Keep the Labor in Labor Day!

100 Labor Days ago (yeah I know it's not Saturday, but it's a holiday, which is just as good a time for a history lesson) coal miners were on strike in West Virginia.

And then the government decided to bomb them.

Cartoon by Ryan Walker in New York Call, NYC, September 3, 1921

General Billy Mitchell told reporters, “We wouldn’t try to kill these people at first. We’d drop tear gas all over the place. If they refuse to disburse, then we’d open up with artillery and everything.”

"September Morn" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, September 1, 1921

Upon their arrival to West Virginia, the chance of aerial bombardment by the Air Service was quickly snuffed out. Fully loaded with bombs and machine guns when they left their home base of Langley, VA, the 88th Squadron’s planes were stripped of all weaponry before flying over Blair Mountain. [Commander of federal forces during the Battle of Blair Mountain, General Harry H.] Bandholdtz’s orders were clear. “You will under no circumstances drop any bombs or fire any machine guns or do anything to unnecessarily excite the invaders,” he wrote in a dispatch. While the 88th Squadron was used to assess the situation on Blair Mountain from above, there would be no demonstration of the Air Service’s armed abilities in West Virginia.

There were, however, a trio of private biplanes rented by Sheriff Chafin that were not under the strict orders of restraint from General Bandholtz. On September 2—the same day as the Squadron’s arrival in West Virginia—Chafin ordered his own small air force to drop gas and makeshift bombs on the miners’ positions on Blair Mountain. Though none of these aerial assaults struck their intended targets, Mitchell’s braggadocious comments to the Charleston press the week before led many to believe that the Army had conducted the bombing runs, a myth that remains today.

(Shades of Tulsa, Oklahoma over the Memorial Day holiday three months earlier!)

You might have thought that Americans would have recoiled in horror at the news of the Americans bombing Americans. But apparently the Chicago Tribune was all in favor of it.

"Show 'Em They Are Not Above the Law" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1921

As luck would have it, no miners were killed in the bombing, although three airmen died in a storm-related crash while returning to Maryland. Which may be why this remains the only time that the U.S. proposed bombing striking American workers into submission.

Now, go on and enjoy your holiday.