Death in the Mines
STEVENS, ELISABETH
DOLA AND THE LAW Death in the Mines By Elisabeth Stevens DOLA, WEST VIRGINA Nearly two years have passed since the disaster in the Clinchfield Coal Company's Compass Number Two mine at Dola,...
...I'm not going to get work now because of my daughter," she added...
...Owners, unless forced, will not invest in new ventilation, safer machinery, or roof support...
...Chap-man's bungalow on a side street, the sun had set...
...The Bureau made pioneer studies in mine ventilation, explosive techniques and electrical equipment, but had no legal right to inspect a mine until 1941 when it was empowered to visit all coal and lignite mines once a year and make recommendations...
...When I spoke to them, some men complained that methane testing was still inadequate...
...I could not think of an answer...
...Yet the air system in Three Right had been hazardous for years, and when luck ran out, there was nothing for the winning safety teams to rescue but corpses...
...and of big owners, who would find safer operation expensive, has been successful...
...There's still a smell of burned bodies, you know, in that section of the mine...
...Men were still afraid of the old belt, which was tom and twisted and spilled coal which was not always cleaned up promptly...
...To change such conditions, a new study of mine safety was made in the summer of 1963 by the Department of the Interior at the request of President Kennedy...
...Repeated tragedies have shown that there is only one sure way to in-crease mine safety-strongly en-forced Federal legislation...
...The only thing we could-a done was have a wildcat strike, but that wouldn't do no good because you got to go back to work again before the management'll negotiate with you...
...Three miners died March 12, 1964, in a roof fall at the Smith Coal Company's Number Twenty-One mine near Pikeville, Kentucky...
...As of January 1965, Riley says, tonnage has increased, more miners have been hired, and the men are more con-tent with working conditions than they were before...
...But things is better now than they was then...
...I have worked in small mines and there is a lot of difference in safety practices with regard to cooperation of management enforcing the laws and safety regulations...
...We descended 350 feet into the ground, and got out near a flat shuttle car waiting on the narrow tracks which connect the thousand tunnels of a mine...
...Then the tragedies of Horian and Centralia forced Congress to put teeth in the Bureau's powers...
...We could-a filed a grievance, but that system's no good...
...And at many mines it is the same story...
...and tightened controls over minor violations and repeated offenses in Title II mines...
...They had been building their own house, she answered, but now she would stay here in the rented bungalow...
...When I pressed further, I was told Routh wished to evade the question...
...The Dent Bill would have given inspectors full powers over the Title I mines...
...The dry powder lingered on the back of my tongue...
...I asked...
...In Clarksburg, as in many coal towns, there are stores for rent, shuttered hotels, movie theaters with empty marquees...
...Could they have been bribed...
...In the offices of Clinchfield Coal in Clarksburg, there are two glass cases full of safety awards won in mine rescue contests...
...Some of the men think so...
...We said good-bye on the porch and I stepped out into sleeting rain...
...Chapman came out on the porch to greet me, and I followed her into the front room where her daughter, a seventh grader, sat quietly in a man's over-stuffed arm-chair, looking small...
...Mrs.' Chap-man sat down on the couch under a cardboard reproduction of Salz-man's Christ, framed in brittle yellow wood...
...Scattered coal dust in a mine that "makes right smart-a gas," means the omnipresent danger of further fires...
...In New York, when I tried to contact Jack Routh, President of the Pittston Company which owns Clinchfield Coal, he was too busy to discuss Dola...
...Compass Number Two has had enough...
...We even talked about it Friday morning...
...But the latest version of the Federal Coal Mine Safety Act, which has been introduced into every Congress for the last 10 years, was once again killed in the past session of the House...
...This has led to the practice, prevalent in Kentucky, in which unscrupulous operators split a large, unionized company into a number of small, non-union mines in order to increase profits by avoiding safety precautions and union wages...
...A letter in The United Mine Workers' Journal shows more clearly than the arguments of officials or legislators why a new Federal Coal Mine Safety Act is desperately needed...
...He had been one of the volunteers who brought out bodies from the mine in plastic bags...
...That blast was anticipated," I was told by Ollie Schoolcraft, who was a member of the Miners' Grievance Committee...
...Title I mines have increased 30 per cent since 1952, while the number of Title II mines has decreased 53 per cent...
...It is this bill which was buried in the House Rules Committee...
...We were near a "face"-the place where coal is actually being mined...
...You can't heal an old wound overnight," Hayward Harris re-plied when I asked him about changes at the mine since the disaster...
...Then she leaned forward to finger the Bible that lay on a small table beside a vase of artificial flowers...
...On September 22, 1963, L. Clyde Riley, UMW secretary-treasurer for the district, told a meeting that Bernard Judy, the president of Clinchfield Coal, had stated that the mine must pick up tonnage or shut down...
...Rockdust, a crushed limestone, had been sprayed on them to cut the coal's explosiveness...
...The shuttle car thundered to a stop...
...The car moved faster-hurtling through shadowy passages to new tunnels...
...Although no negligence charges were pressed against officials at Dola, all the top officers of the Clarksburg office of the Clinchfield Coal Company were replaced after the accident...
...I'd never do it again,' he said...
...I asked what she was going to do now...
...The Safety Committee talked to the superintendent but they didn't get no results...
...Cold, dry air rushed at our faces...
...The gas, which is tasteless, odorless and colorless, was silently building up from the face of the coal into surrounding passages...
...On the other hand, James Westfield of the Bureau of Mines told me he thought the safety bill was not strong enough...
...safety at Compass Number Two, I was told that Routh laughed and said that naturally the more men they employed the better the safety rate would look mathematically...
...Ike Fulks, a miner for 39 years, wrote from Norton, Virginia: "I would like to see the Federal Coal Mine Act amended so it would protect any coal miner regardless of the number or size of the mine...
...Thus the opposition of small owners, whose dangerous mines might have to shut down completely...
...The men left their cars in the muddy parking lot beside the tin-faced shaft building, and went down at 3:30...
...If I could get a job I could make a living at, I wouldn't go down in the mines tonight," said Hayward Harris, a middle-aged man who is now chairman of the Safety Committee...
...It was in order to do this that I visited the Compass Number Two mine at Dola...
...There was no good inspections here," Hayward Harris answered...
...At one time he told me that I was using too many roof support timbers...
...On April 25, 1963, less than four miles from the coal face I visited, 22 men died when a methane gas explosion turned air to fire...
...The men was afraid of it...
...The management just wanted to get the tonnage...
...By the time I found Mrs...
...All the men take chances...
...At 10 P.M., when the shift was almost over, the section foreman reported by telephone from Three Right that the continuous miner, which had been out of order, was now working...
...It was raining...
...Delbery Chapman, the widow of a shuttle car operator who died in the April 1963 blast...
...The first step in this direction was the establishment of the Bureau of Mines in 1910...
...At 10:57 P.M., a defective electrical loading machine provided the only thing the accumulated methane needed-a spark...
...I wondered...
...It is difficult, he reflected, to make sure that operators maintain safe conditions consistently-not just before inspections...
...the mine and the survivors are quickly forgotten...
...Framed on the wall are state certificates for mining a million tons of coal with-out a fatal accident...
...ELISABETH STEVENS, whose illustrations accompany her article, is a free-lance writer and an artist...
...Although mine disasters get front page publicity, the sensation-hungry press quickly moves on to new excitements...
...The mine-capricious and feminine -tolerates no rivals...
...If he had done this immediately, the explosion half an hour later might never have occurred...
...It was time for my plane...
...But the unnecessary deaths of 22 men cannot be evaded-even by a man who is wise enough to go to the Pan American Building in-stead of a mine to earn his living...
...Three men were entombed in the summer of 1963 by a rockslide at Oneida, Pennsylvania in the Fellin mine...
...He added that he planned to install an extra fan with tubing to ventilate the cutting face of the coal...
...Title I mines -the small operators like the Fellin mine where three men were entombed in the summer of 1963-cannot be closed by inspectors no matter how dangerous the conditions...
...All were married, and together they left 58 dependents...
...The ventilation in Three Right was left over from the horse and mule days," asserted Rufus Johnson Hall, a pumper...
...He told me that a new ventilation shaft was being installed, and that a new coal conveyor belt was to be ready soon...
...In 1952, Public Law 552 gave Federal inspectors the right to withdraw the men and close a mine if they discovered imminent danger of a mine explosion, fire, inundation or man hoist accident...
...The disaster at Dola is only one of many recent mine accidents...
...She reminded me that her brother-in-law had been the mine superintendent before the disaster...
...In the Title I mines, or "dog-holes," men thrown out of work by the automation of large mines and desperate to feed hungry families may risk their lives daily for as little as $25 a week...
...Steel's Robena Number Three at Carmichaels, Pennsylvania...
...Also, since the inspection of a mine may take several days or more, there is nothing to prevent cleaning up one section of a mine while the inspector is busy examining another part of it...
...I hauled one of my brothers out of a coal mine after he was killed by a roof fall and the rock which fell on him carried many chalk marks condemning it, but the chalk marks did not hold the rock up and 1 believe that if we had more action instead of marks, he probably would have been living today...
...Tonnage dropped from 17 tons per day per man to 10 after the accident...
...DOLA AND THE LAW Death in the Mines By Elisabeth Stevens DOLA, WEST VIRGINA Nearly two years have passed since the disaster in the Clinchfield Coal Company's Compass Number Two mine at Dola, West Virginia-one of the worst coal tragedies of recent times...
...In most restaurants, coffee is still five cents...
...During the next crucial 30 minutes, no one took time to measure for the explosive methane gas which often escapes as the coal is mined...
...The management was continually riding the section boss for tonnage...
...One man had no flesh left except what was under his heavy leather belt...
...When I questioned him, through an aide, about the problem of tonnage vs...
...The three shifts tried to beat each other in hauling coal," Hay-ward Harris continued, turning his white safety helmet between heavy hands...
...On December 6, 1962, 37 men died in an explosion in the world's largest mine, U.S...
...On October 24, a new Federal Coal Mine Safety Act was introduced into the House by John H. Dent, a Pennsylvania Democrat...
...Down the block, a shuttle train of B & a boxcars rumbled through the underpass, carrying coal to distant cities...
...The inspectors was short on duty...
...Surprisingly, the walls were yellowish white-not black...
...In the first 11 months of 1964, 219 miners met their deaths in mine disasters-victims of antiquated laws which, in effect, license mine owners to increase their profits by wagering workers' lives...
...To make things worse, the ventilation pat- tern, which is designed to carry away methane, had been short- circuited by the opening of air lock doors and curtains for the movement of heavy machinery...
...There have been several minor fires in the mine since the disaster...
...One time this mine had the largest production in the state per man," Ollie Schoolcraft recalled, "but it was always unsafe...
...She's afraid, you know, that something might happen to me too...
...Several of the under-ground personnel, whom the men no longer trusted, were also removed...
...Management saw fit to operate this mine dangerously," he continued...
...I had to leave...
...Placards advertising the West Virginia Centennial drooped on rusty lamp posts...
...Another widow lost her mind after the accident...
...She has Workman's Compensation and a death benefit of $1,000 from the United Mine Workers...
...I work in a large Title I Mine...
...Yet the profit squeeze remains...
...I asked him about what had happened after the accident...
...I told the assistant foreman on Tuesday it was going to blow and Friday it blowed," Hayward Harris recalled...
...We ducked to avoid low ceilings...
...I asked her about the accident...
...I did not want to bring bad luck to Dola...
...A single street lamp east a wavering reflection on wet black pavement...
...Rufus Hall shook his head as if he did not know himself...
...Engine heat seared my legs...
...Although an inspector's visit is never announced, word may get around of his probable movements...
...In spite of well-known hazards, in the miners go on working...
...I was foreman for a short while for a small mine operator in a Title I Mine...
...Women seldom go into mines, and some still believe they are unlucky...
...He was a tall man of 61, and his pale blue eyes examined me seriously from rings of coal dust...
...When I came up from Compass Number Two at Dola, I talked to some of the men who were changing shifts...
...In the resulting explosion all 22 men in the area were burned alive...
...What about inspections...
...Another was so burned that his nose and lips came off, rubbing inside the plastic bag.': He went on to say that three bodies were unidentifiable, and one widow is not sure, after a $2,000 funeral, that she buried her own husband...
...The afternoon shift began that cool, clear spring day as on any other...
...On December 21, 1964, one man was crushed to death and three injured in the Franklin Colliery near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania...
...No mines are kept up to par;' she told me...
...A dinosaur of a machine, the continuous miner, was biting into a vein and spewing back lumps of coal in a whirlwind of black powder...
...1 can't see holding grudges;' she said, "The Lord plans our lives-we go the way we was intended...
...As I drove through the main street, the blue neon sign of a loan company flashed against a grey, tired sky...
...After my own visit to Compass Number Two mine at Dola, I drove into Clarksburg to see Mrs...
...As at Dola, coal dust and methane were ignited by a spark from defective machinery...
...In Washington, I was told by Herbert Foster of the National Coal Policy Association-a lobby of large bituminous coal operators-that some of the Association's members feel it would be impossible for them to operate under the proposed legislation, which they consider too "restrictive...
...The law's weakness is that it applies only to mines employing 15 or more men underground-the socalled Title II mines...
...Joe Zirkle of Brown, West Virginia, was burned in the face...
...A similar explosion took place December 16, 1963, at the Number Two mine of Carbon Fuel Company at Helper, Utah...
...The legislators go on talking and the miners go on dying...
...I asked whether she hated the Clinchfield Coal Company...
...nine died...
...Men stopped work to stare at me from coal-circled eyes...
...Once we were crouched down in a small recess at the back of the shuttle, the car began to move...
...It was the worst I ever went through...
...If one wants to assess the long-term aftermath of such tragedies, one has to seek out the facts at first-hand...
...nor will they be eager to pay men to carry out safety duties when they could be mining coal...
...The youngest was 33 and the oldest 58...
...If the area surrounding the Three Right section where the blast originated had not been well rockdusted, the explosion could have killed all 58 men working in the mine...
...After I had signed a waiver and put on a coal miner's helmet and lamp, Robert Quenon, the then superintendent of the Clarksburg office of Clinchfield Coal, led me to the open elevator...
...Mines will be closed if they do not produce-sometimes at the risk of another disaster...
Vol. 48 • February 1965 • No. 3
