Americans are proud of where they come from and proud of their pasts. For many Americans, this means a story of upheaval and uprooting, the move from one continent to another, change of language and customs, and the pain of rejection by those who consider themselves the “real” Americans.
Today we celebrate double identities such as “Polish-American” or “Italian-American,” but there was a time in the Pennsylvania anthracite region when such identities were a heavy burden to bear. There was even a time when “real” Americans were ready to shoot immigrant workers in the back if they tried to exercise their rights to free speech and assembly as they struggled for decent working conditions and lives.
On September 10, 1897, as many in the coal region know, such a shooting took place. It happened right across the Schuylkill County line, in Lattimer, a “coal patch” in Luzerne County, situated near a mine owned by Calvin Pardee of Hazleton. At that time, the UMWA was working to organize immigrant miners, many who did not speak English. On September 10th, striking miners at nearby Harwood mine marched towards Lattimer, hoping to convince their fellow miners to lay down their tools and walk off the job.
Striking miners were protesting working conditions and poor pay. They were also rebelling against coercion to shop in company stores where necessities were sold at highly inflated prices. The day of the march about 400 unarmed men, many Polish and Slovak, along with Italians, Lithuanians and Germans, rallied around the American flag as they headed down a road leading to Lattimer mine.
Waiting for them was Luzerne County Sheriff James Martin and a posse of 86 deputies, called in by mine owners because their private Coal & Iron police was not enough. Martin ordered the strikers, on public and not on private land, to halt and disperse. When they continued marching, the deputies opened fire. When strikers tried to flee, most were shot in the back, some multiple times. That day, 19 men died and many more were wounded.
At the time, what has come to be known as “the Lattimer massacre” provoked mixed reactions in the press. The Philadelphia Public Ledger took the side of mine owners and the police, declaring those engaged in “riotous assembly” were dutybound to obey the demands of the sheriff and disperse. The Philadelphia Inquirer at first sided with the owners and the sheriff, but later referred to the shooting as “human slaughter.”
In the anthracite region, The Wilkes Barre Times stood firmly with the owners. The Hazleton Daily Standard deplored that mine owners had not met the men “half-way.”
In February 1898, Sheriff Martin and his deputies were put on trial for the murder of the 19 strikers killed during the march. On March 9th of the same year, they were found “not guilty.”
After the massacre, membership in the UMWA increased exponentially in the anthracite region, but for miners, it was business as usual as they returned underground to 10-hours shifts in total darkness.
During this same decade, labor and ethnic unrest were spreading in France. Though the French had earned the right to strike in 1864 and trade unions became legal in 1884, many workers continued to organize along regional lines. Such was the case of seasonal workers who harvested salt in the salt marshes of southern France around the Mediterranean port of Aigues-mortes (which translates as “dead waters”).
For many centuries, the production of salt was considered a privilege of the inhabitants of Aigues-mortes, who were also exempt from the “gabelle,” the salt tax paid by other French subjects to the king. By the early 19th century, wealthy local businessmen were buying and privatizing the salt marshes. By the end of the century, many small companies became one in a joint-stock corporation known as the Compagnie des Salins du Midi. At the same time, the demand for seasonal workers increased.
Anthracite mining in the 1890’s was characterized by damp darkness broken by the faint glimmer of a miner’s oil-wick lamp. Salt production in salt marshes was a world of blinding white and no escape from the heat. At that time, in both the United States and France, a great economic depression was going on.
As in the coal mines, salt workers were paid by weight and they worked in teams. In an industry totally dependent on manual labor, they harvested the salt and then transported it in wheelbarrows to warehouses where the salt was weighed.
Seasonal and migrant workers descended from the Cevennes Mountains of southern France. Many also arrived from the Piedmont region of Italy. And then there were the “trimards,” unemployed hobos who risked prison at a time when the life of a wandering man was illegal in France. All worked and lived together, isolated in the middle of the salt marshes in makeshift barracks. The company assigned them to teams, separating nationalities and regions, imposing quotas difficult to meet, and thus creating conflict.
On August 17, 1893, Italian workers became angry, claiming the trimards on their team were not working hard enough. A fight broke out and a trimard was stabbed. Fellow vagabonds rushed towards the town of Aigues-mortes and told the local population that the Italians were attacking the French. Appealing to national pride at a time when anti-foreign sentiment was running high, the trimards stirred up a mob that headed to the salt marshes, convinced French workers were in danger.
Though the gendarmes, the French national police, tried to protect the Italians, 8 men, all Italians, were killed that day and many more were injured as members of a mob armed with clubs and knives fought, so they believed, to protect French honor. Sixteen of them, along with one Italian, were brought to trial for what became known as “le massacre des Italiens.” All were acquitted in an atmosphere marked by strong anti-foreign sentiment.
Earlier this month President Trump announced that the number of refugees that can settle in the US in 2019 will be reduced to 30,000, the lowest number since the refugee program was created in 1980. Specialists of international migration fear such a decision will weaken American moral authority and leadership abroad.
As in the 1890’s, be it in the US or in France, anti-foreign sentiment is once again on the rise. To arrive at a balanced opinion on refugee and immigration quotas, it might be useful to ask ourselves where we come from.
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