The Community
Mining supported the anthracite communities. “It [coal] has raised up in our formerly barren and uninhabited district, an intelligent and permanent population, and converted the mountains into theaters of busy life, and hitherto waste and valueless lands into sites of flourishing and populous villages.”1
But the coal industry was sick. Management, therefore, sought to use its economic power to structure a set of industry-community relations which would create sympathy for the industry’s problems.
The simple fact that mines are geographically fixed by the mineral’s location determined the anthracite industry’s community relations. An environment so forbidding that one could travel 35 miles and see only three dwellings, “two of which were taverns recently errected [sic],” forced mine operators to become community developers.2 The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company built “Summit Hill” to house its miners, and the Delaware and Hudson constructed Carbondale for the same purpose. Even after industrial development attracted a population base, the isolation of a new mine often necessitated the building of towns by the mining company. “For the accommodation of this new working, twelve blocks of double miners’ houses have been contracted for, and are now being built.”3
Industry-community relations within the company town, or “mine patch,” were unilateral. The mine provided the inhabitants with their only source of employment, and control over the job made the operator master of the individual’s, and indeed the community’s future. Ownership of the land enabled the operator to consolidate his control; he could evict “undesirables” and refuse entry to those who aroused his displeasure. The “mine patch,” in fact, resembled a feudal fief: “Everything in the region belongs to the operators and must be subject to their autocratic domination. They are the lords of the domain and no man is allowed to encroach on their territory, even the Jew peddler is not allowed to expose his wares within their borders.”4
The “free towns” sharply contrasted with the company towns; not owned by a company, they escaped the operator’s domination. Although mining provided employment for most of the free towns’ male population, these communities enjoyed subordinate economic pursuits. Three—Pottsville, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton—were county seats; most boasted of at least one factory; and all served as entrepôts for a surrounding cluster of mine patches. Relative economic diversification gave the free town a more heterogeneous class structure and made industry-community relations more complex and less absolute than in the company town.
Economic diversification, however, did not mean that the free town completely escaped the influence of the anthracite industry with its preponderant financial power. The coal companies were the largest employers. Besides furnishing the community’s economic base, they often provided such essential needs as water. Railroad subsidiaries could easily influence transportation policies.
Economic power gave the coal industry great social suasion. Attorneys found a lucrative practice in the leases and contracts inherent in a complex and confusing industry. Some operators maintained company doctors. Favored merchants, as well as the “company stores,” issued credit without risk when the operator agreed to deduct debts from his miners’ paychecks. Even priests and ministers received their salaries through the company, which the company also deducted from its employees’ wages. Although operators charged from 2 to 5 percent for their collection service, the assurance of a steady income with little trouble was so eagerly sought after that those who availed themselves of the service practically became the operators’ agents.
Land ownership provided another lever with which mining officials could persuade the community’s opinion-makers. The group most affected by the coal companies’ real estate holdings were the clergy. Charged with the responsibility for building churches, schools, and cemeteries at low cost, ministers and priests appealed to the operators for land donations. Concern for the future salvation of souls usually demanded that the request be granted, but hard reasoning dictated a return in the present. George Jones, secretary of the Lehigh–Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, wrote to Reuben Downing: “I enclose a letter from Rev. Felix McGulken asking for a lot at Wanamie for a church. I believe in good influences and would like your views, and if you think favorably, see the Rev. Father and find just what he wants and let me hear from you.”5
Charity was another channel for the conversion of economic power into social power. Operators gave free coal to hospitals and churches. The companies’ apparently bulging treasuries made them logical targets of requests for donations. Churches not only asked for land, but also solicited gifts to building funds and aid in maintaining the church. Reverend William Roberts, for example, asked the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Company for either another contribution (he had already received $600) or an interest-free loan of $4,000 for his church’s upkeep, and indirectly requested private charity by remarking that his income for two months totaled only $53.6 Libraries and volunteer fire companies also shared the anthracite industry’s bounty.
The mining companies’ relations with railroads provided another outlet for wielding influence—the free pass. Worthwhile undertakings such as benefit picnics received free transportation. Convention delegates traveled without cost. Although organized groups enjoyed most of the free transportation, individuals were not shy about applying for the gift. W.S. Jones, editor of the “only Welsh language paper in the state,” solicited a pass, promising that if it were granted he would “repay double value” through the medium of his newspaper.7
The ability to employ professional people, collect debts and church “offerings” from their employees’ wages, give land away, bestow charity, and grant railroad passes enabled the coal industry or more correctly, its representatives, to increase their social power. Mine managers were the most influential men in the anthracite communities. W.R. Storrs, General Coal Agent for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, could stop a movement to sever the community of Throp from Dickson City with a simple protest.8
Naturally the coal industry converted its vast economic and social power into political power. To gain political power, mine officials lobbied, influenced officials, and reduced offices to mere company agencies. Anthracite lobbying agents operated on both the local and state levels of government. On the local scene respected attorneys protected the companies’ interests. M.E. Olmsted, Harrisburg lobbyist for the anthracite industry, had the governor’s ear as well as the legislature’s. Such distinguished members of the bench as George Woodward pleaded eloquently on “king coal’s” behalf.9
Patronage gave management a measure of control of appointive offices. Operators were influential in national and state parties, using their power to gain patronage.10 W.H. Tillinghast, president of the Lehigh-Wilkes-Barre Coal Company, was successful in having Miss Kate Koons appointed postmistress in Audenried. Politicians, in return, asked company officials to hire certain people. W. Ward, a congressman, requested that the Philadelphia and Reading place one of his supporters on its police force.11
Management and elected officials shared economic interests. Simon Cameron had a vested interest in anthracite through his connection with the Northern Central Railroad. Congressman Hendrick B. Wright derived part of his private income from mine royalties and owed at least one operator money.12 Congressman William L. Scott owned and operated mines near Mt. Carmel.
Some local officials could be identified with the anthracite industry. In 1896 the mercantile firm of Dailey and Robert asked the Lehigh–Wilkes-Barre Coal Company to collect their store bills from its employees and pointed out that one of the firm’s members was a justice of the peace and deputy coroner and “has been and can be of great assistance to the company.” The company granted the request.13
If the industry’s economic power could be used to guarantee “great assistance” from some politicians, it could also be exercised in a manner which would reduce offices to empty shells. The industry functioned as the tax collector by deducting the miners’ per capita and other taxes from their paychecks. The elected tax collectors paid a 2 percent commission for the privilege of not working, but they also lost their power.
Township supervisors also lost their power. An act of 1883 permitted taxpayers to commute their taxes into actual services and mining companies escaped payment by maintaining roads. Performance of service in lieu of taxes might have assured the public better roads, but to the coal companies the practice had a more important implication:
At a meeting of a few of the representatives of the Larger Taxpayers [the coal companies] in Old Forge Township it was thought advisable, in order to reduce taxation, that the larger Taxpayers should work the road according to the Act of 1883, as is done in other townships in Luzerne County, thus taking the matter out of the hands of the supervisors.14
Supervisors occasionally reduced their own independence by allowing mine operators to provide or pay for special services required by the public servants:
The treasurer will send you a voucher for $50 to pay John McGahran for services as Attorney for the Supervisor for Hanover Township. Please take a loose receipt for same and forward to me, and oblige.15
The reduction of the offices of tax collector and supervisor was so complete that the Pottsville Daily Republican observed on April 29, 1890: “There would seem to be no necessity for the election of supervisors in townships where the Reading Coal and Iron Company own property. They insist upon paying their taxes in road work performed by their own men. They can collect the tax from the majority of the payers in cash at the pay-window.”16
Stripping the tax collectors and supervisors of their power reflected the anthracite industry’s concern over taxes, but the community’s coercive potential also interested the operators. For industry concern for police control was as logical as care about taxes. The police protected property, and the mines were the largest form of property within the region. Furthermore, the presence of a sympathetic police force could be a valuable asset in times of labor strife.
Operators in Schuylkill County attempted to influence the police by bypassing local government. In 1867 they secured from the Pennsylvania legislature “An Act for the better protection of persons, property, and life in the mining regions of this Commonwealth.” Limited to Schuylkill County, the act gave the governor authority to appoint a special marshal of police and not more than 100 officers upon an appeal from 20 local citizens that the regular police were unable to maintain order. The marshal, who along with his force was paid from the county treasury with funds raised by a special tax on coal, enjoyed the same authority as the sheriff. The most interesting features of the act were that the coal industry financed the special police through the guise of an extraordinary tax, while local politicians exercised no control over the new force. The creation of a special criminal court with the same jurisdiction as the county court increased the Police Marshal’s independence of the local government. Removal from local political control, however, did not place the police under the operators’ dominance.
In 1866 anthracite mine operators gained an effective instrument of police control when the Pennsylvania legislature extended to them the railroad companies’ privilege of maintaining private police. Nominated by the coal company and appointed by the governor, the Coal and Iron Police had the same authority as the city police of Philadelphia and the right to call for assistance. “If the railroad mining company can pay a hundred men under that law,” observed a congressional committee, “it can maintain and use a standing army.”17
Maintenance of a livery force gave the operators the ability to reduce public law enforcement agencies to puppets. Coal region boroughs had a wholly inadequate police force. In 1891 Shenandoah, with a population of 15,944, boasted two policemen and three officers; Pottsville, with 14,117 persons, had a force of nine men. Understaffed local police forces had to expand rapidly to meet emergencies, and the most expedient method to do this was to use the Coal and Iron Police as auxiliaries. The sheriff also found the private police a welcome and necessary source of manpower for his posses. The dependence of borough police and the sheriff on the coal companies for extra men in times of emergency, the most common of which were strikes, made them essentially agents of the operators.
The degree of control exercised by the anthracite industry over the community’s police power was clearly evident in the Molly Maguire incident (see Chapter 9). Historians have debated whether the Mollies were hardened criminals or innocent labor leaders; many, in the heat of argument, have completely neglected the episode’s true significance.18 The Molly Maguire investigation and trials were one of the most astounding surrenders of sovereignty in American history. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency; a private police force arrested the alleged offenders; and coal company attorneys prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and hangman. The fate of the Molly Maguires taught the people of the anthracite regions that the Coal and Iron Police were supreme within the area.
Wielding their economic influence, mine officials achieved so much political power that for all practical purposes they provided the de facto government of the anthracite region. Given the extent of the coal industry’s economic, social, and political power, it must be concluded that the term “free town” was only a euphemism for “large town,” because in reality industry-community relations within such communities were as unilateral as in the “mine patch.” But such a conclusion would be superficial; for within the free town there existed a class whose challenges to industrial dominance made the power of the operators less than absolute.
As a group the independent merchants revolted against industrial control. In part, social discontent nourished the revolt. It must be remembered that company bureaucrats wielded the coal industry’s power. They were not the product of only the large companies; most independent operators were absentee owners and depended on managers. Social tensions existed between the avant garde of the “new middle class” and the classical bourgeoisie.19 Owning property and not merely managing it, the merchants regarded themselves as the legitimate social leaders; but obviously they were not.
The social conflict between the merchants and the industrial élite can be seen in their differing definitions of industry’s obligations to the community. The mine superintendents sought a profit, with little concern about what area benefited from their business acumen. Local businessmen, on the other hand, wanted to see their region’s wealth reinvested at home. “It is not a fair thing,” they argued, “to rob our coal lands without a return of some sort.”20 Economic motives were combined with motives of social status and civic pride in the merchants’ challenge to the power of the operators. Businessmen regarded the company stores as “a drawback to legitimate business houses wherever they exist.”21 Many merchants felt the industry was doing them, and indirectly their towns, great harm by purchasing its supplies outside the community.
For reasons such as these, the businessmen of the anthracite region concluded that their best interests were not necessarily synonymous with those of the coal industry. Organized into boards of trade and merchant protective associations, they fought either to improve or maintain their position in their particular towns. Merchants were free to challenge the operators despite the industry’s formidable power because the mines were fixed. Although businessmen needed the mines to survive, the mines could not exist without the community.
The struggle between industry and local business betrayed a social order which lacked cohesion. Because of the layout of transportation routes, the four coal basins were grouped into three geo-economic units which resented each other’s prosperity. Geology and soil conditions subdivided the three units into two basic regions—the north and the south. Divergent cultures enhanced the geological differences. The northern region boasted a colonial history and gloried in its Yankee heritage, while the southern region had no pre-industrial history and traced its cultural roots to the Pennsylvania Dutch.22
Within each region society was fragmented along ethnic lines. Immigrants always formed the majority of the anthracite laboring force and each new wave of immigrants brought forth denunciations from the native and older inhabitants. Convinced that the foreigners were a threat to them, the “natives” organized anti-Catholic societies. The Junior Order of American Mechanics flourished in the anthracite regions, and Schuykill County boasted of being the stronghold for the Patriotic Order of the Sons of America in Pennsylvania.23 Older immigrants feared for their jobs and held the new arrivals in contempt. Both demanded protection from the swarming hordes of undesirables: “Are miners protected from filthy, pauper Poles, laborers from water and flower earthly Italians, ignorant Swedes, English-murdering, rice and rat eating Chinese?”24
Fear and contempt preceded indifference and violence. “Natives” forgot the concept of neighborly help: “I happened to ask the employer . . . whether the American families looked after the Hungarians at all times of sickness, and his answer photographed the whole situation: “We don’t know they are sick till we see the funeral go by.”25 “Americans” applauded violence when directed against the immigrants: “Two Hungarians were walking down Lackawanna Avenue yesterday in front of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western depot when one of them, without any cause, was set upon by a drunken brute and beaten and kicked in a shameful manner, and a crowd stood by and laughed.”26
“Old immigrants” clashed with the “new,” but ethnic identification within each major group prevented a united front of the old against the new immigrants. Foreign-language newspapers abounded in the region. Hazleton was the home of the Volksblatt (German), the Onallas (Hungarian), and the Jednota (Czech). Fraternal organizations kept ethnocentrism alive. The English joined the Sons of Saint George and the Welsh united in Urdd y Gwir Iforiaid Americanaidd (American Order of True Ivorites) and maintained their own philosophical societies and young peoples’ clubs. Germans mingled in Liederkranzes and Vereins. Newer immigrants organized paramilitary groups such as the Gwardia Pulaskiego Rycerzy Polskich (Guards of Pulaski, The Polish Knights).
Each group maintained its own beneficial society. The Polish had a Pulaski Beneficial Society and the Irish could choose between the Hibernian and Emerald Societies. Social events advertised one’s ethnic origins. The Polish celebrated Pulaski Day and held Kosciusko picnics, while the Irish marched on Saint Patrick’s Day and the Scotch celebrated Robert Burns’ birthday. Not to be outdone, the Welsh sang at eisteddfods and Germans enjoyed Sängerbunds. Even charity could be organized on ethnic foundations; the Scranton Germans held an excursion to Jones’ Lake for the benefit of the Lackawanna Hospital.
Normally integrative institutions such as churches and political parties failed to cross ethnic lines. Denominationalism splintered Protestantism; ethnic churches existed within each denomination. There were Welsh and English Methodists, German and Dutch Reformed, English and German Lutherans. Although devoid of denominationalism, the Catholic Church failed to achieve unity among its adherents. Each national group demanded and received its own parish. In 1902 the anthracite regions supported 142 Catholic churches, of which 62 were Irish, 19 Polish, 18 Greek, 15 Slovak, 12 Lithuanian, 10 German, and 6 Italian.
Organized into national parishes presided over by priests from the homeland, many immigrants chafed under the rule of an Irish-dominated hierarchy. “People,” a layman urged, “let us pray that God might have pity on us, and might deliver us from the domination of foreign bishops, restore our churches to us, and give us bishops after our own heart.”27
Ethnocentrism, coupled with a dispute over control of the parish finances, caused a separatist movement within the Catholic Church. In 1897 the Polish in Scranton demanded lay control of parish property but the priest refused to relinquish his authority. The congregation forced the issue by denying the priest entrance into the church and appealed to the bishop for his removal. When the bishop refused to grant their petition, the parishioners asked the Reverend Father Francis Hodur to administer the sacraments to them and to take up their cause. Hodur agreed; when rebuffed by the hierarchy, he formed the Polish National Catholic Church. Using the Polish language in its rites and ceremonies, the Polish National Catholic Church displayed its ethnocentrism in the preamble of its constitution; “Shall only we Poles form an exception and allow ourselves to be forced to follow a line laid down for us by others?”28
Political parties also experienced the centrifugal force of ethnocentrism. Party leaders attempted to balance their ticket with representatives from each immigrant group. Welsh and German Republican central committees conducted their own campaigns. Immigrant groups maintained their own political organizations outside the major parties. Italians in Scranton formed the Italian Political Association which auctioned their votes. In 1887, for example, they went Republican. Schuylkill County Poles also sold their votes. In Scranton the Negro community named representation on the police force as the price of their support.
Strong enough to withstand integrative forces, ethnic groups themselves broke into factions. Deep lines of division cut through the Irish community. The differences became noticeable in Clarks Summit “Irish War of 1850,” a fight between Corkonians and Fardowns which resulted in three deaths.29 Antagonism between the Russian and the German and Austrian Poles was so great that the two subgroups founded separate churches and societies. The existence of the Polish National Catholic Church alongside the Roman Catholic Church further fragmented the Polish community. So great were these inter- and intra-ethnic conflicts that they weakened normal class lines.
Apparently chaos ruled in the anthracite community. Operating in an area divided and subdivided by economics, geology, and culture, management used its vast economic resources to stabilize the region with a unilaterally set system of industry-community relations. Independent merchants took advantage of the immobility of the industry to frustrate management. And ethnic divisions atomized an already fragmented society.