The Daily Worker

ALABAMA MINE BLAST MURDERS 61 MINERS;
CAPITALISM AND RELIGION PARALYZE PROTEST

(Special to The Daily Worker)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Dec. 11-Of the estimated 61 dead coal miners blown to pieces and burned to death in the non-union Overton mine owned by the Alabama Fuel and Iron company, the bodies of six white men and 44 Negro miners were recovered yesterday.

The known dead number fifty-three, the other eight being yet not found in the lower workings.

The Alabama Fuel and Iron company is a gigantic and rich corporation connected with the steel trust and New York banks.

It owns 36,395 acres of coal lands in Alabama alone, and 1,628 acres in the Kentucky scab coal fields. It operates on $6,397,723 capital and in 1922 made a gross

Company to Blame-

Yet this rich corporation failed to establish safety devices and the sprinkling system to keep down dust that causes explosions, and as a result there are 61 dead miners in the Overton mine, most of them Negroes.

Neither has there been any effort on the part of the Lewis machine of the United Mine Workers' of America to organize these miners who remain unorganized, not because they prefer it, but because they need the power of the U. M. W. of A. to succeed in establishing the union there.

The whole situation is typical of the industrial oppression existing in the United States. On the board of directors of the Alabama Fuel and Iron company is Valentine E. Macy, a New York capitalist. Macy is also director of the Mechanics' and Metals' National Bank, the Union Trust company, the Bank of Long Island, the Manufacturers' Commercial company and the Queensboro Gas and Electric company.

Interested in Child Labor!

But Mr. Macy has also an "interest in labor and philanthropy." as may be seen-not by his indifference to whether or not the white or black coal miners of Alabama are blown to bits so long as dividends roll in, but in his opinion the fact that he is vice-president of the Civic Federation, the leading institution of formal class collaboration composed of capitalist, labor and "public" representatives.

Mr. Macy is also concerned over child labor, tho one would not think

(Continued on Page 4)
Alabama Coal Mine Blast Kills 61 Miners

(Continued from page 1)

from the condition of the children of the miners who were killed by the Overton explosion. Nevertheless, Mr. Macy is treasurer of the National Child Labor committee and vice-president of the New York state child labor committee.

Of the 81 miners underground at the time of the explosion, only 20 escaped death. Company officials seem to think that they are making a great concession when they announce that before mining operations will be resumed—and the profits be resumed with more wage slaves to take the jobs of the dead—all the bodies will be removed.

The blast which shook the windows many miles away in Birmingham, brought terrible scenes to the bereaved wives and children around the pit mouth.

When the first bodies were brought out there was a rush to identify them. The crowd was in an angry mood and was threatening to riot as protest against this mistreatment when, as usual, the intervention of religion came to serve as an opiate. A Negro preacher, who like all preachers serve to make the workers satisfied with heaven hereafter and hell on earth, mounted a large rock and began to sing:

"Swing low sweet chariot
Coming for to take me home."

This paralyzing influence of superstition, which in the form of a song traditional to the colored race, took of the load of responsibility from the Alabama Fuel and Iron company of failing to sprinkle the mine dust and provide proper timbering, and loaded all responsibility onto god, sent the crowd of impressionable workers to weeping and praying and their mood for battle against the company and the brutal police was gone.