The time has come to see Matewan in perspective, the way we do Lexington and Gettysburg—not just as an isolated incident of the tragic spilling of blood, but as a symbolic moment in a larger, broader and continuing historical struggle—in the words of Mingo county miner J.B. Wiggins, the “struggle for freedom and liberty.
–Historian David A. Corbin
The United Auto Workers has announced that it has reached a settlement with General Motors. A key feature of the agreement–and one that could become a template for future agreements is the creation of a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association (VEBA) that will be funded by GM, but managed by the union. GM will pay an estimated $35 billion into the trust which is designed to be self-sustaining. The UAW estimates it should pay health benefits for retired workers for the next 80 years.
The contract still must be ratified by union locals, but national officials, who voted unanimously for the contract, expect it to pass. In honor of the settlement, this site’s usual “Saturday Night at the Movies” post has chosen organizer Joe Kenehan’s speech to the miners from the movie Matewan.
Matewan (1987), perhaps one of the best labor films ever made, tells the story of the Matewan Massacre, an event that occurred in the West Virginia mining town in 1920. The Massacre involved a shootout between agents of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which had been hired by the coal operators to strangle the union organizing that had caught fire in the region. Since most union members lived in so-called “company towns,” one of the operator’s main tactics was to evict any miner and his family they suspected of being involved in union activity. The detectives supplied the “muscle” to enforce the evictions.
Matewan was unique in that it had its own town government, presided over by Mayor C. Testerman and its own law enforcement in the person of police chief Sid Hatfield, both of whom openly sided with the miners. When Baldwin-Felts detectives evicted six families from company-owned housing near the town, Hatfield and Testerman confronted them. A gun battle broke out in which Baldwin-Felts president Thomas Felts, Mayor Testerman, two miners and most of the detectives were killed.
Hatfield was acquitted by a grand jury, but Baldwin-Felts had their revenge, brutally gunning him down while he sat in front of a hotel. This precipitated the largest armed insurrection in American history since the Civil War.
Sayles is probably one of America’s most under-rated film makers, mostly because he takes on controversial subjects. The film was shot by Haskell Wexler, one of Hollywood’s greatest cinematographers, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his efforts. Those who think of cinematographers as merely standing behind a camera and shooting would do well to rent the DVD of Matewan to see a master at work.
Sayle’s main protagonist is labor organizer Joe Kenehan, played by Chris Cooper. Other familiar names in the film are James Earl Jones who plays a black miner named “Few Clothes” Johnson, Mary McDonnell as boarding house keeper Elma Radnor and David Strathairn as Hatfield.
The speech that appears below occurs not long after Kenehan first meets with the miners. It is precipitated by a miner who argues that the black Johnson does not belong in the union. Kenehan’s answer is one of the great speeches in American film about solidarity.
You ain’t men to that coal company. You’re equipment… They use you til you wear out and then they get a new one……You think this man is your enemy? This is a worker! Any union that would keep this man out ain’t a union, it’s a club…They got you fighting white against colored, native against foreign, holler against holler. You all know there ain’t but two types of people, them that work and them that don’t. You work, they don’t. That’s all you got to know about the enemy. I know you all are brave men. I know that you could shoot it out with the company if you had to. The coal company don’t want this union, the state government don’t want it and the federal government don’t want it. All of them are just waiting for an excuse to come down here and crush us to nothing! Fellas, we’re in a hole full of coal gas here, the tiniest spark at the wrong time is gonna be the end of us…We got to work together, together til they can’t get the coal out of the ground without us cause we’re a union. We are the workers.
For those interested in the history of Matewan what follows is an oral history interview with Hawthorne Burgraff, the son of one of the participants in the Massacre. It is not intended to be the last word on what happened, but only to give the perspective of the miners.
What I’m gonna’ tell you is exactly what my father told me. When they arrived in Matewan and got off the train, they had their satchels with ‘em. We called ‘em grips back then, they call ‘em satchels, suitcases or whatever. But, they had in those suitcases submachine guns. They called ‘em Thompson submachine gun. Of course they wore their pistols on their side, because they were officers of the law. But, when they got off of the train in Matewan, Sid and my father walked over to Albert Felts, he was the leader of the Baldwin-Felts detective, and introduced themselves and asked him what he was doing down there. And, Albert said “we’ve come down here on a job. The coal company has asked us to put those people out of the houses and that is what our intentions are. We’re strictly goin’ to do that”. It was Sid who said, “well, you know that’s goin’ to lead to trouble.” And, Albert felts said, “well, we’re prepared to take care of any trouble that might come our way, we’re trained men. And, my advice to you is not to interfere with the Baldwin-Felts detectives.” Well, my father and Sid left and went back over the tracks into Matewan and the detective force went over to the camps and started their job of putting people out of the house. My daddy’s brother Albert lived in one of the houses. So, they moved out one family after another, maybe one or two, to set an example of what was going to happen.
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