Mine Safety
The anthracite mine worker, who worked in some of the most dangerous mines in the world, now actively sought higher safety standards. The insistence of the operators that safety regulations be universally applied compelled the mine workers to use political methods to achieve their goal.
Third-party politics provided a means by which the mine workers could attempt to make the political system responsive to their demands. The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association had early tried to use this means. Rooted in the eight-hour movement and associated with the political-minded National Labor Union, the W.B.A. naturally joined the Labor Reform movement, and the first Labor Reform Party convention under the auspices of the union in Schuylkill County began on August 16, 1870 at Saint Clair. Each delegate cast one vote for every 300 men represented, and the convention nominated a ticket which crossed major party lines. The new political party expected its candidates to pay their own campaign expenses, but appointed a five-man campaign committee and asked each union district to have three men distribute ballots on election day.
The Labor Reform Party, however, suddenly withdrew its ticket. Nobody explained this action, but the strongly Republican Miners’ Journal implied that the W.B.A. had made a deal with the Democrats. John Siney, the president of the W.B.A., added credence to the Journal’s charges by writing an open letter to the W.B.A.’s newspaper, the Anthracite Monitor, after the election urging the formation of a labor party again now that “the election is over.”1
The labor union held another political convention during the following year, but not because John Siney urged it. The Democratic Party had outraged the union by failing to renominate James McKeon, the “friend of the workingmen,” for the legislature. The Labor Reform Party, borrowing occasionally from the larger political organizations, nominated a full ticket. Its platform called for anti-monopoly measures, repeal of the conspiracy act, economy in government, and the establishment of a Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new party endorsed the protective tariff, once again demonstrating the W.B.A.’s identification of labor’s welfare with that of the employer. This time the ticket was not withdrawn and the Labor Reform Party showed surprising strength in its first election by receiving approximately one-fourth of the vote in Schuylkill County. The Labor Reform Party in Carbon County received a smaller percentage, while the Northumberland County W.B.A. did not engage in politics.
Exhilarated by its performance, the Schuylkill County Labor Reform Party convened for a second time on August 13, 1872, with great expectations for the forthcoming campaign. Viewing itself as a separate party, the committee on credentials refused to seat delegates who were Democrats. After John Siney, the permanent chairman, quieted a few representatives who had had too much to drink, the convention began selecting candidates. After some debate the party nominated a full ticket, but few liked the results. Siney grumbled about “murdering the infant,” and the Mahanoy City branch refused to support the ticket.
The nomination of Cyrus L. Pershing for president judge had caused the disillusionment.2 Pershing was a native of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, and had never been in Schuylkill County. Prior to his candidacy, he had for 20 years been an attorney for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and many considered him to be Franklin B. Gowen’s personal choice. Ironically Pershing was one of the few labor candidates who won the election.
Few mine workers were interested in their third party after the 1872 fiasco; only through the insistence of the Mahanoy City branch was a county convention called in 1874. The convention did not nominate a full ticket, and most of its candidates also sought election under the banner of the Republican Party.
While the Labor Reform Party in Schuylkill County declined, the Wyoming-Lackawanna miners also ventured into third-party politics. In September 1875 a group called the Independent Labor Movement Committee met in Scranton. Concluding that the major parties had ignored the wishes of labor, the committee called for a convention. To insure that the convention would represent only workingmen, the committee requested that each labor union forward to it a list of its delegates. The convention assembled but was unable to adopt a program. The Independent Labor Movement Committee, however, continued to hold meetings during the campaign.
The declining fortunes of the Labor Reform Party led to a merger of this party with the Greenback Party. Greenbackism strongly appealed to the anthracite regions. Heavy capitalization demands made many independent operators receptive to the idea of an inflated currency. In order to service an expanding market, local businessmen favored cheaper credit which, they felt, an inflation would produce. All classes identified the welfare of the anthracite industry with the iron industry, and many iron producers favored the greenback.3
In 1877 the Luzerne County Labor and Greenback Parties officially merged, following the state and national trend. The platform of the Greenback-Labor Reform Party called for the abolition of prison labor, criminal rather than civil action against violators of the 1875 wage law requiring standard scales, and a more equitable system of taxation. The party also supported Hendrick B. Wright’s Homestead Bill, which would give the prospective homesteader a federal grant to enable him to go west. Thus armed, the Greenback-Labor Reform Party carried the county. The following year the remnants of the Labor Reform Party in Schuylkill County merged with the Greenbackers and carried Mahanoy City, Ashland, Frackville, Gilberton, Shenandoah, and Cass Township.
Despite its early victories the Greenback-Labor Reform Party soon failed. In 1881 the Schuylkill County organization acknowledged its impotency by fusing with the Republican Party; it remained an adjunct to the minority party thereafter. In Luzerne County the third-party organization sought refuge in the Democratic Party.
The failure of the Greenback-Labor Party produced a lull in the mine workers’ interest in third parties until Henry George’s single tax crusade inspired a revival of political activity. The major result of the renewed interest was the formation of the Land and Labor Party of Luzerne County. During the 1887 campaign the Land and Labor Party called for the application of a single tax, municipal provision of light, heat, and water, postal savings banks and telegraph service, and federal ownership of railroads.4 The platform had little appeal and the party rapidly declined. With the exception of some flirtation with the Populists, the Land and Labor Party was the last attempt by the anthracite mine workers to create a third party devoted to their interests.
The third-party movement was clearly a failure. The labor parties never enjoyed the allegiance of a majority of the mine workers. Even if all the mine workers had supported the third parties it was improbable that they could control the state legislature; by bloc voting the mine workers could gain control of four counties, hardly a majority in either legislative house.5
The anthracite mine workers acknowledged the futility of third-party movements by lobbying within the established system. The mine workers commanded considerable power within the political structure. No local or regional candidate could afford not to respond to their wishes. At the state level, neither party wished to alienate the largest bloc of voters in one of the most populous districts of the Commonwealth. Finally, by dramatizing the humane aspects of safety legislation, the mine workers could enlist other groups in the fight for safer mines.
The Workingmen’s Benevolent Association was the first union to organize and direct the miners’ political influence. In 1869 the General Council created a Committee on Political Action to guide its political policy. The Committee proposed and the General Council adopted a directive demanding that “each county take judicious action in relation to this fall’s election and all bogus legislation and bogus legislators.”6
After the election the Schuylkill County executive board sent a committee to Harrisburg to lobby for a mine safety law. The lobbyists secured the passage of an act “for the better regulation and ventilation of mines and for the protection of lives of the miners in the County of Schuylkill.” The act required the ventilation of mines by either furnace or suction fan and the placing of automatic closing doors (air blocks) to direct the air current. Doors in main passages had to be attended by a boy whose sole function was to prevent their being left open. The act also demanded the employment of a “mine boss” to examine the mine each morning and prohibit miners from entering dangerous places.
The law also took cognizance of the dangers inherent in the mine’s transportation system. The state required mine workers to install a signal system between the surface and the bottom of the mine. The act prohibited mine workers from riding loaded cars to the surface under the penalty of a fine not to exceed $50.
A state inspector of mines enforced the safety law. Applicants for the office had to furnish proof of at least ten years’ experience in the mines and pass an examination before a board consisting of five practical miners and one mining engineer. Once appointed, the inspector received an annual salary of $3,000 to enable him to devote his full time to the inspection of mines, attending coroner’s inquests of mine accident victims, and ascertaining the cause of every serious accident. To better fulfill his duties, the inspector received the power “to enter and inspect the mines and machinery at all reasonable times by day and night.”7
The 1869 safety act supported the demands of the mine workers that the state enforce safety standards throughout the anthracite industry. Taking advantage of the public concern generated by the Avondale disaster, the General Council sent a committee made up of one member from each county union to Harrisburg to demand more legislation. The lawmakers acquiesced by passing another mine safety act in 1870.
The 1870 law, which was more detailed than the previous act, applied to every anthracite mine in Pennsylvania. Under its provisions a mine operator had to provide two accurate maps of each mine. The mine inspector received the original copy; if the operator failed to submit a map the inspector had the authority to have the map drawn at the expense of the operator.
The act gave mine operators four months to provide their mines with two or more outlets. To make this possible, the operator was given the authority, under court scrutiny, to enter and provide a second outlet upon adjacent lands. If the mine operator refused to provide two or more outlets within the prescribed time, the courts could, upon application of the mine inspector, issue an injunction stopping operation of the mine.
The legislature increased the number of mine inspectors to six and lowered the experience requirement to five years in anthracite mines. Mine inspectors received the power of a coroner to hold inquests, compel the attendance of persons to testify, and administer oaths. Two boards, one appointed by the court of common pleas in Luzerne County and the other appointed by the Schuylkill County court, composed of three practical miners and two mining engineers, examined candidates for the office. The act provided for the removal of a mine inspector upon the petition of 15 “reputable coal operators or coal miners or both” and an investigation by the court.
The 1870 act also looked beyond the normal safety requirements. Section six required the mine operator to provide and maintain a building “supplied with soft water and properly lighted and warmed, for the use of the men employed in such mine, to wash and change their clothes when entering the mine and when returning therefrom.” Section ten prohibited the employment of boys under 12 years of age inside the mines.
Mine operators were understandably anxious to test the constitutionality of the act. They had their opportunity when Inspector T. M. Williams applied for an injunction restraining an operator from working a mine without two openings. The court issued a preliminary injunction, but the operator responded that the act was unconstitutional, and that therefore the injunction should be dissolved. In presenting its decision, the court argued:
If through the legislature she [the state] can attach conditions, rules, and regulations, which are to be observed by her citizens in the use of their own peculiar property, what is there about coal mines, or the owners thereof, that should especially exempt them from her supervision and control? If she recognizes, almost as part of her organic law, applicable to the property of her citizens, the rule, long ago grown into a maxim, sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas, why may she not make it equally applicable to the lives of her citizens?
“Of its constitutionality,” the court concluded, “we have not the slightest doubt.”8
Although the courts had no doubts over the constitutionality of the law, they were careful to apply only the letter and not the spirit of the law. In 1872 the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County refused to issue an injunction to restrain the operation of a mine with only one opening. The court based its decision on the fact that the mine in question was a tunnel, while the act of 1870 specifically stated that slope or shaft mines should contain the second opening.
The mine inspectors, however, did not complain as much about the court’s strict interpretation of the law as the delays experienced in getting the cases heard. T. M. Williams grumbled: “The inspector entered this suit after being advised to do so by the district attorney, intending that it should be tried promptly; but despite all his efforts to that effect, it was postponed from one term to another for a year and a half, and the effect intended to produce was entirely lost through the long and tedious delay.”9 It is equally instructive to note the identity of those refusing to obey the law. In 1879 the inspector in the Schuylkill region reported that the Philadelphia and Reading instructed its foremen to comply with all suggestions from the mine inspectors as well as the law. Other inspectors also praised the large corporations for their cooperation and implied that the independent operators were the most troublesome.
The act itself, however, was the major obstacle to enforcement. The inspection districts described in the act were too large to permit a careful examination of all mines. And the hasty writing of the act left many loopholes and oversights. The only chance lay in a revised law.
The mine workers sought a stronger law, but as the strength of the W.B.A. declined the state became less responsive to its demands. In a six-year period the miners were able to secure only two minor amendments to the 1870 act. In 1873 the legislature passed and the governor agreed to an amendment which allowed the examining boards of prospective mine inspectors to act on a majority decision. Three years later the miners secured a supplement to the act which made refusal to supply the mine inspector with adequate and correct maps a misdemeanor.
The 1877 strikes sparked a reorganization drive among the anthracite mine workers; once again the legislature appeared receptive to their demands. In successive sessions the lawmakers passed two minor supplements to the 1870 act. The first amendment enlarged the northern inspection area to include Wayne and Susquehanna Counties. The second required the operators to provide an empty car or cage whenever a group of ten men wished to leave the mine. But the miners did not achieve legislation requiring the furnishing of props.
Traditionally the miners brought propping from a central timber pile on the surface to their chamber. The practice, however, was conducive to accidents as few miners “wasted” time by going to the surface whenever they needed a prop. The mine inspectors called attention to this potential source of accidents and suggested several remedies. One inspector felt the company should do the propping; another advised extra compensation for timbering; a third suggested that the operator deliver necessary timber to the breasts. During the 1883 session the legislature accepted the third recommendation and required that props be provided upon the miner’s request; violators were made liable for any and all damages resulting from their neglect.
During the same session the lawmakers authorized a commission to revise the anthracite mining code. Significantly, the legislature delegated its authority to experts by defining the membership of the commission as the six state mine inspectors and one miner and one operator from each major anthracite county. In 1885 the commission presented a draft law which the legislature adopted with very few changes.
Organized into 19 topical articles and containing tightly defined terms, the anthracite mining act of 1885 was a model piece of legislation.10 The new law applied to all mines employing more than ten men and boys; it preserved and enlarged with greater precision the provisions of previous laws.
The 1885 act increased the number of inspectors to seven. The inspectors had to visit and examine every mine in their respective districts at least four times a year. If the inspector discovered a dangerous practice which was not covered by the act, he could nevertheless demand that the practice cease. The operator, however, could submit the inspector’s demand to an arbitration board consisting of a member selected by each party and a third chosen by the two board members. Any decision reached by a majority of the board was binding.
The act also attempted to provide proper discipline in the mines.11 Article XII contained 52 “general rules” which applied to every mine. The “general rules” described the duties of all employees and prescribed basic safety regulations. Article XIII permitted the establishment of “special rules” to meet peculiar conditions at particular mines. “Special rules” went into effect 30 days after the mine inspector’s approval, and carried the same authority as an enacted law.
Another important feature of the 1885 act was that it required certification of foremen. The Secretary of Internal Affairs granted a certificate of qualification to a prospective foreman after he had given evidence of at least five years’ practical experience and had passed an examination before a board composed of the state mine inspector, a practical miner, and an owner or superintendent. Mines could not operate longer than 30 days without the supervision of a certified foreman.
In 1891 the legislature passed another anthracite mining law which increased the inspection districts to eight and changed several “general rules.” The lawmakers abolished the provision for “special rules.” Under the new act any citizen and not just the mine inspector could begin prosecution for violation of its provisions. The 1891 act also made mandatory the certification of assistant foremen as well as foremen.
The certification of foremen and assistant foremen had unforeseen results. In 1895 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that an operator could not be held liable for his foreman’s negligence. Certification, the court argued, made the foreman an agent of the state and not of the operator. With the exception of the mine owner’s liability for his foreman’s actions, the mining acts of 1885 and 1891 successfully withstood court tests.
Enactment of several mining laws did not appreciably reduce the number of accidents; indeed, the accident rate continued to mount. Obviously with an eye on the increasing number of immigrants entering the industry, the miners argued that the laws would become effective after the elimination of inexperienced miners. They therefore clamored for the certification of miners.
In 1889 the legislature gave in to the miners’ argument and passed a law providing that only certified miners should be employed in the anthracite mines. To become certified the candidate had to demonstrate that he had at least two years’ experience as a mine laborer and pass an examination. Men engaged as miners at the time of passage of the law could be examined and registered after furnishing evidence of having been so employed. The presiding judge in each county appointed the examining board, which consisted of nine miners with at least five years’ experience. The examining board received a 50-cent fee for examination and registration out of which the members received their $3-per-day compensation. The act imposed a fine of not more than $100 on persons employing noncertified miners.
The miners, however, discovered many discrepancies in enforcement of the act. They charged the examining boards with being more interested in collecting their fees than in weeding out incompetent candidates. The law failed to prevent the “new immigrants” from becoming miners. Indeed, the requirement of two years’ experience as a mine laborer tended to work against the British and German immigrants. Being unskilled, the “new immigrants” had to begin as laborers, but British and German miners refused to become apprentices again. Disappointed, the miners urged major revision and, in extreme cases, the repeal of the act requiring the certification of miners.
It was not until the United Mine Workers began to organize the anthracite industry that the legislature paid attention to the wishes of the miners. In 1897 the legislature passed an amendment to the 1889 act requiring each candidate to answer at least 12 questions in English. The amendment also provided for the imprisonment of violators of the act, but failed to provide for the payment of the examining boards out of the state treasury rather than from board fees. The certification of miners, however, failed, as did the provision of safety regulations by the state, to reduce materially the number of accidents in the anthracite mines.12