One of the trends we've been following in our Graphical History Tour is the labor strife that followed once World War I was over over there.
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| "Intelligence" by Roy H. James in St. Louis Star, July 19, 1922 |
100 years ago this past week, there was more deadly violence in the coal miners' nationwide strike that had been going on since April. On July 17, 1922, eight union miners (possibly more) and local Sheriff H.H. Duval were killed in an attack on a non-union mine in Cliffton, West Virginia. Scores more were wounded, mostly union men who, according to contemporary reports, were there from just across the state line in Pennsylvania.
This after striking miners had killed a supervisor and 22 strike-breakers at Southern Illinois Coal Company near Herrin, Illinois in June.
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| "Time to Look Ahead" by Michael Callaghan in Minneapolis Star, July 10, 1922 |
Given the violence, it's surprising that most of these cartoons take the sanguine approach of worrying about the prospect of coal shortages in the colder months ahead. Or, in this next Callaghan cartoon, the more immediate effect on railroad transportation (the concurrent strike by railroad workers nearing a temporary resolution at this point).
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| "The Harding Plan" by Michael Callaghan in Minneapolis Star, July 26, 1922 |
Of course, a coal shortage in 1922 would be a bigger deal than high gasoline prices have been this year. Most U.S. homes in wintry climes were heated by coal. (If Joe Manchin had his way, they still would be.)
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| "The Public Should Keep Cool" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, July 19, 1922 |
The text next to John Q. Public's fevered imagination is too small to read on line, so here's what it says: "For instance, why not let the mind dwell on next winter?"
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| "Any Idea of Fire Prevention" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 19, 1922 |
Criticized for not having acted to resolve the miners' strike, the Harding administration offered a proposal that the union workers go back to work while talks continued with the mine owners.
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| "No Thanks" by Walter "Pat" Enright in New York World, ca. July 19, 1922 |
That didn't go over so well with the rank and file, so shortly after the Clifton Mine incident, President Harding ordered the striking miners to return to work. To prevent any further violence, he promised military assistance to mine owners and to state governments.
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| "Relief in Sight" by William Hanny in St. Joseph News-Press, July 19, 2022 |
This news was greeted with relief by some. Since I haven’t reprinted anything by Bill Hanny in a while, he gets to represent those cartoonists today.
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| "R-S-V-P" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, July 20, 2022 |
I'm not entirely sure how to interpret Grover Page's cartoon here, published two days after Harding's ultimatum to the union. Page can't be criticizing Harding for resting idly by; is Harding instead all tuckered out from wrestling with the unions and mine owners? Is he waiting patiently for them to RSVP to the "Invitation to End Strike" that is still sitting on his escritoire?
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| Detail from "The Tiny Tribune" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, July 26, 2022 |
Even with the heating season half a year away, cartoonists such as those at the Chicago Tribune were ready for drastic action to bring the miners' strike to an end. After all, you couldn't run a railroad, forge iron into steel, or otherwise run an industrial nation without coal.
Fortunately, the United States was blessed with a multi-talented crisis manager, Harding's Secretary of Commerce (and "Undersecretary of Everything Else"), a jack-of-all-trades go-to hero who hadn’t ain't never failed us yet:
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| "To the Rescue" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Public Register, July 27, 1922 |
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