In Illinois: The Ghost of John L. Lewis

By Lee Griggs

Galatia (pop. 1,023) sits alongside the two-lane tarmac of Highway 34 in Southern Illinois like hips on a snake. Barely. There is a cluster of neat single-story frame houses, a couple of eating places, a bank, a gas station and small supermarket. A lone yellow blinker slows traffic a little. But few outsiders ever stop, and that is fine with Galatians, who have better things to do than chat. They raise corn, graze cattle and dig coal for a living. "Until lately," drawls one miner, "two dogs crossing the road at the same time was a big event here." Now there are bigger and more ominous events in town. As has often been the case in the region's tumultuous history, coal is the crux.

Galatia lies on the eastern edge of the Illinois basin, a 25 million-acre, spoon-shaped, subterranean shelf of coal that has made the state the nation's fourth largest producer. For almost a century now, the basin has been union turf. While only 44% of all U.S. coal is dug by members of the United Mine Workers of America, down from 70% a decade ago, some 99% of Illinois coal is union mined. The legendary John L. Lewis rose to the presidency of the U.M.W. as a legislative lobbyist from the union's Illinois District 12, which includes Galatia. Since the Iowa-born Lewis first arrived in 1908, the dirtiest four-letter word in coal country has been scab.

But now the Oklahoma-based Kerr-McGee Coal Corp. is clearing a 3,000-acre site on both sides of Highway 34, barely a mile east of Galatia, for a new deep-shaft mine. The company plans to invest $185 million in the venture, which will employ up to 700 miners-all nonunion. Many towns would greet such an investment with enthusiasm. Galatia did not.

One morning last month, nearly 2,000 miners marched up to the chain-link security fence surrounding Kerr-McGee's site and tore down more than two miles of it with their bare hands. Security guards and hastily summoned state police were showered with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Construction equipment was torched and grass fires set. As smoke swirled around them, police fired tear gas from grenade launchers. When that did not work, National Guard helicopters were called in to dispense more tear gas. While the battle raged at the mine site, the single-story frame house in Galatia that served as Kerr-McGee headquarters was burned to the ground. Never mind that it was close to the fire station. Firemen trained their hoses on an adjoining structure instead.

Unemployment in the area is running higher than 20%, other local mines are laying off workers, and nonunion mines often pay better than their unionized counterparts, if only to discourage organizing attempts. So there may be some Galatians to whom the Kerr-McGee project seems like a good idea. But they know enough to keep quiet. Storekeepers say they have been threatened with arson if they do business with the newcomer. Many citizens are chary of talking with strangers. A strapping young man emerging from Ragsdale's Laundromat says that, although he needs a job, he turned down $14 an hour to join nonunion construction workers. "My dad's a miner. He'd kill me if I even talked with scabs."

At Fay's Cafe, where a sign on the screen door decrees NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE, a jut-jawed miner hunches over a cup of coffee at the Formica counter, digging coal grime out of his fingernails with one toothpick while another bobs at the corner of his mouth. "Ain't gonna give you my name," he growls. "But just remember Herrin and Muddy Bottoms. This ain't but the start." Herrin is a town some 20 miles to the west where striking union loyalists shot 19 would-be strikebreakers to death in the "Herrin Massacre" of 1922. Muddy Bottoms is an area along the Muddy River a few miles to the north of Herrin, where U.M.W. stalwarts loyal to John L. Lewis fought off supporters of a rival union with clubs, shovels and shotguns in the early 1930s. The miner adds: "Them that sets up scab here is gonna set up in blood and ashes."

Kim Conley, 30, of Herrin, is a pit committeeman for the union at Old Ben 25 mine in nearby West Frankfort. "Kerr-McGee will hire miners for Galatia out of state, where union tradition isn't strong, and pay better than union scale, scrimping on safety for their profit. With no union, anyone who complains about safety will get fired. I hate to see everything we fought for here go down the tubes. John L. Lewis would roll over in his grave."

For the moment, the militant miners are lying low. Kerr-McGee has secured a temporary injunction against picketing at the Galatia site. So far 20 miners identified from photographs as participants in the August attack have been arrested on charges of criminal damage to property, mob action or aggravated battery. (All are free on bond.) Kerr-McGee President James G. Randolph, 51, a retired Air Force major general, flew to Galatia from corporate headquarters in Oklahoma City and ordered work resumed. The chain-link fence has been rebuilt. A score of bright yellow bulldozers, scrapers and earthmovers are growling back and forth, tossing up giant dust clouds as they level the site for shaft sinking. At night, the construction equipment is drawn up in a cluster under floodlights, covered-wagon style, for protection against sabotage. Admits Randolph: "We expected some resistance in Galatia, but its intensity at this early stage surprised us. Still, our policy remains to encourage nonunion operation-by persuasion, not coercion. It worked well for us in Wyoming."

Back at Fay's Cafe, Randolph's words draw hoots of derision. "Shoot!" shouts a bearded miner, brushing back his U.M.W. cap. "We'll run scabs out like we did at Herrin years back. This here ain't no Wyoming." This here's union country. John L. Lewis country. --By Lee Griggs

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