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Working Class Rhetoric: An Exploration of The Mining Rhetoric of Southeast Kansas

Bulletin, 1926, April 1926

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Union Relationship Rhetoric and Brotherhood
Rhetoric of Working Class by Judith D. Hoover
Miners used slogan suggestions, rewritten songs and chants, and strike bulletins both to seek identification with other miners and to differentiate themselves from “others.” These examples may be thought of as typifying “class codes.” In the slogan, the miners sought to identify themselves as those who “dig your coal,” and those who “created America’s wealth.” They blamed the “operators,” and assorted political leaders such as President Herbert Hoover, Congress, the national government, the Farm Board, and the Red Cross for their plight (“Slogans”). The codes used in the songs were much more graphic. The miners identified themselves as “red necks” and as “Christian hobos,” as heroes “noble and brave” who as “union sons and daughters” have “gone to an early grave.” They were opposed in these lyrics by “lawless tyrants and ruffians” and by “scabs” who tried to take their jobs (Seacrist). The strike bulletins took the terms for the “others” another step by labeling them as not only "scabs,” but as “flunkies,” “bums and loafers,” “soldier boys,” and “lapdogs” who wear “ice cream pants and stick candy neckties” or “stiff collars” (“Strike Bulletin No. 1”; “Strike Bulletin No. 2”; “Strike Bulletin No. 3”).

All three kinds of documents contain references to the values sought by the miners. In the slogans, the miners speak most of feeding their children, but they also ask for solutions to their plight, such as giving them the nation’s surplus wheat or providing unemployment insurance. In the songs, they speak of “freedom from bondage and political chains,” of liberty and peace, of their own “noble land,” and of “free elections.” In the strike bulletins, they speak most often of rights—the right to keep their jobs, their rights as taxpayers, the right to picket peacefully, and their “American birthright” that includes “liberty and economic independence” (Seacrist).

Although the slogans and songs contained genuine threats, the strike bulletins countered the threats with ridicule of the mine operators and strong suggestions that miners not resort to violence. Slogans suggested that the miners would “keep coming,” that they “must have food,” that they “won’t starve,” that they would “raise Hell,” and that they would vote. The songs, similarly, indicated that the miners were “not afraid” and that they would “lay down arms” only when agreements could be reached “on union terms.” Calls to arms were made in song, along with references to the “union sword”; one song ended with the phrase “union or death” (Seacrist).

The strike bulletins provided statistics and other informational messages to reassure the miners that help was on the way and that the strikes were working. They reported the number of mines shut down and the number of miners on strike, as well as data on food distribution efforts, sites, and amounts. Their attacks on the operators came in the form of name-calling and ridicule. Their instructions to miners suggested that they should stop production by walking off their own jobs and “picketing every mine.” They advised miners to “swallow your wrath” and avoid “being provoked to violence,” but to try to “get to the scabs somehow” (“Strike Bulletin No. 1”; “Strike Bulletin No. 2”; “Strike Bulletin No. 3”).

Many of the words found in this account of working-class rhetoric are harsh and unpleasant to the sensibilities of academics as well as the general public. Talk of red necks and scabs is not appealing to the reader. Why was it necessary? Why should we be interested in these words and the people who used them? How do their efforts expand our concept of rhetorical discourse? If we look back at our theorists’ contentions, perhaps we will begin to see the relevance of not only the ugly words, but also the heartbreaking stories and the sense of righteous resistance to the inhuman treatment accorded the working class in general and West Virginia coal miners specifically. Ellis claims that the working class disadvantages itself to the extent that its attitudes conform to the values of capitalism. This concept is not new. In fact, Karl Mannheim, writing during the heart of the Depression, noted, “in certain situations the collective unconscious of certain groups obscures the real condition of society both to itself and to others and thereby stabilizes it” (40). If the workers, the coal miners in this instance, had acquiesced to the rationale of the coal operators that the economic system and they themselves would be best served by closed shops, then they would certainly have disadvantaged themselves. Although a recounting of the long history of coal mining is beyond the limits of this study, suffice it to say that at various times miners did disadvantage themselves in the way Mannheim suggests. Miners in West Virginia were first attracted to the United Mine Workers (UMW), then disillusioned by that same group; they turned to the West Virginia Mine Workers and then, during the Great Depression, membership in that organization languished. They returned to the UMW, but were deterred by the closed shop provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, which was vetoed by President Harry Truman, but upheld (through a veto override) by the Republican-controlled House and Senate in the 1940s (see Rodden).

Still, a careful look at the kinds of discourse practiced by the miners in this study indicates defiance rather than acquiescence, resistance rather than ideological legitimation of social stratification. Indeed, there are class codes present in this discourse that blame the troubles of one group on the privileges of the other and solidify the boundaries between those groups, but these codes do not acknowledge “fairness” in any way. They never suggest that the coal operators “deserve” their condition in life because they have “succeeded,” whereas the miners have not worked hard enough to succeed.

So what do these miners say instead? They sing songs, they recite poems, they tell tales. All the while, they give support and encouragement; they seek funds and empathy; they offer narrative evidence of the woeful world of the working class during the Depression era, asking for understanding and for a solution to the misery that accompanies their lives. They do not seem to believe that they are linguistically deprived. They speak in their own voices and attempt to convey their meanings in tried-and-true methods of “the people.” Some of their messages are argumentative and persuasive, while others are literary and aesthetic—in other words, they exploit the narrative paradigm in both of its manifestations.

These narrators may not have been trained in the ways of attorneys or judges, but they “know” and can explain how human beings ought to be treated. Their stories possess narrative fidelity, or faithfulness to experience, because those whom they address have lived these stories, too. Their stories possess narrative probability because they present coherent accounts that retain their character and integrity from time to time and location to location. Perhaps the single most powerful force operating in these narratives is that of identification.

Analysis of the miners’ narratives is enriched by ideas utilized in the field of women’s studies. For example, bell hooks asserts: “Much feminist theory emerges from privileged women who live at the center, whose perspectives on reality rarely include knowledge and awareness of the lives of women and men who live in the margin.” The result of that limited perspective is that “feminist theory lacks wholeness, lacks the broad analysis that could encompass a variety of human experiences” (“Preface” x). Although hooks wrote in terms of race and gender, rhetorical theories also lack a class component, indeed a class consciousness.

How difficult it must be for those who have been neither hungry nor homeless to comprehend or identify with working-class rhetoric of the Depression era. The closest current scholars may have ever come to such talk is, perhaps, the Polish Solidarity Movement of the early 1980s. Academics typically study the rhetorical discourse of those in power rather than those with less authority and less education. After all, those in power got there, we assume, because they were persuasive. So the study of the rhetoric of the powerless has been put aside, not consciously, perhaps, as not worthy of study. This putting aside, or never taking up, has further legitimated the power structure.

I agree with Ellis that these samples of Depression-era working-class rhetoric provide evidence of blaming that would certainly seem to reinforce class boundaries. But what if the villains actually are villains, actually are responsible for the starvation and homelessness experienced by the West Virginia miners and their families? To speak such a simple truth does not conversely admit equal blame for their plight on the part of those who were suffering. Indeed, these desperate times finally brought American society to the recognition that people could work as long and hard as humanly possible and yet not earn a “living wage.” Mannheim illustrates that even during the Depression, theorists understood the power of ideology to blind us to that reality. He said, “ruling groups can in their thinking become so intensively interest-bound to a situation that they are simply no longer able to see certain facts which would undermine their sense of domination” (40).

Speaking of the oppressed, hooks asks, “Who defines them? Who creates their realities? How are they defined?” Speaking to those who may be blinded by ideology or hegemony, she says, “Resistance and strength can come to even the poor and weak if they perceive that they can,” if they are able to “reject the realities projected on them by others” (90–91). Primary source documents by miners reveal their efforts to define themselves and others, efforts to resist ideology and control over their own realities, and rejection of the idea that as Americans they had no rights other than those given to them by their employers. Their communicative methods consisted mostly of stories, some harsh, some poignant, but all rhetorical in the best sense of the narrative paradigm. They rejected the “rational world” assumptions inherent in capitalist ideology and relied instead on “good reasons” why change was needed.
"Us" vs "Them" The relationship between unions and employers could be described at best as contentious and at worst openly hostile. Take the case of the Battle of Blair Mountain, in West Virginia. In late-summer of 1921, 10,000 striking coal miners engaged in warfare with thousands of police officers and strikebreakers (Patel). The battle was a victory for the coal company and had a detrimental effect on union membership in several states, including in Southeast Kansas. While this incident - the largest armed confrontation in American labor history – is unique, the mentality of “us vs. them” was pervasive in union-employer relations.

Judith Hoover recounts what was involved for any miner who wished to work for the Hatfield-Campbell Creek Coal Company (WV) in the 1920s:
One had to sign a contract that not only included questions about one’s age, weight, height, color, and scars or deformities, but also required an oath about the “rightness” of nonunion shops. First, the applicant had to agree that he was “not now a member of the United Mine Workers of America, the IWW, or any other organization of mine workers, and will not, during his employment, join or affiliate with any such labor organization.” Then the applicant had to agree that he was willing to sign because he “believed the preservation of the right of individual contract, free from interference or regulation by others, and payment in proportion to service rendered, to be in my interest, to the best interest of the public and of all industry.” Finally, the applicant had to agree that the company could “make deductions on pay roll for Medical Attention, Hospital and Burial Fund.” No amounts were listed for any of these deductions; the employee simply had to trust the company to decide on a reasonable fee (36-7).
This type of behavior by owners of coal companies is what drove men such as Alexander Howat to fight so fiercely for the rights of coal miners both in SEK and nationwide.

Not only were mining unions pitted against mine owners, there were divisive factions within the United Mine Workers of America. Alexander Howat stood in opposition against John Lewis due to disagreements regarding the rights of mine workers.

Sources:
Hoover. Judith D. “‘Miners Starve, Idle or Working’: Working-Class Rhetoric of the Early Twentieth Century.” In Who Says: Working-Class Rhetoric, Class Consciousness, and Community. Ed. William DeGenaro. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007. 32-46.

Patel, Samir S. “Mountaintop Rescue.” Archeology 65.1 (Jan/Feb 2012). Web – archeology.org. 27 April 2016.