Published November 30, 2024
By Joseph Newkirk
During the 19 months of the United States’ involvement in World War I, the federal government froze industrial workers’ wages to finance its military effort. After the war ended on November 11, 1918, the American economy boomed with massive exports for Europe’s rebuilding program. Workers in this country, though, did not receive pay raises, and in 1919 many unions across the country went on strike demanding more money and better working conditions. The government refused to intervene until the United Mine Workers (UMW) walked off the job on November 1. Coal provided the vast majority of the country’s energy, and the United States considered mining an essential industry. This natural resource had fueled the Industrial Revolution; cries of “Bolshevik Revolution” and “Communism” echoed around the nation.
This UMW strike greatly affected Illinois, where 77 of the state’s 102 counties engaged in coal mining and union membership totaled nearly 90,000. As part of the massive Colchester Seam (one of the world’s largest coal reserves) centered in Schuyler County, Illinois, Quincy greatly suffered. Many homes and businesses went without sufficient heat and the economy here—and across the nation—spiraled toward depression, with dwindling coal supplies forcing rations and sacrifices.
For the first time in history the government tried to halt a strike. President Woodrow Wilson invoked the wartime Lever Act that deemed mining vital for the country’s industry and shipment and mandated a return to work. Miners ignored this injunction. The Quincy City Council named Mayor Phillip J. O’Brien fuel administrator and formed a coal committee to ration scarce reserves. The city declared a coal famine on November 13 and with only one-half day’s supply left required permits to receive coal. City Hall imposed a $5,000 fine ($93,000 in today’s currency) for false statements. Many violations occurred and the mayor forced heat shut-offs in four businesses.
A cold and sleet wave descended in mid-November and the mayor asked citizens to supplement their remaining coal with green wood. Many people resorted to burning furniture to keep warm. The destitute—who even in the best of times could rarely afford enough coal—were devastated. Humane Officer John Coens asked for heavy clothing for Quincy’s poor and several soup kitchens and makeshift shelters opened. On December 6, the city ordered stores to limit steam heat from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and soon mandated school and church closures. During the war, Quincy had imposed “heat-less days” and now local leaders deemed this a patriotic duty.
Adams County had several strip mines and local workers also traveled to surrounding counties to mine the region’s rich supply of bituminous coal. The Quincy Labor Temple officially supported the strike and its most vocal spokesman, UMW President John L. Lewis. Quincy papers, though, took an opposing view. The Quincy Whig responded to Lewis’ statement “With Abraham Lincoln, I thank God that we have a country where men may strike” in an October 29, 1919, editorial. “Where men have a right to strike, he [Lewis] probably meant, forgetting that all rights of men in a free country are qualified by the fact that they may not infringe upon the rights of other men.”
Grain and stock markets plummeted as fears rose with winter approaching. Otis Elevator Manager George H. Gardner warned that without sufficient heat his company and others in Quincy’s Walton Industrial Park could have their internal water supplies freeze and rely on the city’s nearly-depleted coal supplies. If a fire broke out, Gardner lamented, a conflagration would engulf the plants and wreak havoc on the city.
The vast majority of Quincy citizens opposed the strike and the Labor Temple’s stance. However, local union leaders refused to sanction socialist leader and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs’ union: Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In an effort to create a more just economic system without strikes like this one arising from greed and discrimination, Debs’ union embraced those excluded or marginalized from other unions. The American Federation of Labor, including the Quincy Labor Temple, supported severe restrictions on immigration, viewed women as unskilled labor, and allowed its affiliates to bar Negroes from joining. IWW meetings ended with the union’s theme song “The Preacher and the Slave” written by political activist Joe Hill. This song, a parody of the church hymen “The Sweet By and By” and sung with the same musical cadence, had its refrain enter our national consciousness: “You will eat by and by/In that glorious land in the sky/Work and pray, live on hay/You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
The local labor press responded to the IWW (informally known as “Wobblies”) and its “radical” stance in a July 28, 1917, Quincy Daily Journal editorial. “The Industrial Workers of the World is a mob without a head…worthy of attention only as secret, slinking, assassination-like conspirators against society and enemies of the public safety. In Quincy they should be treated with a policy of stern repression.”
This nation-wide coal strike ended on December 10, 1919, after workers and management agreed on a 14 percent wage increase. Shipments and supplies of coal slowly began returning, and on December 29, Quincy schools reopened. During the next few years, though, wildcat coal strikes arose in Illinois and other states. In June 1922, violence erupted in Herrin, Illinois, among non-union strike-breakers, picketing strikers and mine guards. Twenty-three men were killed and several score injured. This became known as the “Herrin Massacre,” and it marks an infamous chapter in American labor relation history.
By 1924 the price of coal had risen nearly 50 percent (and would have doubled without the federal government’s intervention) as companies passed wage increases onto consumers. The United States remained dependent on coal until the middle of the 20th century when petroleum products became—and still remain—the country’s main source of energy. These fossil fuels, too, while cleaner burning than coal, are limited, non-renewable, and generate ozone-depleting greenhouse gases.
Joseph Newkirk is a local writer and photographer whose work has been widely published as a contributor to literary magazines, as a correspondent for Catholic Times, and for the past
23 years as a writer for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. He is a member of the reorganized Quincy Bicycle Club and has logged more than 10,000 miles on bicycles in his life.
Sources:
Cole, Peter. Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2021.
Jensen, Richard J. Illinois: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1978.
Mill, John Stuart. “Necessity of Working-Class Representation” and “Freedom and Individual Opinion” in Liberalism: Its Meaning and History. J. Salwyn Schapiro, ed. London: D. Van Norton Co., Ltd, 1958, 145-48.
“The Quincy Whig: A Page of Opinion and Comment.” Quincy Whig, October 29, 1919, 6.
“A Rascally Horde Unmasked.” Quincy Daily Journal, July 28, 1917, 6.
“Strike to be Hard Indeed in this City.” Quincy Daily Herald, October 25, 1919, 1.
“Walton Factories Rely Entirely on Quincy for Water.” Quincy Whig, December 3, 1919, 2.
The Wobblies: The History of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Early 20th Century. Charles River Editors, 2021. Digital audiobook.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present. New York: HarperCollins, Pub., 1999, 347-48, 367-68
