The Coal War (51 page)

The affidavit of Mrs. Gloria Padilla: “At sometime late in the afternoon they started to burn the tents. When the tents were first fired they did not burn my tent, later in the evening the soldiers came back to fire the rest of the tents and they heard my children crying, and they said there is a family in there, and they helped me out and took me and the children to the depot. While at the depot three Mexican guards got mad at the women and said they ought to be burned in the tents.”

The testimony of Mrs. Margaret Dominiske, before the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, in New York City. “About three o'clock was when they started to shoot so awfully hard. And about a quarter to six one of the men from the arroyo came up to where we were. He said we had better get out of here because he said there is about fifty militia right close to the camp, and he said they are burning up the tents and if you crawl out here you can see it. So I crawled out and I looked down and I saw about six or eight tents burning. And then I saw five militiamen cross from the tents that was burning over to those that was not burning, and three of them had torches, and two had cans. I don't know what was in the cans, but I think it was oil. They went into one of these other tents, and I got back into where my children were. Pretty soon some said it looks like there is a train, that that will be our only chance of escape. So I went and crawled back out and looked out again to the tents and I saw the militia going into them, they was all on fire, so I judge from that they had set it on fire, and when this train came—”

“Chairman Walsh: You say that they had torches and that they were lighted?

Mrs. Dominiske: Well it looked like a broom, to me, that is what it looked like from where I was at, looked like they were brooms lit. Then when the train came, why we all got out of the well and out of the barn and went to the arroyo. And on the way there, as she stooped to get under a fence, one of the ladies had a big apron on and she stooped to get under the fence and there was a bullet passed right through her apron, and another passed over my head and exploded. It was an explosive bullet and exploded right in front of another lady, and she had a baby in her arms, and she fainted. We got into the arroyo and we went down to a ranch about five or six miles from Ludlow.”

The above is only a part of the evidence bearing upon one episode of the novel; I do not exaggerate in saying that I could prove fifty other incidents in as much detail. Before writing the story I studied eight million words of printed or typewritten evidence, in addition to many millions which I gathered directly from the lips of witnesses. I invite anyone who suspects me of exaggeration to examine at least a part of this evidence himself.

When I wrote “The Jungle” it was my purpose to call attention, not so much to evils connected with the country's meat supply, as to injustices suffered by the working people who prepare it. As I said afterwards, I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach. Now once more I am aiming at the heart. This book goes out as an appeal to the conscience of the American people: an appeal for millions of men, women and children who are practically voiceless—not merely in Colorado, but in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Alabama, a score of states in which miners and steel-workers have been unable to organize and protect themselves.

It is an appeal against the hideous nightmare of Government by Gunmen: a new form of sovereignty which has grown up in America, a system nation-wide in scope, having many millions of dollars invested in it and employing tens of thousands of men. The public is told that its purpose is the preservation of order; but let the reader of this book carry away one definite certainty—the purpose of Government by Gunmen is not order, but oppression, not peace but slavery. These “guards” and “detectives” come, not to prevent violence, but to provoke it; not to protect industrial property, but to crush labor organization. They are private mercenaries, fully equipped for military campaigning, as well as for secret diplomacy; trained in every phase of their peculiar kind of warfare, and as merciless and irresponsible as the
condottieri
of Italy. If they are permitted to go on developing their power in this republic, they will bring upon us a slave rebellion as bloody and cruel as those of Spartacus and Eunus against Rome.

APPENDICES

EXPLANATION OF EDITORIAL PROCEDURES

Three drafts of
The Coal War
survive at the Lilly Library, Indiana University, typescripts which may be designated A, B, and C, early to late. In the original purchase of the Sinclair Papers in 1957 the Lilly acquired the early A type script, consecutively paginated 1-290, the first 41 pages of C, and several sections of
The Coal War
designated here as B. Not until the autumn of 1968, in its fourth acquisition of Sinclair Papers, did the Lilly obtain the remaining 376 pages of C.

B and C typescripts were initially identical in content, C the ribbon copy and B the carbon. Since Craig Sinclair's hand is distinct from Upton's, an examination reveals that she was responsible for all B emendations, while he made every revision in C. A comparison of both versions indicates that, in all probability, Sinclair and his wife worked through them simultaneously at first, each holding a copy, and then Sinclair made further changes at a later date. These final revisions are almost uniformly of a minor nature, generally a matter of word substitution. Although no differences exist between B and C drafts in the vast majority of pages, there can be no doubt that C is a later version than B. C incorporates most B emendations but deliberately rejects others. An example will make this process apparent and, at the same time, illustrate the nature of Sinclair's revisions.

In Book III of
The Coal War
, prior to final emendation, Hal Warner is engaged in a dialogue with Congressman Simmons.

“You see,” explained Mr. Simmons, “ours is a government of divided powers. The task of this committee was to investigate a possible need of new legislation.”

“Will you recommend any new legislation?”

“It's difficult to think of any that would remedy this present situation.”

“Let me suggest something then, Mr. Simmons. You would end this struggle if you made membership in a union compulsory in coal-mines.”

It was evident from the look on Mr. Simmons' face that he was not going to recommend anything like that! “It would seem to me,” he said, “that the problem is to get the present laws enforced.”

“Well,” said Hal, “I'll compromise on that. How are we to do it?”

“It's the duty of the Governor of your state.”

“But he won't do his duty. We've spent five miserable months proving that! So what next?”

In B, Craig made a single emendation, the substitution of “would make”: “You would end this struggle if you [would make] membership in a union compulsory in coalmines.”

As may be seen from the text (pp. 260-261), when Sinclair made his final revision of C typescript, he wished to make Hal appear more direct, forceful, and authoritative. Sinclair initially added “would make” as Craig suggested, but then excised it. He saw that his earlier use of “something” and “anything” was vague, and he substituted the much more concrete “law” whenever possible, four times in all. In place of the wordy sentence, “You would end this struggle if you [would make] membership in a union compulsory in coal-mines,” Sinclair emended to: “Let me suggest a law, Mr. Simmons—a law that would end this struggle at once. Make membership in a union compulsory in all coal-mines.” Given this tone, Hal's later talk of compromise and his weak interrogatories are inconsistent. Therefore, when Simmons states “that the problem is to get the present laws enforced,” Sinclair removes altogether Hal's uncertain rejoinders: “I'll compromise on that. How are we to do it?” It is readily apparent that Sinclair's final emendations in C draft are direct, emphatic, and more effective than his earlier version.

The differences between Sinclair's hand and his wife's, evident after a close inspection of manuscripts and handwritten letters, make it a relatively straightforward matter to join the two C fragments together and establish the final text of
The Coal War
with certainty. The fact that C is the ribbon copy, and B the carbon, introduces yet another safeguard in the identification and choice of C version as copy-text. This text of
The Coal War
is a critical, unmodernized reconstruction: critical in the sense that it is not an exact reprint of the copy-text; unmodernized in that, apart from established editorial procedures, every effort has been made to present the text in as close a form to Sinclair's finally revised typescript C as possible.

Editorial alteration is of two basic types. First, since Sinclair did not catch every typographical error, they are editorially corrected. Second, inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, word-division, and punctuation are normalized by utilizing the principle of most frequent usage. Sinclair adhered to a virtually uniform practice of placing punctuation outside quotation marks when the quoted matter was a phrase or term, as opposed to conversation. His few departures from this custom may all be attributed to his own or his typist's carelessness. Sinclair's practice is clear and, since it was a quite common system of punctuation in America at least through the 1930s, his customary pattern has been adopted.

In matters of doubt, the first edition of
King Coal
has been turned to for authority. The copy-text is everywhere legible, and Sinclair's revisions are clear. Editorial alteration has been conservative and always weighed against the values of authorial purpose and possible stylistic idiosyncrasy. But for the exceptions previously noted, this text of
The Coal War
represents a faithful transcription of typescript C as finally revised and submitted to the Macmillan Company for publication.

About the Author

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, activist, and politician whose novel
The Jungle
(1906) led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act. Born into an impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, Sinclair entered City College of New York five days before his fourteenth birthday. He wrote dime novels and articles for pulp magazines to pay for his tuition, and continued his writing career as a graduate student at Columbia University. To research
The Jungle
, he spent seven weeks working undercover in Chicago's meatpacking plants. The book received great critical and commercial success, and Sinclair used the proceeds to start a utopian community in New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he founded the state's ACLU chapter and became an influential political figure, running for governor as the Democratic nominee in 1934. Sinclair wrote close to one hundred books during his lifetime, including
Oil!
(1927), the inspiration for the 2007 movie
There Will Be Blood
;
Boston
(1928), a documentary novel revolving around the Sacco and Vanzetti case;
The Brass Check
, a muckraking exposé of American journalism; and the eleven novels in the Pulitzer Prize–winning Lanny Budd series.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1976 by David Sinclair

Cover design by Kat JK Lee

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2613-0

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com