welcome.
Coal is not native to North America.
It's, Actually, I mean, it istechnically, it's not like we planted it.
Like it's not unique, I guess is problem.

(07:56):
The word has been mined for thousandsof years dating back to ancient Rome.
And China is, well, one of the most commonformations of coal was from ancient
vegetation being transformed viaa process called codification.
And this is just dead plantstransforming into coal, obviously
over millions of yearsof like former dense forest

(08:17):
or like see weeds and stuffand then millions of years heat
and pressure increase the carbon contentand then, you know, kind of
just amalgamation of things that happened
very scientific and turned it into coal.
The earliest traceable use of coal datesback to 4000
BCE in China, where it was used to draw,which makes sense.

(08:40):
Still do that kind of,you know, charcoal.
It also uses decorative stonecarving jewelry and other things.
It was used or as in the, 1000
BCE, that they used itto help smelt copper.
And then in the 13th century,Marco Polo was like, hey,
these guys are actually using, Blackrockto like, similar to what we do.

(09:02):
Coal was not like super popular.
It was just startingto regain popularity in Europe.
And he's like wow.
These guys seem to be seem to be using itquite a bit.
We should probably figure our lives outa little bit.
Its biggest appeal is that it burns longerthan it would like.
You take one piece of coal that weighsthe same as this piece of wood,

(09:23):
and it's going to burn way longerthan this piece of wood, right?
Yeah.
So Romans used coal,kind of like not super widespread.
And it started to gain popularityin the Middle Ages.
And the mining that they did in the MiddleAges was very surface level.
It's not what we think about today. Right.
But it was just taking coaland mining it from the very obvious spots.

(09:47):
Like, there it is right there.
And by the time the English had startedto try to colonize the other half
of the land of the worldthat the French and Spanish already
had, coal was being utilizedall over the place.
Britain had small coal fields,which they used heavily,
but in the 13th centurythey actually stopped using it because,
smoke it produced from burning specifictype of coal, made people sick.

(10:09):
So it polluted their.
How interesting.I'm sure there's nothing like in there.
I'll look into further there.
But, despite this, coalwould obviously continue to be being used.
Case, you live under a rock andthat rock is coal and somebody's mined it.
Now you're open and open, As the colonists moved to the New World,
they found coal depositsand would use them, but not really in

(10:31):
any extreme fashion.
That would all changewhen the Fire Nation attacked.
And by Fire Nation,I mean Industrial revolution, obviously.
And by attacks, I mean happened.
So the advent of the steam engineand many other quality of life
improvementssucceeded in expanding industry.
And this expansion createdthe need for more fuel.
Fuel, which was produced by burning coal.

(10:52):
Coal was cheaper and more efficient
to burn the wood, so coal miningbegan to increase across the globe.
The newly minted United Statesfound out that there were plenty
of deposits to useright in their backyard, Pennsylvania
being one of the predominant producersearly on and actually
remaining to be one of the top statesproducing coal to this day.
There are also a few different typesbeing mined.

(11:14):
The turn of the century.
AnthraciteI'm going to go with is, a harder coal,
which is smokeless and cleaner,was preferred for personal use.
And inside the cities, while
soft coal or bituminous but, bit ominous,I don't know.
I really need to start looking uphow to pronounce think.
Listen, I listened to the podcast time.
Second, everybody gives Dan a hard timefor not being able

(11:35):
to pronounce things, but, like,it's easy when you're like, oh, yeah,
obviously you pronounce that wrong,but like, you're not the one reading it.
You know, sometimes these words sneak upon you and it's not as easy as it looks.
Bituminous is a dirtier coal.
It's preferred for like steam engines,industrial plants, things like that.
Like locomotives starting off relativelysmall, the production of the United States

(11:57):
was around 176,000 short tons, whichapparently is different from regular tons.
Short ton is exactly 2,000 pounds,and this will come into play
a little bit later on.
Like most measurements, America does itdifferently, so just keep that in mind.
The descriptor of a short ton comesfrom the fact that a metric ton is 1000kg,
which is 2,240 pounds,which is known as a long time.

(12:21):
So make note of that.
Over the next few decades, production of, production would double and even triple
into the 1850s, large output of coalalso coincided with the rise of steel
factories, particularly in placeslike Pittsburgh,
a product of coal being heatedwithout the influence of oxygen created
what is called coke,not just a tasty beverage. Right.

(12:42):
And this was used in blast furnaces to aidin the production of iron and steel.
Another factor of coalrising in use was the fact that there was
a lot of deforestation goingon, so wood prices became higher
and higher and higher, and this kind ofseemed like a suitable alternative.
Right. The process
for obtaining the coal actually variedsimilarly to the early years.

(13:03):
It was mined out of the coal fields.
Like I mentioned,they did not have a large excavating tools
and dynamite blast awayinside of a mountain, so that makes sense.
It's also involvedjust brute force, hard labor
where you swung a pickax at a block, black square until it shattered
into a small pellet of coal which floatedhaphazardly above the ground.
No, wait. No no no no, that's Minecraft.

(13:24):
Same difference.
All joking aside,it was, arduous job with the.
And with the advancesof the Industrial Revolution, things
changed a little bit, but still required,you know, men with grit
who could work half a day or more downin the dark, blasted out caverns.
They weren't even really caverns at first.
They just kind of dug straight down,just wider than the men themselves,

(13:46):
you know, rigging up some bucketsand a rope kind of pulley system.
This was the typical methoduntil after the Civil War, at which point
production of coal was instrumentalin the corporate growth in America.
And because of that fact, demandfor this black gold, it grew even higher.
This also meantthat there was a need for more miners.
And so the once smaller scalejob began to grow and was no longer

(14:09):
a skilled profession.You didn't have just like that, guys.
A miner was like, hey,the mines are hiring kind of thing, right?
They're hiringpretty much to the lowest bidder.
Anybody who could really swing a pickax,you might be speculating
that this fell in my cosmic shoes,and it definitely did.
I think the coal operatorsfelt that, profit they could make over

(14:29):
these people was higher than the profitsthey lose by their ineptness.
This did not stop the coal companies
from putting in some,unsavory business practices in place.
For instance, the practice of cribbingin which the mine operators
retrofittedthe mining carts to hold more than the,
20 ish poundsthat they were built to hold.

(14:50):
This is one of those instanceswhere the pounds for a tonne is important,
right? Still not the main reasonto remember it, though.
So keep it. Keep thinking about it.
Essentially, these minerswould fill these carts up and be paid per
cart or per 2,000 pounds, when in realitythey were mining
maybe a few hundred extra pounds of coalwithout even knowing it already.
Not great.

(15:10):
Another thing that was done,which was actually done for a good reason
at first, was company stores.
If you know anything about thembut don't understand why they'd be good,
or if you've never heard about them,let me explain.
And honestly, eitherway, like I'm going to explain it anyway.
So many of these mines were more remotethan your typical log
camp or docks, where workers would be ableto, like, find jobs.

(15:33):
This secluded nature of these mines,you know, clear in the mountains
away from civilized nation, meantthat the resources were pretty limited.
And in effort to keep new miners happy,happy
companies often open stores for the camps.
Right.
So this would evolve into townsand the homes, like little cabins
or shacks, which were owned by the companyand then rented to the miners.

(15:56):
And I'm sure you're kind of seeingthe issues which can stem from this.
And if you know about this kind of thing,then you already know the issues, right?
Like I said, startedpretty innocently enough.
This would mutate as soonas the coming year of the coal companies
realized they could manipulate the set upso that they went on every angle.
Kind of reminds me of that McDonald'smovie where they talk about, McDonald's

(16:16):
franchises over owning the land in which
the McDonald's is like placed.
The franchise is placedso corporate McDonald's owns land,
and then they rentthat land to the franchisee.
So now you're paying rentto the corporation,
and you're also giving a chunkof your profits to the corporations.
Very tricky stuff.
Another modern day example would be likeif you worked at Amazon,

(16:40):
and then they also happento own the apartment
you live in and the gas station youfrequent in the grocery store you shop at.
I'm sure they wouldn'tdo something like that.
In addition to this,the people who were taking jobs were often
not people who had options.
After the Civil War especially,it was immigrants new to the country
or people leaving their former homesfor something new.
What do you do when you move far away

(17:02):
and move from far awayand have no real money to do anything?
Well, you're not the gold companyactually has your back.
Believe it or not,
cooperators would often let new minersmove into their company houses.
How awesome is that?
First month's rent on us.
We'll just work it into your contract.
You don't have any mining toolsof your own.
Well, that's okay, we'll frontyou some money for supplies as well.

(17:23):
Anything to get you started. Really?
Your first paycheck will be in a monthof course.
We need you to work that full monthbefore we can pay you.
And by that time, that first paycheckmight just be completely depleted.
Which means going to the company for morehelp, which means more debt and so on.
If you got fired or quit,you obviously you'd be out of the house.
Right? So that was a stressor as well.

(17:45):
These advances, advances or paychecks
were sometimes given inwhat is called scrip scrip.
But scrip is also what they calledmany different things.
You know, companies that owned companystores often paid or offered exchanges
in scrip for real moneyto be used at these companies stores.
You could get scripts for, you know,food items, clothing items, whatever.

(18:09):
There's, in one of the, resources I use.
They have, a piece of scripfor a loaf of bread,
you know, so this could, like,replace your paycheck if you were in debt.
They're just like, all right, well, here's
your script for your food,and it's just a loaf of bread, right?
They obviously couldn't let you starvebecause, you know,

(18:30):
they'd have to find a new owner,but they let you get close.
Another real dark aspect of scrip
is what could be done for foodor other necessities in the home.
Listen, people don't phrase thingsthe way I just phrase that last sentence
without some real devious thingsabout to be presented.
So fair warning,one thing that could be done
to feed your familywhile your husband works all day
long or night eitherway, was called an Esau script.

(18:53):
For my Bible fans out there,you might recognize that name
from the book Genesis, specifically,how bad of a hunter he was
and how his brother Jacob
agreed to feed him, but only for the smallprice of his birthright.
As firstborn son in the family.
Pretty is essentially abThis essential abdication
of his birthright would give Jacob claimto the familial inheritance.

(19:16):
So what exactly does
the story of the worst hunter in the Biblehave to do with the coal miners,
where the companyis going to force these families
to sign awaytheir wills to the company or something?
Did they ask for the firstborn son?
Are we selling kids to the mines?
Kind of,if the family had a need for money,
you know, if the if the miner, youknow, was working and then got injured

(19:37):
or if he got sick or something, you know,
obviously if they if they were healthy,they didn't have any need
for any such thing.
They were they would just be in this,like, endless Groundhog Day of debt,
right, with the mine operators,which was better
than not having anything at all to many.
But if the if the husband couldn'twork, often children would toil

(19:57):
at his place sorting coal, somethingmenial, pushing carts, things like that.
If the kid was too young or did not exist,you know,
then the loan was issued to the wivesand given 30 days to be repaid.
If the husband got well before then,great debt repaid.
Wonderful.
If not, then the loanwould be in a sort of like default

(20:18):
and then could be paid off with the body,you know?
So yeah, not really the best optionyou could have.
Essentially, like,I don't know, there's, there's
been some whitewashing on this too,because that like entire topic
of coal warsin general is very muddied up.
But like this thing,the Esau's script specifically,

(20:40):
where these women were, like,ashamed about it or like,
people were sayingthe women weren't ashamed about it
because, you know, they're doing thisproud thing.
They're feeding theirfamilies. And, you know,
you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.
But like, also, the company'skind of forced them into this situation
a little bit.
They basically are like, hey,we have our company stores

(21:01):
for you to shop at,and you obviously have debt to us already.
And hey, would you know that
your husband is working a dangerous jobthat has toxic air and poor conditions?
Oh, wow. Yeah, he got sick too. Darn.
Guess you'll be needing to feed the kids, Speaking of his, little John Jacob
Jingleheimer Schmidt.Old enough for the mines.
He's not darn darn.
Well, good luck feeding the family.

(21:22):
And then, like, they just, like,completely railroaded the situation.
So now you have women have to do whateverthe mine guards or owners
or whoever decidesto cash in on the Esau's script.
So that's exciting, right?
Other things companies would doto take advantage of the workers would be
to refute the purity of the hauls,stating that too much

(21:42):
non coal got it into the cardsand thus paying less for these hauls.
The coal operators were often oneswho decided how impure the coal was,
so you can imagine how quicklythis could spin out of control,
especially when combined with the factthat these hauls were sometimes way larger
than what the miner thought.
You bring up a car of what you believedto be through that 2,000 pounds
or close to it, and then you were toldthat it's a 75% pure haul,

(22:06):
so you get paid for 75% of that haul,when in reality
the haul might have been 95% pureand also weighed 2,500 pounds.
So then they justgot a bunch of free money by
both not paying you for the
amount and docking for the purity,which is kind of wild to me.
Things like this are why the minersquickly looked around and wondered why

(22:27):
they weren't saying something, doingsomething about this, what could be done?
The company owned your house, had yourjob, your safety, maybe even your wife.
In some situations, I think these factorsall point to the desperation
a lot of these miners felt,
and they thought they should performa strike to take power of the position
and show these coal companies whatMatt would like, that that they mattered.

(22:48):
Right.
This was not the first strikes in the US,not by a long shot.
Even the steelworkers had their own strikegoing around, a little bit before.
That's called the Homestead strike.
And even before that,the railroad, strikes happened, which the
homestead strike I mentioned had a, well,it turned into the Homestead massacre.
So you could probably guessit didn't work out super well.
Still, the coal miners feltthey had a better position of negotiation.

(23:12):
In 1897, a union walkout occurred.
Coalfieldsall over ceased to function in this time.
And which is rough because obviously coala big part of your society as a whole,
like so you have walkouts that cripplethe coal industry in every state,
you know, hundreds of thousands of minersstanding in solidarity.
And every state except West
Virginia, West Virginia minesremained anti-union and staunchly so.

(23:35):
They actively fired anyone who breathedthe word of union activity.
And since being fired
also meant losing your home in many cases,this spread fear throughout the miners.
Right?
Kind of reminds me of like, North Koreain a way where there's
I don't know how true this is.
I never actually looked into it.
But there's that thing where, like,if you disrespect North Korea
or if you flee North Korea,the government will pretty much

(23:58):
take every member of your familyand put them into work camps.
So that's like sothat's like preventing you from doing this
because it's like you're causingthe suffrage of all these people, right?
I don't knowif suffrage is the right word.
But anyway,so these mines in West Virginia, actually,
they, they
supported the mining industry,the coal industry during these strikes.

(24:20):
Right.
And made it possiblefor the coal companies
to outlast the strikers,
because the whole point of a strike is,hey, we're going to walk out on our jobs.
Good luck. You trying to do it?
And then the coal companies were like,well, we got West Virginia.
We'll just work them to the bone.
And so that's what they did.
So, the last bastion of Union,
this West Virginia,

(24:40):
was now the target of union leadersand say, we need to get you guys on board
so we can do this. Right.
And they felt if they could get into WestVirginia, they would finally have this
bargaining power that they needed to arguetheir case for just fair treatment.
It's not likethey're trying to like, run the companies.
They were like,we just want to be treated fairly
and so West Virginiathrew everybody out of whack, right?

(25:02):
I want to stop for a momentand paint a picture as to why unions were
such a four letter word, similarto how they are perceived by some today.
Right.
Unions are looked at, with a sort of hesitation from both public
and definitely from company perception.And why is that?
Well, today's story definitely influencedthat from the company's perspective.
But let's take a moment,go back a little bit.

(25:23):
The idea of unions is not new to the 19thcentury, or even an American invention.
One could argue
that unions actually have their originin trade guilds from medieval times.
Your prices and quality of work wasdependent on the guilds across the lands.
Medieval guilds were associationsof artisans and merchants in towns
during the Middle Agesthat regulated trade, maintained quality

(25:46):
standards and provided socialand economic support to their members.
The word guild is an Old Saxon wordfor yield or to pay,
not the and this comes from uniondues like type of payments
that would be contributed
to the guild itself paying in, essentiallylike buying into it.
There are two main types of guildsmerchant guilds, which were,

(26:08):
which controlled trade and commerce,and then craft guilds,
which oversaw specific tradeslike blacksmithing or weaving.
Guilds had, you know, a hierarchy,apprentices as journeymen masters.
And they played major rolesin the economic regulation, social worker.
Well, welfare, warfare,social welfare and local politics.

(26:28):
Over time, the rise of capitalismand the Industrial revolution
led to their decline.
But their influence, you know,can still be seen in these trade unions.
The reason for this connectionis that both aimed to protect the members
economic interests, enforce qualitystandards, provide social support,
guilds regulated trade, ensured fairwages, offered apprenticeship programs

(26:50):
much like union had unionsadvocate for workers rights,
influence industrystandards and offer vocational training.
To this day,
both held a political influenceand represented members in the disputes.
Overall.
You know, guilds
kind of established these practicesthat unions would pick up on later.
These medieval
unions, union counterparts, also dida lot for communities they lived in.

(27:13):
You know, masonryguilds often helped plan or just build,
buildings, schools, churches, cathedrals,
roads, guilds would help their memberswhen they were ill.
They would pay for funeral servicesif they died and give money to the widow.
They had a high standardfor who could join.
Entry fee and dues often reflected that.
You know, the higher the entry fee,the higher the dues, the better.

(27:36):
The guild was supposed to be.
You know, if your copper was lessthan stellar, you'd make no money.
So the Sierra is luckythere's no guild in his town, right?
Guilds also held apprenticeshipsand trained the next generation
and then off and promoted an increasein skills amongst them over time.
And this seems like why so many beautifulbuildings are from that time.

(27:58):
You know, guilds providedsignificant advantages to their members
by controlling competition,maintaining quality standards.
Like I mentioned.
And then also sometimes
members could be exempt from local taxes,which would help them, you know,
focus a little more on their workand stress a little less about money.
They enforced rules, prevent undercuttingprices, poaching customers and working

(28:20):
religious holidays, maintained,fair practices within the Guild.
Guildsalso controlled wages at a certain aspect,
and the conditions of product sales.
And they had kind of a monopolyon their craft.
Like if you didn't buy a guild qualitypiece of furniture or whatever.
Like that was kind of like,all right, you're gonna

(28:42):
you're rolling the dice thing might suck.
So anyway, but also
that strict controlkind of could backfire and would lead to,
you know, dissatisfaction in the workersand also the general public.
So just a little connectionto some ancient stuff,
comparing these to, modern unions,medieval guilds in modern day unions are,

(29:04):
they share similar rolesin protecting members, regulating labor
conditions, controlling competition,setting standards, managing wages.
But they differ significantly in methodsand impact.
Guilds established monopolies,controlled entire trades, with sometimes
suppressed wages, even,which could lead to worker revolt, like
they would start rioting in contrast,modern unions focus on advocacy for worker

(29:29):
rights, fair wages, competitive marketwithout monopolistic control,
or the same level of legal authoritythat deals guilds had.
So what do people dislikeabout modern unions?
Well, one is that,you know, it kind of takes away control.
Of the employees away from the employer.
This is only kind of a negativeif the employer genuinely

(29:51):
cares about their employees.
But if there is a union present,I'd say the likelihood of that
being the case is probably not very high.
You know, it's like if, ChildProtective Services,
if CPS comes to your houseand takes your kids,
you probably did something to makethat happen.
Unions don't just show up in a vacuumif the employees are being taken
care of thanks to the unions,then why do companies hate them?

(30:12):
Well, a few reasons.
Firstly, unionsprotect the worker. Right or wrong.
This means, you know, these lazysleaze bags don't get fired
for being lazy or messing up.
Obviously,if you have unproductive workers
which hinder your profits,you aren't going to be super pumped.
Another issue is thatwhen unions are around for too long,
that power can get to their heads.

(30:33):
In a way,the longer the unions are around,
the more it seems they act in waysto ensure they stay relevant.
These type of actions,
or what leads to legislationpreventing bad workers from being fired?
More and more demands made by unionstend to scare people at a certain point
because they can be unreasonableto a certain extent.
And part of this is the union continuingto try and justify

(30:55):
its existence, to bring back,to bring back the CPS metaphor,
it would be like, having a light,like a live in service worker to monitor
you all the time and also demanding thatyou give her massages and do her laundry.
Is monitoring necessary?
I mean, you hope not,but it might be not massages and laundry
a little bit overkill.
Going back to the lazy union workersa little bit in my experience,

(31:18):
there can be interpretationthat union people work harder
just because unions are foundmore frequently in more difficult jobs.
I worked with a guy who was former union,and that was always like the attitude
about him before we really knewanything about him as a person.
Turned out,you know, he did know his trade well.
But as for working pace,it really wasn't that great.
He tried to cut cornerswhen he could, got mad

(31:40):
when people held them to the standardsof the company we worked for didn't help.
That was already old as hell.
So on.
Then, on top of that,
he's saying the weirdest stuffall the time, didn't conform to change,
and just kind of seemed overalldisinterested in helping the team,
which all seem very weirdknowing he was a union guy.
But the real hostility towardsunions were back in the day

(32:01):
is actually connectedto the unionization of workers.
A little movement growing in the East.
The rise of communism,the connection to Marxist ideologies,
and the eventual fall of the aristocracyin Russia would make people scared
of that sort of thing.
In the United States,
his did align with some of the eventsthat began to transpire.
Specifically, it comes on the heelsof one of the first major moments

(32:24):
in these cold wars.
In April of 1912,a strike drawn up by the United
the United
Mine Workers of America began in paintin Cabin Creek, West Virginia,
and there was a list of demandsof the Union on that, wanted.
And it went like this.
Number one, cooperatorsneeded to recognize the unions.
If you can't do that,then you know we can't be here.

(32:46):
Like, obviously,
number two miners have a right to freespeech and peaceable assembly.
Oddly enough,even though these things are part
of our modern constitution,it wasn't always the case.
But, and it wasn't always enforced.
All the way either.
Number three, they wanted the blacklistingof workers who had been fired
for a number of things,most notably trying to unionize.

(33:07):
They wanted them un blacklisted,which makes sense.
You know, officially,if you're going to allow the unions in,
then you've got a UN blacklist of peoplethat you fired for being in the union.
Number four, the end of compulsorytrading at company stores before
shopping at company stores,only the company owned
really wasn't fair for anyoneother than the very secluded mines.

(33:28):
But even those were beginningto gain access to nearby towns
via trains, so company storeskind of pointless at this point.
Number five,the practice of cribbing was to be banned,
which you will rememberis the stealing of extra coal from miners.
They also wanted2,000 pounds to equal a ton.
Which of you know it is a ton in America?
If you ask somebody what?
How much is a ton more than likelythey'll go 2,000 pounds.

(33:50):
That is an American ton,a long ton or a short ton.
Sorry, not a long donelong ton is also a metric ton.
I'm still confused by that.
And number six, this bit is actually tiedto this next one, right?
Where they demand minersbe allowed to have their own check.
Women like somebody checking the wastegirls, ensuring that the miners

(34:10):
were being treatedand paid fairly for that, you know, by
the operators not being scammedin any way, shape or form.
And number seven, lastly,the two check women,
one by the union repand won by the coal company.
They were cooperatively cooperative.
Decide what, if any, docking penalties forimpurities shall be placed on the miner.

(34:33):
Right.
So instead of
just the coal company being like,oh darn, this thing's only like 30% pure.
Sorry,I guess you only get 30% of your money.
Now there's two people named one,you know, the person to verify
basically what's going on.
So obviously all of these kindof infringe on these coal miners rights.
You, you know,
you want us to not just fire youfor wanting rights for speaking freely.

(34:56):
You want to you want to stand thereand tell us that we need to treat
you like regular people.
Oh, okay. No, thanks. So the strike was on.
Now we need to take note of a few of themain actors in the in this said strike.
First, we have Mother Jones.
Is she related to Mother Teresa?
I hope not, mother Jones, born Mary G.
Harris in Ireland around 1837,fled with her family to North America

(35:20):
during the potato famineand faced all the challenges
an Irish immigrantwould face in that time.
You know, they
they honestly did not get, not getting treated great back in the day.
But anyway, they first settled in Canadaand then she would end up moving
to America and moved to Michiganspecifically and began
teaching at a convent, I think in 1859.

(35:43):
She was 23.
And then she got kind of tired of it,moved to Chicago,
where she met a man named GeorgeGeorge E Jones.
I wanted to emphasize that George E,his middle name,
starts with an E Jones, notbecause I wanted to say it, George Jones.
And then it was just going to be like,his name is Georgie.
It's not. But it could be.

(36:03):
I guess.
He was an ironworker and a union member,
which, you know, would later influenceher activism.
By 1867,Mary had three children with George.
But unfortunately for Mary, tragedywould strike,
and the form of yellow fever,the yellow fever epidemic in 1867,

(36:24):
and it would claim the livesof her husband and all of her children.
So rough start, right?
Devastated, she returned.
She returned to Chicago and started, dressmaking
business catering to the city'swealthier residents.
You know, finding a little bitof a new purpose in her life.
She's like, all right, well, I'm going to.
I'm going to just make some cool dresses.

(36:45):
This is like, this is my life.
However, however, in 1871, the
The Great Chicago Fire destroyedmost of the city, including her home
and her business,and also probably all of her
treasured family heirloomsand any memory of her children.

(37:06):
I'm imagining like, I can't
this is Mary had, like, the worst luckfor the first half of her life.
Despite these hardships, Mary
continued to channel her passionand helping rebuild the city.
She became involvedwith the Knights of Labor,
an organizationwhich was not like a true union.
But they did advocate for workers rights.

(37:27):
They're kind of like a social club,I guess.
She participated in various strikesand actions
led by the Knights,but as the organization kind of declined,
she shifted herfocus to the United Mine Workers.
When Mother Jones becamea prominent union organizer or educator.
And then, she was also a memberof the Socialist Party of America,

(37:49):
which is, you know, these are likethese little things that people are like,
see, communism, I told you, like,these are like the seedlings of this.
Yeah.
She she gained notoriety for organizingwives and children of striking workers
in the demonstrations, earning the titleof the most dangerous woman in America.
Not to be confused with Typhoid Mary, but,one of the, district attorneys

(38:15):
that would go up against her in the 1902
trial would declare herthe most dangerous woman in America.
Unlike many female activists of her time,Jones did not
prioritize women'ssuffrage, famously stating, quote,
you don't need to vote to raise hell,which I love that, that that's awesome.
This ladies, she's a badass.
And also, you know, I feel bad for her.

(38:37):
But even if I didn't know her story,that quote still awesome.
That might be the next T shirt,I don't know.
Let me know if you agree.
I'll get it out before election season.
She believed that advocatingfor the working
class was more importantthan focusing solely on women's rights.
She thought, thoughshe supported any movement that brought,
you know, freedom to her class.

(38:58):
Jones was known for hercharismatic and impactful speeches,
often using props, visual aids,dramatic stunts to make her point.
She spoke in a brogue that was like,you know, it was,
you know, pleasant kind of Irish tone.
People would enjoy listening to herspeak and then, she
you like,she would put crazy inflections on.

(39:18):
And apparently the age of 60,
she embraced the persona, Mother Jonesdeliberately appearing older
by wearing outdated black dressesand referring to male workers as her boys.
This was also a propaganda stunt for her,to get sympathy from people.
You know,so the first, recorded reference
to her as MotherJones appears in a print in 1897, and.

(39:41):
Yeah, yeah, she wouldshe would, like, work this mother angle.
She'd like, I'm just a frail old lady.
And then she'd like.
And also, you guys needed,
you know, she had she would cry,she would say some crazy stuff.
I'll I'll repeat some thingsthat she says in a little bit, but.
So that's the first person maybeI talk too much better, I don't know.
Her story is super,super cool, rad as hell.
And I wanted to share it eitherway. Moving on.

(40:03):
Baldwin Felt's detective Agencynot so much a noir crime
fighting group, but more like a unionstrike busting group.
Think of like the Pinkertons,especially like in the years
after the Wild West chases and whatnot.
The Pinkertons would break rail unionstrikes, and I think they still do that.
I think I think they're still activelydoing things like that.

(40:23):
Happy to have smoked many of them
during my playthroughs of Red DeadRedemption, though, so I, I
yeah, I am not nice to them,I'll tell you that.
The Baldwin Phelps Detective Agencywas founded by William Baldwin in the late
19th century, along with Thomas Phelps, began as a private detective agency
providing security investigatorwriting services for railroads,

(40:45):
particulary particularly in cases of trainrobberies.
Baldwin was originallyfrom Virginia, moved to Roanoke to oversee
the security of the Norfolk or Norfolk,whatever, Western Railway.
Thomas Phelps, he's a lawyer from Virginiaand joined the agency in the 1900.
And then, you know, in 1910,the company was renamed to Baldwin Phelps

(41:06):
Detective Agency.
Agency gained national recognition in 1912during the manhunt for Floyd Allen
and his family after a deadly courtroomshootout in Carroll County, Virginia,
Baldwin Phelps detectives successfullycaptured most of the fugitives,
solidifying their their reputation rightas railroad crime declined
in the early 20th century,they shifted their goals to strike,

(41:27):
breaking working for mine companies, suppress labor unions, their violent tactics.
Would ramp up in West Virginia,
but also in Colorado,in these coalfield struggles.
And then there, you know,in this case in West Virginia,
particularly led by Thomas Phelpsand also his brothers, Albert and Lee.

(41:47):
So those are the people of the detectivesagencies to keep in mind.
Lastly, for this instance,we have Governor William E Glasscock.
Glasscock. Right.
Which Mother Jones has is one of one ofthe things I was going to tell you about.
She referred to him as Crystal.
Peter, for modestysake, is what she said so incredible.
Great burn. For the early 1900s.

(42:10):
Oh, what's that, Mr. Glasscock?
Now, I'm going to call you Crystal Peter,
just to make sure I don't ruinthe modesty of these women here.
Governor
Bailey was the governor of West Virginiaat the beginning of the strike.
But, you know, governorship would change
hands, a few months in or a few monthsbefore it would actually end.
His inclusion is more to paintthe full picture of the strike.

(42:31):
And who was at the opposing side.
He held power to quellany potential violence that may occur,
protect those miners who were strikingand yet refused to do so every chance
that he got. Pretty much so.
The strike started aroundabout in May of 1912,
and by July, MotherJones was already fully involved.
She had organized marchesand petitioned the governor.

(42:51):
In July of that year, she marched with
approximately 3000 miners to Charleston,the state capital, and read a deck.
Declaration of war.
Later that same month, the firstbattle of these Cold War started the mine.
Battle of Mucklow and the mine battle.
The Battle of Mucklow took place onJuly 28th and ended roughly on July 30th.
A lot of the mines that, miners are now,I said it right.

(43:14):
A lot of the mines had created
these rampart like structuresto fortify their positions.
The governorokayed them placing machine guns on them.
So, you know, super casual, a lot of,
a large force of up to 2000 minersarrived.
And over the next two days, over100,000 rounds were spent.
And by the end of this, 16men died, 12 miners, four guards.
During the assault, a group of guardsactually flank the miners advance.

(43:37):
Man moved to the a camp encampmentwhere their children and wives were
and forced them from their tent tentsand chased them into a river.
Yes, that could have been worse.
Not great thoughoutside of the actual battle,
there were many little momentsof mine guards in these Baldwin Fields
detectives coming after miners and smallertaxer miners coming after them.

(43:59):
Either way, either sidepicking the other off by sniper fire
in the woods, jumping them in the woods,real guerrilla warfare type stuff.
The nextmajor movement came on September 1st,
when a large group of 5000 minersjoined in on the current strikers, which,
then inspired governor Earl CrystalPeter to, institute martial law.

(44:20):
Right.
As actually did help to a point,the state troops coming in,
calming things, confiscating weapons.
But then there were like extra rulesthat were now imposed on a group
that were already striking against unfairrules with martial law, military trials,
tribunals.
These kinds of things were used quicklyto adjudicate the miners
and throw them into jail.
The miners were also being forcedto not congregate, which is like

(44:43):
kind of the whole pointof the strikes in congregation.
So this was like more of a direct assaulton the mission.
With martial law in effect, many began
to grow hungry as a unionwere unable to reach people with food.
I forgot to mention that unions
were providing thingslike food and clothes to striking miners
and their familyto supplement their income,
and also like if they were striking,they got kicked out of their houses,

(45:05):
which meant they couldn'tgo to the company store.
And they were all owned by the mines.
And so this was like, we don't haveany money because you only pay us in scrip
and you only let us shop at your store,and now we can't feed our family.
And now we're striking.
Now we definitely can't feed our family.
And now the governor comes inwith these troops,
and now the Union can't even give us foodlike it's.

(45:26):
It's a real big mess.
Mother Jones wanted to do something,so she organized what is known as
an umbrella march, where she anda bunch of pro-union women, some related
the miners, some where they walkthrough the valley where these miners
were, with their umbrellasup to show, like, support.
Look like, look how many of us support, support these things.

(45:46):
And these are just the women, you know,like, this is half essentially of what,
the true number, right?
By mid-October,martial law had been lifted,
but only for a monthbefore it was reinstated.
And then it was likeit would go up and down, up and down.
And what Kansas?
Well, oh, governor CrystalPeter was on his way out.
His successor was about to take the reins.

(46:08):
So I suppose you don't want this messto be
the first thinghe was to worry about right now?
Feels like it, makes sense.
But the actions of, Glasscockwould definitely tell a different.
I can't say his name without laughing.
It's his very ridiculous name.
He gave the okay for one mine.
One of the mine operatorsand owner of a mine to go in and break up

(46:30):
some of the tent citiesthat had popped up.
Quinn Morton I don't think he'srelated to the salt people.
But either way, he had a plan.
He paid for a trainto come through this area.
And this train, it wasn't a normal one.
It was, retrofittedwith armored planning.
You know, like normal trains are
more armor plated than a regular train.

(46:50):
I guess,
as is essentially a riot control vehicle.
Furthermore, what else do you need?
Well, you got to have machine guns.
So you put some machine guns on it, right?
And who do you get to operate these guns?
Sheriff's deputies, mine guards,along with the Baldwin salts guys.
So this train was dubbedthe Bull Moose Special.

(47:11):
And in any other context,I bet it was cool as hell.
As the train rode through this tent city,
they started shootingjust haphazardly all over the place.
Luckily or not,only one person was killed,
but a bunch of people were injured.
And the purpose of this,
while they were serving a warrant to oneJohn Doe for inciting a riot.
So kind of feels likethey just kind of wanted to do that,

(47:33):
to, like, Sir John Doe here.
We're here to serve you a warrantfor inciting a riot or.
This is
what I just it blows my mindlike, imagine,
imagine the last time you went camping.
All the tents all over the place.
People just chilling, living in the woods.

(47:54):
And then.
Now imagine a giant steel trainthat has more steel put on to it.
Firing machine guns at you.
Okay, that's. That's scary.
That's scary.
Isaac Martin himselfwould actually say on this on the topic.
He said we gave them helland had a lot of fun.
Again, psycho. Absolute psycho.
This assault caused a retaliation, which,the miners now had their turn to attack.

(48:18):
They attacked the, mucklow mineas they did
before, and they actually overranthe mine guards this time.
Proceededwith blowing up a bunch of equipment.
Martial law was now placed once again,naturally.
And this, Mother Jones actuallywas arrested this time,
and under martial law,tried for a litany of things, including,
conspiracy to commit a murder, murder,inciting a riot, all these things.

(48:42):
After refusing to enterany kind of plea where she knew
this was a kangaroo court, she was sentenced to 20 years.
So we cool?
Enter Henry Drury Hatfield.
That's right.
Yeah.
You didn't think we'dhave this Appalachian Trail
without some good old fashionedhot smoke dog fog action.
Did you time stoke referencefor those who.
Yeah, for those of youwho know, maybe don't know, Henry Hatfield

(49:05):
is the nephew of one LanceHatfield of the famed Hatfield
and McCoy story, which is also a storyI should do at some point anyway.
Hatfield, Henry Hatfield,or should I say Doctor Hatfield,
as he was a surgeonand served for many years as such?
For what reason? I'm not sure.
But Doctor Hatfield was sympatheticto the plight of the miners.
He supported their cause,

(49:26):
and as soon as he entered officeas governor, he the whole scope changed.
He knowing the Hatfield and McCoy story,then hearing that once a Hatfield shows up
in this and things calm down, it'sobjectively hilarious to me.
But that's that's what happened.
This is very funny.
Hatfield swears in on March 4th, 1913,and right away goes to the area

(49:48):
to render care for injured minersand assess the situation.
He was told by a mine owneror someone similar that it was stupid
for the governor to go to this areain the, in the, in the strike zone.
And being a Hatfield at heart,he punched that guy a bunch of times.
So heck yeah, he found Mother Jones, sawhow poor of health she was.
And then he issued an orderto have her transferred to a hospital.

(50:13):
He also issued a compromise to the minersrefusal to the contract,
which was, you're going to have to leaveWest Virginia.
That was his compromise.
Like, I'm going to help you guys out.
If you don't like this, you can leave.
Also, very Hatfield of him,I guess, I suppose.
And honestly,probably not a bad idea, right?
Considering miner unions were in, like,all of the other states, but,

(50:37):
still a hassle.
They were, orderednine hour workdays, right?
The right to shop at independent stores,not just company stores
and having union reps there for Wayne.
So they got a few of the thingsthey were asking for, but not everything.
More fallout from this is that there wereinvestigations by the Senate.
They were called in,
the former governor to testifyand made him look real dumb, which I love.

(50:59):
The Senatecommittee cited on the side of the miners
stating that situation in WestVirginia was fraught with greed
and deplorable and unAmerican condition,which these miners were.
It sounds like a win to me.
Things calm down in West Virginia,but there was another fight in Colorado,
which you kind of briefly mentionedin response to poor working conditions.
You know, the United,
the United Mine Workers of Americatried to reach out into Colorado,

(51:23):
but they were violently opposed,by the coal companies.
And then the Baldwin Phelpsagents also helped in here,
which led to the Ludlow or Ludlow.
Ludlow,I'm going to say Ludlow Massacre of 1914,
where the Colorado National Guard troopsattacked a tent colony of striking miners
which killed 19 people,including women and children.

(51:47):
And this would actually spark the Coloradocoal fired coal, Colorado coal fueled
war, where, I mean, it was essentiallya different version of the same story.
That's a different story.
Well, right.
We're we're focused on West Virginia
here, back to the coal wars of WestVirginia, World War one, you're familiar.
Well, the break out of the war, actually,and you US involvement created

(52:10):
quite the bargaining chip for the minerswho were finally being treated
with respect.
Miners were actually exempt from the draftduring World War One.
They were paid properly.And more importantly, they were busy.
And while they were exempt, a lot ofminers did volunteer to go fight the war.
But the war meant a massive uptickin the need for coal, which was being used
for pretty much everything.
President Woodrow Wilson,while being seen as not, favoring labor

(52:34):
unions, actually supported the minersand steel workers in these unions
that were fundamentalto the American mission.
Apparently.
Now, after the war, however, the thewhen the easiest thing to do to secure
profits was to go back to paying themless than what
what they wanted to the coal companiesdid that.
The war ended, and coal companiesalso had no fear

(52:57):
to give people to oppose these unions,which was that
they were obviously goingto become communism.
The communist agenda is going to overthrowtheir government over the Red scare.
It's happeningthat that that was the move.
Just Russia just fell.
I mean, I don't think they call it
Russia back there,but that's what's happening over there.

(53:18):
And this could happen here.
The end of the war
also saw a decrease in demand, a demandthat peaked during the war.
Well after the war, naturally.
And coal being one of the things
that was very heavilyneeded during the war drastically fell.
Millions across the country actually wenton strike in the years following the war.
Not just miners, but everybody.

(53:39):
The economy slowed down, jobspaid less than before or at all.
Right.
That scared the scaredthe US government in the Red scare
was beginning to spread, which workedin total opposition of any union progress.
As progressslumped, union leaders tried new tactics,
specifically newly appointed PresidentJohn Lewis and along with Frank Keeney

(54:01):
and Fred Mooney, aimed to spread unionsall the way through West Virginia.
There are some holdout,even though the majority of West Virginia
coal mines had been unionized,
a few counties in the southernbit of the state still abstained.
Union activity pushed into the last majorbastion
of holdouts,Mingo and Logan counties, West Virginia.
This movement prompted the mine operatorsto send the Baldwin Felts agents

(54:24):
to Matewan, a town in Mingo County,to begin working against the Union.
Now, MingoCounty has a little bit of a history, one
connected to the former governorof West Virginia, Doctor Hatfield.
That's right.
Yeah.
This is also the location of the famousHatfield and McCoy skirmish.
So you can imagine that people around heredon't really take kindly

(54:45):
to the roughand tumble ways of the detective agency
and the coal operatorsin writing and striking that.
Yeah, you'd be correct.
These are some people who are like wherewe'll fight everybody right now.
Now, I mentioned that these two countieswere not unionized,
but that doesn't mean that there weren'tsupporters of the union within them.

(55:05):
Enter Mayor Campbell, Testament.
Mayor Testament was very supportiveof worker rights in his support.
He appointed a police chiefwho aligned with this ideology.
Testament was a business ownervoted in by miners, and because of that,
he felt he was loyal to the minerswho had helped secure him as mayor.
Testament brought in a kind of wildcandidate as, the chief of police,

(55:28):
someone who was definitely goingto stand up for what he believes in.
That man is Sid Hatfield.
Yes. Another another half field.
Another reference to the infamous Hatfieldand McCoy skirmish.
Right.
Not a direct Hatfieldlike Doctor Hatfield earlier said, is
the grandson of Lanza's half brother,half Hatfield, half crazy, really?

(55:49):
No, no,
and I think he was.
I think he was really crazy.
Sid had one of those local reputations.
Like, he's like a local myth, almost,he is a hothead
and one who had the shooting skillsto back it up.
Is this who you want as your police chief?
I would say normally. Probably not.
But in these circumstances, seems likeit's probably probably the best choice.

(56:11):
Sid notoriously always carried aroundtwo long revolvers.
He like he was in like, the old Westand often acted as such by the time
he was the police chief, he had goldcap teeth and some of his upper set.
FN also was given the name of Smile
and Sid, which would come back aroundto hard nosed, rough and tumble.
Shoot him updrinking love and fighting cowboy.

(56:33):
Okay, right.
Like he that's who he was.
Perfect for the task at hand. Really,if you ask me.
He even, stopped drinkingwhen it when he realized
it affected his ability to shoot properly.
It is like like an antique holiday.
Bizarro world, doc holiday, if you will.
And he was a miner in his younger days.
So obviously he was very pro minor prominor.

(56:55):
Right.
And he was only 26 when he was appointed
police chief, which, you know, backthen, people age differently, I guess.
But he's it is kind of crazy to me,being almost 30 years old now
and somebody four yearsyounger than me is like,
I'm the shooting peopleand I'm the chief of police.
And we're going towe're going to get these guys.

(57:15):
The Baldwin felt the, the Baldwin felt.
Detective agents have traveled to Matewannow, planned their union blocking.
They're going to put guns uptop local buildings, do a show for sure.
Like, hey, we're going to
we're going to really prevent these guysfrom circulating their union stuff,
which this is like some Gestapolevel behavior by the mine operators,

(57:39):
which is super ironic
because the Red scare is like runningrampant in America at this point.
And Americansfearful of unions and labor strikes
as if they were goingto overthrow the country and communism.
When the mine operators at these so-calleddetectives were behaving
exactly how like Stalin would be like,you guys are doing a great job.

(58:02):
His hilarious.
Before and during the striking
railroads near mine towns were manned
by mine guards who were checking peoplewhere they were going.
A myron's family taking train. Why?
Where are you going? What are you doing?
What business you got going on?
People coming in, find out who they are,who they work for, what they want.
They immediatelykicked families out of their homes,

(58:24):
which they livedwhile, working at the mines.
Any whiff of a strike,they kicked them out, right?
They slashed tents and temporary housing,which these people stayed
afterthey had been kicked out of these houses.
They burned encampments,fired guns into them via armored trains.
And all these crazy things.
And yet the people who just wantedto be treated fairly
for insanely dangerousand genuinely hard work.

(58:47):
These people are the social leeches.
All right, all right.
So the Baldwin fellows and mineoperators are in these towns
trying to set up some union suppressionsystems. Right.
Men come through town, approach,a man walking down the street.
Hey, you own this building here?He says he does.
They ask if they can placea sentry gun on there, and he says no.
And they're like, don't you hate unions?

(59:08):
And he's like, actually,I'm mayor. That's my building.
You can get lost. You.
They tried to bribe him.
Mayor Testament said, no thanks.
I like the unions. You can leave.
And they're like, well, we're servingeviction notices for these guys.
And he says, no, this is my jurisdiction.

(59:29):
I'm the mayor of this town.
That land is under my jurisdiction.
You can't evict anybodywithout my signature, essentially.
So now they're in, like the stalemate.
Those guys run off.
He runs off to get an actual warrant
drawn up so he can arrest these agentswhile he's doing this.
These, agents actually end up going inand evicting these people anyway.

(59:50):
So the days May 19th, 1920, and a dozenor so of these agents are evicting people.
Mayor Testament gets ChiefHatfield gets their war ready to go,
goes down, to find these agentswho are now chilling.
By this point, they and they're waitingunder the awning of a hardware store,
and they had already evictedpeople in the rain.

(01:00:13):
That's why they're under signingand they're hanging out.
And he comes up and he's like,I got this warrant for you.
And they said, well,I got a warrant for you.
And then nobody knows what happens.
But shots rang out.
Nobody knows who shot first.
I still say on shotfirst, but that's just me.
Regardless, gunfire
erupted, which no doubt delighted, said.

(01:00:35):
I bet he was ecstatic.
He's like, let's, let's go do.
15 minutes later, seven detectives
and two minersand Mayor Testament are all dead.
Of the seven detectives,Albert and Lee Felts of the
of the Felts, half of the Baldwin Feltsname.
They're Thomas's brothers.
Right after this, Sid is arrested,taken on trial

(01:00:58):
and they weren't able to prosecute himbecause their trial, they couldn't find
anybody who was impartial to him,didn't know him in the area.
And also, one of their lead witnessesactually was working
for the porcelain Felts detective Agencyis a very messy, messy thing.
So that's not what you want.
Sid Hatfield became this localhero, even more so than he already was.

(01:01:20):
So then they started to dosome propagandizing.
They used the fact that Sid had beenvery familiar with the mayor's wife.
Both beforeand after he died, and in response, Sid
and the mayor's widow got marriedlike right after that.
So, you know,people think that this kind of points
to some people, not everybody,but some people think that this action

(01:01:43):
actually points to the fact that maybeHatfield had actually killed the mayor.
But this could also just be a rumorthat the agents
decided to spread to, to, like,kick down his legacy a little bit.
And while these trials are goingon, you know, strikes were continuing
in Mingo and Logan, Logan
County agents and my guards continuedevicting people from their cabins.

(01:02:04):
And while they did that,
they also raided their tent cities,which resulted in the deaths of a few.
Following the main Matawan massacre,
at least 26 minershave been killed in raids similar to this.
Some agents as well on August 1st,1921, said Hatfield and his deputy
were actually,being charged in a different case.
They they had charged himwith demolition of mining equipment.

(01:02:28):
He's apparently blowing stuff up,and they got him in a different county
than his home county.
So he he arrives and many believe
retrospectively that this was justto get him out of his home county,
get him away from his, you know, homefield advantage essentially.
And the reason they think that isbecause, well, when Hatfield

(01:02:50):
in his deputy, Ed Chambers,and their wives climbed
the steps of the courthouse,they were gunned down.
He said, was killed instantly.
He shot four times.
Ed chambers fell down the steps,and then an agent had walked up
and shot him pointblank in the back of the head
while his wife cried for themnot to do that.
So that's that's pretty dark.

(01:03:12):
It's one thing to get into, like a,like a shootout with other armed people,
but like, straight up assassinatingpeople like, this is actually, like,
a little different.
Could just be it could just be mebeing a fan of the Hatfields in the story,
I don't know.
But these shots did more to inspirethat union,
than any singular bulletthat Sid had fired.

(01:03:34):
He was now a martyr to this cause,and the brutality of the hit on him
and chambers was one
that would get the miners fighting harderthan they had fought previously.
Their funeral, Hatfield and Chambers.
His funeral had thousands in attendancefrom miners all over
the hills came to show their loyaltyand appreciation.
Frank Keeney and FredMooney were hard at work, raising word of,

(01:03:55):
word of one of the largest, marchesthey had done at this point.
And Mother Jones was helping them.
Six days following the retributionshooting of Hatfield and his deputy
at chambers, Keeney and Company arranged a 5000 miners
strong march to the state capitoland then a meeting with the governor,
Governor Esther Morgan.
In their meeting,Governor weighed their, demands

(01:04:17):
and told themthat he would respond to their demands.
After thinking about them more, weekand half later, they got his answer,
which they did not like.
Full rejection,citing the violence in Mingo
and blaming it squarely on unionactivists.
Right.
So soon a new march is being preparedand Mother Jones not actually involved
this time she, she said, no,I don't, condone this thing.

(01:04:39):
You you should not do this.
Which kind of kind of weirdbecause she just literally
just helped themarrange this 5000 man march.
And in this, like, famous instance, Keene is speaking,
and Mother Jones is like,I have a telegram from President Harding
which is says that the mine guardsare going to their band

(01:04:59):
or whatever, and Keeney takes itand it's like, this is fake.
We're going in like Mother Jones.
That's where she departs the story.
So the kind of a sad ending to her, hertale.
She's kind of a rapscallion up until this.
And then she kind of went full turncoata little bit.
Now, people around her
say that she was definitely not heryounger self at this point.

(01:05:21):
She's just getting up there and years.
And she literally fled West Virginia.
Never came back. So unfortunate.
But one day later, some 10,000 minersmarched in unison, many of them having
fought in the First WorldWar, were led by a man
who had been, instrumental
in some of the early Union activities,Bill Blizzard.

(01:05:43):
He actually wasa veteran of these strikes.
He's he's been around for a while.
This is 1921.
He's seen some things. He'she knows what to do.
All these guys are marching in unison,wearing their other overalls.
And they had the red bandanas.
The red bandana being a really famousmarker for these marches is also,
you know, a symbol of the movement,the red neck bandana,

(01:06:05):
right, that nobody knowswhere it originates, for sure.
But like miners, were using thisin many of the miners at this time
were immigrantsand a lot of them from Scotland, Ireland,
which also those people used red bandanasto protest the Catholic Church
and then in the first use
of the red bandanain the United States, is also tied to

(01:06:28):
the first strikes in the United States,which is the railroad strikes of 1877.
Are all of those connected?Probably. Maybe. I don't know,
but there's.
Yeah. And it would make sense. Right.
So the battalion of 10,000 headed up by abill Blizzard made made their way,
made their way across these, counties.

(01:06:49):
Meanwhile, Logan County Sheriff DonSchaefer
and built up defenses of machineguns, rifles, even airplanes.
That's right.
We're going to have some Red Baron actionin the skies.
Schaefer prepared some 30, 3000
men on Blair Mountain, which was,you know, they had the high ground right?
So for the first time since the Civil War,armed civilians fighting armed civilians

(01:07:11):
in this like, massive insurrection,these men approached.
But President Harding was like, all right,
I think we're getting a little too crazy.
This is this is, I'll bringI'll bring the army down there.
Don't make me do it.
And might not.
Operators,I guess, probably were excited about this
because a lot of these miners were formermilitary.
So, like,they're not going to shoot troops.

(01:07:33):
They're they're fighting the companies,not these soldiers.
That's not the goal. Right?
So when they found that out,they left there.
They did a turn around Tuesday.
They were like, nope, nope.
We're not doing it.
But reports of raids on some tent campsand some exaggerated claims of what
was actually going on in these tent campsactually fanned the flames of the war.

(01:07:55):
And on August 19th,the Battle of Blair Mountain had begun,
which is an all right, no, no wages.
Gun battles broke out, minerscommandeered trains to reach the sights,
the high position and the entrenchedforces made a solid defensive
spot for the agents.
Gunfire rained down machine guns,rifles, snipers all around the biplanes

(01:08:18):
that Schaefer had hired out soaredabove the battlefield, dropping pamphlets,
which is whatthey were supposed to be dropping,
but also they made pipe bombs
and they were droppingpipe bombs on these miners.
So they're actively just like doing bombcampaigns, which is crazy to me.
Did any miners get hit?
Most of the sourcesI say say, I read, say no.

(01:08:39):
But you know, who knows?Just the fact that they attempted it.
I think it's pretty crazy.
As the situation grew in fearof the larger escalation ramped up,
President Harding had to step in.
At this point, National Guard of WestVirginia was sent in
over 3 or 4 days of actual fightingand started to die down when they arrived.
As stated, many of the minersbeing veterans themselves and the union

(01:09:02):
not wanting to fight the government, justthe companies was kind of a main thing.
Everyone and a seen it
that this was a point at which it had gonea little too far.
Bill Blizzardordered the men to return home,
and by the end of the battle,between 50 and 100 miners had been killed.
30 agents were also killed,along with four soldiers.
So, over the next four years,thousands of miners

(01:09:22):
were tried for treason, murder,conspiracy, commit murder, and,
you know, things along those reasons,the charge, the charges of treason.
A lot of those got thrown out because, it was argued
that they were fightingthe coal companies, not the government.
Like they're not tryingto overthrow the government.
They were fighting literallyjust the private companies.
So a number of them were dropped.

(01:09:44):
But a lot of murders, murder chargesand conspiracy
to commit murder did stick,I think about 400 or so of them.
Meanwhile,the coal companies had some ideas on
how to move forward in the fallout of this.
There's they move for all the same summerpropaganda tactics.
They,
their, their battle was
over on the actual battlefield,but they felt that, you know, to continue

(01:10:06):
they had to repair their reputation,which had taken a lot of hits,
and they couldn'tafford to really have any more hits taken.
So they were proactive about it.
They lobbied school boards, hiredGhost Company to spread pro coal,
anti-union propaganda to the schoolsof West Virginia, and succeeded
thanks to the coal companies.
Anything negative about their reputationwas not being placed inside schools.

(01:10:28):
They actually, you know, playedto the McCarthy era, Red scare panic
that they, you know, were like,hey, if young people see that,
this is like,think of what could happen in this country
as people know what can happen,you know, this kind of thing.
So the idea of workers
wanting rights being a cautionary talefor the spread of communism
is some black magic propaganda which pitsblue collar workers against one another.

(01:10:53):
It's very crazy to me.
Over the next few years they would workhard at getting, textbooks made.
They actually had textbooks made for
West Virginia, which were
instituted in 1931,used for like 40 years, which is crazy.
No mention of Blair Mountain, SidHatfield, Mother Jones.
Nuff why?
Because I made it all. No, no, no,

(01:11:14):
that would be crazy, right?
Regardless, they were successful
in spreading these revamped versionsof their history during this time.
While the unions flounderedin the aftermath, nationally,
coal mines dwindled even furtherand further away from World War One.
The worse it got as demand fell.
There's also an increase in electricitysweeping the nation as well.

(01:11:35):
It's growing interest in utilizing oil.
Coal was still being used,but it now held a so much smaller share
than it was used to,and so many mines were not as necessary.
While unions and other stateswere able to secure stable
wages for their miners,West Virginia battled on.
Their struggle would continue.
And then when the stock market crashed
in 1929 and led to the Great Depression,that made things even worse.

(01:11:58):
Just seven years after the Battle of BlairMountain, coal miners all over,
but especially in West Virginia, struggledto find work.
Places like Colorado,
also still had massive strikes going on,which didn't help matters.
Still, fighting persisted.
Frank Keeney tried to organize more minersgathering around 25,000 this time
but still unable to gain any progress,and then soon fade

(01:12:19):
from union activism as he tried to failedtoo many times, I'm assuming.
In fact, it wasn't until a senatorfrom Nebraska, you're welcome
who sponsored a bill to make people,
free to unionize, specificallythe full freedom of association,
which was not to be infringedby employers.
George Norris had, you know, experiencedthis plight of the miners

(01:12:41):
while traveling in the Eastwith Fiorello LaGuardia.
And they co-sponsored this bill.
And passage
seemed to reflect the public perceptionof the unions and coal miners as well.
A second name, LaGuardia, is actually
the name of a major airport in New York,which he helped get made.
So that's kind of a little funfact here for you.
This act actually had little immediateimpact, as the unions had exhausted

(01:13:02):
many of their funds over the past decadefighting the good fight,
and could not really seize this newopportunity given to them by this new act.
As soon enough, Franklin Delano Rooseveltwould take office and begin his campaign
trying to lift the economy back upfrom the depths of the Great Depression.
And part of this was getting Americansback to work.
Passages of acts like the Recovery Act

(01:13:22):
pave the way for workersto be treated fairly and with respect,
and also for corporations pay play fairlyin terms of their prices and wages.
Things began to change.
The unions were no longerfought against, were federally
allowed to function,and they did exactly that.
They would fight for the things
that had been tried to fight for,for like decades before,
and even improved many thingslike safety measures, shorter workweeks

(01:13:44):
and other benefits which were instrumentalin improving morale.
Private security agencies like the Baldwinfelt agencies were no longer able
to be employed against people simplytrying to unionize.
In the decades after coal wars, coal mines faced new problems in the coal
industry, had grappled
with persistent safety hazardsand troubling record of fatalities.

(01:14:06):
Despite these advancements of technologyand regulations,
catastrophic explosions, roof collapses,chronic health,
health issues like black lung diseasehave continued to plague miners.
Many of these dangerous stemmedfrom inadequate safety
measures, outdated infrastructureand insufficient oversight,
while legislationsuch as the Federal Coal Mining,
Health and Safety Act of 1969sought to improve conditions, enforcement

(01:14:29):
has often been inconsistent,allowing unsafe practices to persist.
The resistance of coal out of the coalindustry to stricter regulation.
Termite concerns of increasedoperational costs further exacerbated
these safety challenges.
The weakening of laborunions, particularly the United Mine
Workers of America,the one we've been talking about
has also contributedto deterioration of working conditions.

(01:14:52):
As union power waned, minerslost a vital advocate for safe,
safer workplaces, leading to environmentwhere companies increase,
where companies increasinglyprioritized profits over safety.
And this erosion of union influencecoincided with a broader decline
in the coal industry,as economic pressures and competition
from other energy sourcesled to the closure of many mines.

(01:15:14):
These closures, while economicallydevastating to mine mining communities,
also introduced new safety risks as aging,poorly
maintained minesbecame increasingly hazardous.
Compounding these issues,the environmental and health impacts of
coal mining have extended beyond the minesthemselves, affecting surrounding the
surrounding communities with contaminatingwater supplies and air pollution.

(01:15:36):
The shift towards cleaner energyhas, further strained the industry, as
companies struggle with the challengesof maintaining safety in declining market.
You know, how are you going to pay forsafety retrofitting
when the money isn't there, as it was?
There used to be?
Public awareness of these dangershas grown, leading to legal actions

(01:15:56):
against negligent companies.
But significant safety concernsremain, highlighting
the enduring risks facedby those who work in the coal industry.
From 1935 until now, coal mining inthe United States has been responsible
for more than 100,000 deaths, reportedly,which, you know, doesn't look great.
In the 1930s, the 50s fatality rateswere particularly high,

(01:16:18):
with thousands of minersminers losing their lives each year.
Over 1400 in 1936 alone.
Situation gained improve in the 60sand 70s, especially after the passage
of the federal Coal Mine Health and SafetyAct of 1969, which prompted
like a decrease in fatalitiesdue to several hundred per year.
The trend of declining deathscontinued into the 1980s

(01:16:39):
and 90s, with annual fatalities
dropping to double digits,averaging around 50 to 100 per year.
More recent years, fatalitieshave further decreased or decreased,
not disgraced, with numbers generallyin the teens or single digits each year,
which like more most recently 12 in 2019at five and 2020.
Now, deep in coal country,

(01:17:00):
there's a strenuous relationshipto the coal companies.
Still to this day.
In research for this episode,I watched a few documentaries,
on both the coal warsand the coal industry,
and it's pretty hard to wrap my mindaround, like just being in that.
I can't quite put myself
in these people shoes,but I can definitely understand
some of the angerthat they might have had.
And when I watched,they discuss the mining companies

(01:17:21):
that basically employedsome reverse psychology to the miners
and were doing thingslike calling workers members
if they toed the line and did bestthey could for the company, and people
who just showed up for paycheckswere referred to as employees.
Creating this differenceof like them us versus them mentality.
Right.
In that same documentarycalled blood on the mountain,
there were scenes of families,of workers of these, like members

(01:17:43):
who were at like a company picnic,and they were putting on
like this performance to demonstratehow much they love the company.
And it just felt odd to me,especially like knowing the history now.
They were trying like,too hard to be desired by the company.
They're just like, well,we just love being members.
We just love being members of thisgreat company.
It's like,all right, who are you saying this for?

(01:18:05):
Another fantastic documentaryabout the hold that the coal companies had
on the region was called King Coal,which were really, really
it showed this arduous relationship
between the communitiesand the coal operators, the coal mines.
To this day,these stories are not as widely
known as they should be, in my opinion,and and not even, like, heard about them.
And if I did, I didn't remember.

(01:18:25):
But you'd think I would haveconsidering this story.
This story had it all.
Betrayal, gun battles, armored trains,airplanes, dropping bombs on people.
Some things I want to, take away fromthis is that these people who they just
wanted to be treated with the respectthat their profession should have been.
It blows my mind when people likethis are like, told how important your
your job is.
This is the most important job.

(01:18:46):
You're doing all this for all these people
and they're and like how much they providefor everyone else.
And then they're treated worse thanthe machines they use to do their job.
I think it's important to remember keyfigures in efforts like of these miners,
like their families, who like all, smiledand said, Hatfield, Frank Keeney,
Fred Mooney, John Lewis, mother Jonesfor the most part, all these people

(01:19:10):
and so many more, you know, spoke out,acted on behalf of those who were like,
needed that extra help.
Like, obviously a lot of themwere too scared to lose their livelihoods.
People who may have been evicted, thrownin the rain end up hungry.
These people risked everythingto be treated like equals, and many
never even saw that like thatday ever happened, which is unfortunate.

(01:19:31):
In the end,the coal companies won, I think.
Unfortunately. Right.
Even to this day, companiesall around are making insane profits
off the backs of people who are underpaid,overworked, and left with no choice
but to keep working.
This episode makes me think
how companies use like part time workersfor example, to their advantage.
Specifically, like in retail,so many retail businesses are propped up

(01:19:53):
by these part time workers who receivedno benefits,
making less than their full timeequivalents.
There are more part time employeesto cover their time slots
that would otherwisebe taken by a full time employee.
These yeah, you're hiring more people, butyou're you're creating higher turnover.
Maze needs like don't care about thatbecause they don't have to improve

(01:20:13):
any working conditions or expectations.
If they just replace these part timeemployees over and over and over.
Right.
And also, if you're not paying benefitsand you're paying part time wages,
you can afford these things, right?
It makes me think about places likeAmazon, how they'd rather like pay fines
to cut corners than to change things,improve their workers quality of life.

(01:20:33):
How so often companies will dowhatever they can to make the most money.
And going back
to the beginning of the Cold Wars,we see that the quickest way for companies
to make profit is to cut wages, benefits,hours and so on at the workers expense.
Did thisepisode make me full on communist?
No. Not really. No, I don't.
I think that advocatingfor the rights of people making companies

(01:20:55):
millions and billions of dollarsjust seems like common sense to me.
I don't know, I, I think that there'sso many ways for people
to be treated fairly that don't end upin overthrowing the regime.
Right. But what do I though?
I did mention that I wanted to talk about
another song that came to mind immediatelyin this, episode.
Right at the beginning, the song is, called Brave Awakening by Terry Reed,

(01:21:17):
the English singer, comparable to someonelike Robert Plant of LED Zeppelin.
Wow. Levi is a crazy person.
What makes you say that?
Well, according to rock lore,Jimmy Page actually
wanted him to join LED Zeppelin,so that's pretty cool.
The song itself portrays
the life of the coal minerswhile coal mines begin to shut down,
seemingly because of lowdemand and economic turmoil,

(01:21:38):
maybe changing of the demandof which energy source they're using.
Right?
I wanted to leave the song to the end
because I wanted to playjust a little bit of it,
just so you can hearthe intensity of the vocals,
and hopefully it leaves you thinking aboutthe anguish of the miners in the story,
that this song was writtenfrom the perspective of someone in the UK,
not the US, but I feel like It's worthSharing is still very similar.

(01:22:00):
The song opens with the singerspeaking to their mother,
singing for the young menwho are fearing for the young men
who don't have much leftas the mines are closing down, mentioning
that there's no more coal to go down to,the companies are
lessening, children are no longerplaying outside or gathering.
The speaker says they fear
for the young men traveling to the townwhere their money is bound to.

(01:22:22):
That doubt is unable to lessen the reasonsto send them down to the mines
for more work.
And the next bit is whereI want to play from show.
Here it isThe Brave Awakening by Terry Reed.
Other.
I mean for the land you

(01:22:43):
to fall in.
No one goes down.
Facing some land.
Oh boy, I might be found to. Hey.
All right, so you catch that?

(01:23:03):
As, fathers are statingthat the face of a mine
where no boy of mineis going to be bound to anymore, right?
This is likespeaking on some generational trauma,
like actually preventing the child from,like, you're not going to work there.
Luckily for you, mines closed.
But also, I don't want you tobecause I don't want you to be bound
to that anymore. Right.

(01:23:24):
These men who don't wish this fatefor their children
continuing on.
You just a
brave new awakening.
You have to no more.
Go back down.

(01:23:47):
All right, so you know the.
This is the brave new awakening.
The future has no more to go back downto, right?
Nothing for these men. They're
vows of this earth.
Let's take you here.
We've been up here. Oh.

(01:24:10):
Oh, no.
Finally.
You know
how you try,

(01:24:32):
All right,so that part, the bowels of earth,
that will take you away from homeand more.
That's.
That's the part where he's, like, singingout, take you away from home and more.
And then he's just kind of,like, riffing on that part.
Like just the anguish he puts in his voiceright there just always gets me right.
Like that.
It never has gone up.

(01:25:00):
No no no no no. I'm
very powerful, very like.
And you know, like this is had to havebeen how some of these men felt, right.
They, they, they felt stuck in the spot.
They couldn't do anythingother than continue to work.
They didn't have very many opportunities.
A lot of them tricked, essentially

(01:25:20):
a lot of immigrantscoming to this country for a new life.
They're like, I don't have any penniesto my name, right?
I'm going to America.
And they're like,hey, come work at the mines.
Like, you look like a hard worker.
Come on down.
We'll set you up with a caband we'll give you some money.
We'll give you some,this and that, and then, you know,

(01:25:40):
and then they just, like, incur this,like, serfdom debt almost.
It's crazy. And like.
And these people, you know,had this responsibility to their family.
They wanted to do what they couldto feed their children and wives and.
Yeah, anyway, that's it.
That's that's the end of this longand weaving tale of workers and the fights
they fought, just to be seen as regular,valuable people for the job.

(01:26:04):
They're really doing no real conclusions
to draw from this, no modern day parallelsthat we can glean out of this one.
Now, nowhere is this a cautionary tale.
I'm blown awayhow prevalent this story is from
now being over 100 years old today.
And, that's.
Yeah, I'm really excited to hearwhat you guys all think.
Please remember, like I said, dropin comments on YouTube, Facebook,

(01:26:29):
in the group.
I would love to know what you thoughtabout the episode, what to your takes are
did you like the songs I recommended?
Did you like hearing it?
Did you hear it at all?
I don't know howthis is actually going to work.
If it, I'm a little nervousthat it'll get cut for some reason,
but I feel like I.
I did the thing that like the reactionpeople on Facebook or on YouTube do.

(01:26:51):
So I feel like it's probably right.
But I know this one'skind of been a longer one.
I think this is probably that wrap it up a little bit, but
I also think it was, one of the better episodes I've done.
I want to urge everybody to watchthose documentaries that I mentioned,
King Cole and Blood on the mountain,and there's a bunch more.
If you want to hear more about this topic,those are some good recommendations.

(01:27:14):
Also, go listen to the podcastBehind The Bachelors.
They did a really good two parteron this topic.
I think it's called the Second CivilAmerica, Second Civil War or something
like that. Part one and two.
Excellent.
Two parter.
And then, what else?
Oh, there's,the West Virginia mine Wars Museum.
They had a bunch of informationthat I use.

(01:27:35):
There's a lot of really good researchpoints, a lot of good links in there
that I used in this episode.
And is actually one of the peoplethat helped found it.
Is a great grandson of Frank Keeney,
Doctor Charles Keeney,which I think is awesome.
But he's continuing this legacy,sharing the story wall, you know,

(01:27:55):
some textbooks, some history classes
don't share this thing,which is wild to me.
So he's he's doingthey're doing well, not just him.
Everybody atthe museum is doing their part
to keep this history alive,which is very important.
And then don't forgetto check out our friends.
The real creature feature,the Makeup emporium, the Dark Windows

(01:28:18):
Podcast with the two Kevins, and then Westof Nowhere with, with a K and,
three other show.
If you made it this far, obviously.
Please review us wherever possible.
Like subscribe on the YouTube,follow on Facebook,
join the group, share historymemes, talk about the episode.
Check out the merchwhich is in the description.

(01:28:40):
All the links are in the description.
And thank you to everybody for your timeand we will do it again real soon. Bye.

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