Wess Harris - Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction

For more than a century, the real history of the working people of our state has been deliberately scrubbed from our childrens schoolbooks and our collective knowledge. Written in Blood helps bring the true history of West Virginia working families back into the light of day. Read it. Learn it. Pass it on!

Mike Caputo, International District 31 vice president, United Mine Workers of America

Written in Blood cuts through the fog and conveys with fearless clarity the truth regarding how common people have been hoodwinked for decades. A must read.

Dwight Siemiaczko, retired coal miner, past chairman of the UMWA Safety Committee, Local Union 8843, founder and president of the Paint Creek Watershed Association, Inc.

While coal is no longer the nations dominant fuel for electricity, its history of hardship must never be forgotten. Written in Blood not only provides first-person accounts of struggles for better treatment of miners and safer mines, it also looks forward as West Virginia adjusts to far less coal mining. This book is a vital contribution to the story of the past and the future.

Penny Loeb, author of Moving Mountains: How One Woman and Her Community Won Justice from Big Coal and producer and writer of the feature film Moving Mountains

Written in Blood shines a critical light on the untold true history of the West Virginia Mine Wars.

Mari-Lynn Evans, director and producer of Blood on the Mountain

With Written in Blood, Wess Harris has once again called attention to how the West Virginia state government and the coal industry have struggled to keep our states real history buried beneath a slag heap of fairy tales and misinformation. His critics will find this book, like his other works, abrasive and filled with alleged distortions about the coal companies abuse and exploitation of the states coal miners and their families. His supporters will welcome Written in Blood, as Harris once again pushes the boundaries in an effort to reveal that abuse and exploitation.

David Corbin, author of Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 18801922

For 200 years, the coal industry has promised us prosperity. Written in Blood leaves little doubt that the prosperity never arrives. The promise itself is contingent on us agreeing to our own destruction. We must agree to stand idly by as they destroy our communities, water, air, health, and lives. We owe them nothing. They owe us everything.

Maria Gunnoe, 2009 Goldman Environmental Prize Winner, 2012 Raoul Wallenberg Medalist for Human Rights

Labor historian Wess Harris targets lost history in a brand new book that provides jaw-dropping accounts of how women were treated by an industry already widely known for its ruthlessness and callousness.

Mark Hand, Counterpunch

Written in Blood is essential reading for all who are concerned about what is happening in the Appalachian coalfields. It brings together interviews and articles from some of the foremost long-standing experts on coalfield life including iconic whistleblower Jack Spadaro, legendary lawyer Tony Oppegard, and acclaimed balladeers Mike and Carrie Kline.

George Brosi, Appalachian Mountain Books

Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction

Compiled and Edited by Wess Harris

This edition 2017 by Appalachian Community Services and PM Press

ISBN: 9781629634456

LCCN: 2017942905

Cover by John Yates/stealworks.com

Cover photo of the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster Bob Campione Interior by Jonathan Rowland

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the USA on recycled paper by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan

Michael and Carrie Kline with Joy and Chuck Lynn

Goldenseal

Michael Kline

Wess Harris

Michael Kline

Larry Layne as told to Michael and Carrie Kline

Tom Rhule

Walter Lane

Logan District Mines Information Bureau

Wess Harris

Bill Kovarik

William C. Blizzard

Cecil Roberts to Randall Reid-Smith

Michael Kline

Fr. John S. Rausch

Theresa Burriss

Attorney Tony Oppegard as told to Michael Kline

Jack Spadaro as told to Michael and Carrie Kline

Nathan J. Fetty

Carrie Kline

Wess Harris

Sarah Ogan Gunning

T HIS C USTOMARY AND O BLIGATORY P AGE O FFERS AN O PPORTU nity to thank those who have made a work possible while absolving them of any blame for errors of the editor. Consider it done. Special gratitude must be shown to two groups whose work does not physically appear herein.

In recent years countless miners and descendants of miners have offered stories and documents that supplement and confirm the tales in both When Miners March and this small volume. In addition to purely substantive contributions, their encouragement has been invaluable on those days when the task has seemed too great. Dwight Siemiaczko is a relentless researcher of all things Paint Creek. Kathryn Bowles offered her great-grandfather Bill Derenges autobiography. Terri Whitlock, granddaughter of Clarence E. Red Jones, provided the smoking gun that confirmed Van Bittners sellout of the Union contracts. Elwood Maples saved documents that would have been lost forever. J.W. Sheets II stepped up and shared his grandfathers treasure so that future generations can see as well as read their history. Joy and Chuck Lynn refused the bribes offered to sanitize our history and at great personal expense have insisted on letting the Whipple Company Store tell its stories.

Unlikely and somewhat unwelcome heroes can also be found at Radford University. Radford has agreed not only to house but also actively manage the William C. Blizzard/When Miners March collection. Much of the primary source material for both When Miners March and this work can now be accessed at the Radford University Archives. Candidly, this is most unfortunate. These materials should ideally be kept within the state of West Virginia, but that is not possible. Not one of the three institutions in West Virginia that might reasonably be expected to have the physical capabilities to house and preserve this incredible collection has the academic integrity to be trusted to tell the miners tale and make it available to future generations. Sad but true. Researchers wishing to continue primary source research are directed to Radford.

Words cannot capture the gratitude I feel to those whose lives are celebrated in these pages. They are the true heroes. Thanks and bravo as well to the selfless scholars who contributed time and talent to making this book possible. Shame on those who made it necessary.

T HE G REAT M INE W AR OF W EST V IRGINIA H AS N OW R AGED FOR over a century. Most of the battles recalled here occurred in the state and most contributors are West Virginians. Yet war seldom adheres to lines neatly drawn on a map, so events in neighboring states on occasion find their way to these pages. The coal miners of West Virginia are central to the tale, yet the tale is much larger indeed. Ranging far beyond a battlefield narrowly defined, it is the story of America and its people. Who are we? Who have we been? Who will we become? Who decides?