Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

University of Illinois at Springfield 

Norris L Brookens Library 

Archives/Special Collections 

Jack Battuello Memoir #1 

B322. Battuello, Jack (1899-1980) 

Interview and memoir 

4 tapes, 291 min., 77 pp. 

COAL MINING AND UNION ACTIVITIES PROJECT 

Battuello, coal miner, discusses his participation in the Progressive Miners of 

America, its activities and leaders, and helping to write its constitu-tion; also 

working conditions in Illinois coal mines of the 1930's, union activities, black 

lung disease, and the Mulkeytown march. He also discusses living conditions for 

miners, community response to miners, union leadership, women's support, and 

violent protests. 

Interview by Nick Cherniavsky and Bobbie Herndon, 1973 

OPEN 

See collateral file: interviewer's notes, pamphlet describing charges brought 

against Battuello, and obituary 

Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 

University of Illinois at Springfield 

One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 

Springfield IL 62703-5407 

© 1973, University of Illinois Board of Trustees

Jack Battuello Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield

PREFACE 

This manusc-ript is the product: of tape recorded irrterviews conducted 

by Nick Cherniavsky and Bobbie Herndon in April, 1973. 

Jack Battuello was born September 21, 1894 in M,t. Olive, Illinois. 

As a coal miner in the thirties he helped write the constitution for 

the Progressive Miners' Union. He was later expelled from that 

union. Coal mining conditions, union activities, and the Mulkeytown 

March are the Focus of this memoir. Mr. Battub110 provides a first 

hand eyewitness account of a most interesting period in Illinois' 

and labor history. 

Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is 

a transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, narrator 

and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style 

that is inherent in such historical sources, Sangamon State Uaiversity 

is not responsible for the factual accuracy of the memir, nor 

for views expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge, 

The manu~cript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be 

reproduced in whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanjcal, 

wi,thout permi.ssion in writing from the Oral Ilis~ory Office, 

Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois, 62708. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 

-" ?~ 

Children in the Coal Mines 

Mine Accidents 

Concerns and Unions 

John L. Lewis 

Industrial Workers of the World 

Progressive Mine Workers Formation 

Thc Mulkeytown March 

Union Membership 

Witch Hunts and Detecioration of Progressive Miners 

Company Towns and Poor Conditions 

Bribes 

Sit-down Strike at No. Four Mine: Superior Coal Company 

Taylorvillc: Peabody Coal Mines 

Black Lung Discase 

The Walnut Creek Disaster 

Tony Boyle and Arnold Miller 

Labor Support of Viet Nam War 

Mu1.keytow1-1 March - Recap 

Factionalism: Progressives and United Mine Workers 

~iners' Convention, Benld 

Caravan to Franklin County 

I.W.W. 

Miners 

Community Response to Miners 

Women's Role 

Ambush on Caravan 

Return to DuQuoin 

The Coulterville Encampment 

Charges Against Battuello 


TABLE OF CONTENTS 

- 

Progressive Miners' Officers 

DvQu0i.n Aftermath 

Ray Edmvnds - United Mine Worker 

MOVE! to Chlicaga - work for Teamster 

DuQuoin Recap 

Opposition to Radical Positions 

Union CooperaKion 

Local. Reac'ti.on Co Caravan 

No Investigati,,on Followed Mulkeytom 

Federal Hearings on Miners 


Jack Battuello, April 16, 1973, Brighton, Illinois. 

Nick Cherniavsky, Interviewer 

Q. Jack Battuello is presently rctired. In the past, Jack has been 

involved in many different events and we will touch briefly on many 

different facets of Jack's life and career. However, this interview 

will. be primarily concerned with Jack's participation and membership 

in the coal miner's union and his activities as a member of the Progressive 

Miner's Union during the internal. struggle within the miner's 

union. 

Jack, for the record will you please give us your name, your age, and 

your address. 

A. My name is Jack Battuello. I live on Route One, Brighton, 

Illinois. I am 74 years old. 

Q. Would you tell us when and where you became a coal miner and 

what being a coal miner involved in those days? 

A. I became a coal miner at the age of thirteen in the State of Iowa. 

I come from a family of six, my father was a coal miner. Conditions 

were bad in those days and I had to go into the mine at the age of 

thirteen in order to augment the income of the family. This was in 

thc early periods of the United Mine workers' history and the union 

was not too well established at this point. Although we had a union, 

the struggle still continued for recognition, not only valid recognition 

of our union hut Ear the conditions Tn the mine. The operator 

was reluctant to settle grievances, he was reluctant to improve the 

working conditions. It seemed they were only c~ncerned with making 

money, and therefore, our union was involved in constant struggle with 

the employer--with thc coal corporation--to see to it that we received 

some consideration. 

Q. You mentioned that you joined the coal miners at the age of thirteen. 

Was this an exception or was the practice of hiring teenagers 

widespread in the industry in those days? 

A. In this period, whereof 1 speak, it was not the exception for 

young children to go i.nto the coal mine or to work in the coal mine, 

either in the soft coal industry or in the hard coal industry. Many 

children started to work at ten in the coal mine, and as I have said 

it became a necessity to take the children into the mine because the 

father could not provide the wherewithal to get food. Generally 

throughout the mining industry, in this period, chi1,d exploitation 

was the normal condition. 

Q. In your recollections, what can you tell us about how the work 

of children--teenagers like yourself when you joined the coal miners-- 


Jack Eattuello 2 

did it interfere with schooling? What was actually the process of 

children working and trying to at,Lcnd school at the same time? 

A. 1 believe that my case is a very good example of what occurred to 

all of the children with regards to schooling when they went to work. 

When we went into the coal mines, schooling ended. Our chief occupation--our 

main preoccupation was coal mining and we had no time, and 

neither did the school districts have any arrangements for our extra 

studies--or side studies--or whatever you want to call them, 

Q. Jack, I know you well, personally, and I know that you are a man 

of high intellect and widespread fields of interest. Nevertheless, 

would you please tell US at what stage did you complete your schooling? 

A. My schooling ended be,tween the fourth and fifth grade. 

Q. Would this be, again, typical for youngsters who are working in 

the coal mine to end their education at this stage? 

A. Yes, it was. 

Q. And T thin.k it would bc correct to observe that for many people-- 

notwithstanding your particular case--that meaat that the educational 

process itself and mentd enrichment of a person also ended at that 

point. In other words, they were not capable of going beyond that 

level of education. Would that be correct? 

A. As far as academic pursuits were concerned, our education ended, 

But practically speaking our education began when we went down into 

the coal mine. 

Q. What kind of work did young people of that age do in the coal 

nine? Were they performing different casks other than rhose performed 

by grown-ups or was there no division between the different age groups? 

A. Children generally often we-nt into the mines and worked with their 

fathers or some relative, and they performed adult work. 

Q. Was the monetary compensati.on uniform Ear the grown-ups and the 

children or was there any difference? 

A. With one exception, yes. The children who were working with 

their father at the face of the coal were only given half turn. For 

instance, the full turn or a full day's production for one man, an 

adult, would be eight cars. A child working with his father was 

entitled to another four cars, half the amount of the adult. Ny first 

wage when I started in the mine was 95C a day. 

Q. 1 know, despite my very little knowledge of mining operations that 

mining operations continue to this day to be a very dangerous and 

accident-prone operation. Howcvcr, I imagine in the. days when you 


Jack Battuel.10 

went down into the mines for 

greater. Is this correct? 

the first time the dangers were much 

A. Now, in this early period, about which I speak, the conditions 

were not only hazardous, but the negligence on the part of the company 

was notorious. I'd like to believe that conditions in the. mine have 

improved in the modern age, and under federal statutes, but I'm 

afraid that it is still very much a hazardous-a very hazardous 

occupation. 

Q. The accidents; the loss of life, loss of limbs, the maiming of 

people who were working underground; I imagine was very widespread, 

is this correct? 

A. Thar's correct. 

9. Would you say that the accident rate among the youngsters was 

greater, about the same, or less than among the grown-ups? 

A. On an equal basis. 1'd like to make an exception, however. As 

the unions began to gain strength and power there were many areas 

within the United Mine Workers' jurisdiction in which the militancy 

of the miners was perhaps a little greater than other sections, In 

those cases the conditions in the mines were fairly well determined 

by the militancy and the concern of the miners, and therefore, conditions 

and fatalities and even injuries were on a smaller scope. 

Q. Were the teenagers or chil.dren being admitted to the union membership 

in those days? 

A. Oh yes, full membership, 

Q. Now, wou1.d you think back and give us a nutshell view as to what 

your views--and perhaps as much as you can speak for others--the views 

of the miners in general; what they thought of their union, why they 

wanted to be members of the union, what th,ey expected the union to 

accomplish for them; more in this vein. 

A. Primarily, we bccamc union members because of necessity, We were 

seeking, plainly speaking, to escape from exploitation and slavery. 

Q. Again, thinking back with respect of the views which had gone by 

since that time, would you fcel that the unions in general--and 

specifically the miner's union--have properly and collectively 

fulfilled the miner's expectations of them? 

A. No, I don't. I'd like to make this comparison between the early 

cditinn of the miner's union with it's present conremporary counterpart. 

In those days the miners, and all of the workers for that 

matter, were gravely concerned about the social issues. They were 

concerned about providing a proper living far their families. And 


Sack Battuello 4 

they were as a result more militant, more concerned, more aware, more 

interested in unions. And because of that awareness on the part of 

the rank and file, we kept our leadership fairly in line with the 

objectives and aims of the union. 

Q. You would say then that in those days--to use the term esprit de 

corps was much more present among the miners--there was much dedication 

to the growth of the union, much dedication to the growth of 

the rank and file than these is today? 

A. Very much more, very, very much marc. I have omitted to reply to 

the second part of your question. Today in the miner's union--1 don't 

mean like this moment today--but up until the recent election the 

miner's union became-well, like all other unions of today, they 

became a tool and a pawn. They became a part of the establishment 

and they lost sight of their objectives and their social concerns, 

and therefore the reason why wc're beset with so many economic and 

political problems . . . oh hell, 1 started and then I got lost. 

Q. All righr:. The name and the impact of John L. Lewis on the labor 

movement in this country, and his participation in thc organizing and 

the original formative years of the miner's union are well known and 

are very controversial. You took part in the labor struggle of those 

days, and you have had personal contact with maay rank-and-file members 

of the unfon and with many high officials of the union. Would you 

care to go into this area, starting with John L. Lewis and then ending 

with anything else that you feel would be of value to this particular 

area of the interview? 

A. John Lewis undoubtedly contributed greatly to the miner's union, 

but in later years Be became enamored with the delusion that the 

miners should be dominated rather than directed. Therefore he proceeded 

to destroy the autonomy of the miners, as well as ro deny them 

the right of seferend~m. As a consequence, the United Mine Workers 

lost thousands and thousands of members, became practically helpless 

in the struggle for the improvement of the coal miners. I would 

concede that John Lewis, his later departure from the objectives of 

the union were in part responsible Tor the apathy of the rank and file. 

That's the way the United Mine Workers went when John Lewis became 

the virtual dictator of the union. I mean dictator because rhere was 

no right of referendum, there was no righr to elect your officers, 

and as a matter of fact that's what led to the secession of the 

Illinois miners in 1930 from the United Mine Workers. 

Q. Would you describe John L. Lewis in overall analysts of his impact 

on the union, despite whatever positive or degative qualities he did 

possess, but overall, would you describe him as positive or negative 

leader, and influence in the union? 

A. In his early leadership of the United Mine Workers, his record 

was positive. In his latter tenure of office, it became negative, 


Jack Battuello 

it became disastrous as a matter of fact. 

Q. Have you ever had my personal contact with John L. Lewis? Did 

you know him personally? 

A. Oh yes. At conventions, both state and national conventions, I 

was personally acquainted with John L. Lewis. At many occasions, T 

talked to him and members of his Executive Board, and usually f was 

caught up in the imbroglio of the dissent when we, the rank and file, 

seeking to bring about the organization of the mass-producing industry, 

John Lewis was usually gavelling us down. It is interesting to note 

that when he gavelled US down and sometimes excluded us by his gendarmes 

from the convention, that in later years, he adopted the idea 

of mass organization for the mass-producing industry. A little belated, 

but he subsequently did agree with what we were trying to do many 

years before that. 

Q. Have you cver met Mother Jones or any other--well, f don't want 

to use the term secondary--but nonetheless not quite-as-well-known 

leaders of the miners who were active in those days? 

A. Yes, 1 met many of them. I knew Morher Jones-l was not too 

inrimately acquainted with hcr. I knew Eugene V. Debs, I knew Dick, 

the famous Socialist--I've got to add that. I knew Big Bill Thompson 

nf the IWW. I knew Ralph Chaplin, the editor of the. Industrial, 

Worker, and the poet of the industrial workers, I knew oh, a great 

number of them throughout the period of my career. I 'knew William 

Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, met with him 

in many conferences--he was the President and I was the board member 

of tlie Progressive Miners. 

Q. Big Eill Haywood? 

A. Yes, I wasn't too well acquainted with him, but I heard him speak 

many times. 

Q. Okay, it comes out now that you also were acquainted with a number 

of people, you mentioned a number of names of the organizers of the 

Wobblies, the Industrial Workers of the World. Were you ever a member 

of the Wobblies? 

A. Yes, 1 was. f became n member nf the IWW, or what is commonly 

known as the Wobblies, in 1916, when I made the harvest fields because 

them was no work in the coal mines. I became a field delegate for 

the IWW. 

Q. In whar state were you involved in your membership in the IWW? 

A. In the harvest fields in the wheat producing states, and Tn the 

logging camps of Idaho, Washington, Oregon. 


Jack Battuello 6 

Q. Those are the areas that--even with my Limited knowledge I know 

and of course you from personal involvements recall--where same of 

the very violent confrontations have taken place in the history of 

the TWW. Would you like to describe some of those events? 

A. Yes. During the time when I worked in the harvest fields in 

Oklahoma, in Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota and up into Saskatchewan, 

Canada, there was much hostility towards the IWW, on thc part 

of the farmers. There were many occasions when the farmers acted co 

suppress the IWW by ruthlessly arresting the members of the ZWW, by 

beating them up, by many other abuses. It's hard to believe, it's 

hard to believe some of the things that occurred during that period. 

There was times when they would apprehend J'WWs, search them and find 

an IWW card on their persons. Then the farmers woul,d form a gauntlet 

and strip the victim of his clothes and make him run the gauntlet, 

all the while he was bcing beaten, running through the gauntler. 

There was one occasion when they compelled the victim to run the 

gauntlet, all the while being beaten and they were not satisfied with 

that form of brutality. They caused him to run aver a railroad guard, 

which was a construction of stcel with points to keep the cattle from 

going into, going across onto he Lracks, caused him to run over this 

obstruction, this pointed obstruction, barefooted while he was being 

beaten again. 

In the logging camps, there wasn't a week passed that rhere wasn't 

some confrontation. Many of them, like in the Verona case that 

happened in Vancouver, British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington, 

Shahamus, Washington, in which the IWW hall was invaded by a marching, 

demonstrating American Legion parade. The hall was broken into, the 

IWW members were shot and two of them were killed and the ringleaders-- 

1 believe four in number--were sent to the penitentiary. At this 

moment I can't give you all of the details, but I would recommend to 

anyone who is interested in this problem, in chis phase of the IWW, 

to read the book, the pamphlet, "The Blood-Stained Trail." 

Q. Were you at all involved, or were you familiar with, the vigilante 

action in Bisbee, Arizona when some twelve hundred IWW members, 

miners, were gathered up at gunpoint, placed on a train and taken out 

for illegal detention in the desert? 

A. No, I was not in that state when rhat occurrence happened. f'm 

knowledgable about that affair, I know all about it. I know some 

members that were shanghaied into the desert, beaten up and Left to 

die. 

Q. Havc you ever had a chance to meet the martyrs of the Wobblies-- 

Frank Little, Joe Hill or any other people--who had died in the struggle 

of the Industrial Workers of the World? 

A. I di.d not know Joe Hill personally. hll I know about Joe Nil1 



is his history and I did not meet Frank Little. 

Q. As we know, the Industrial Workers of the World after quick expansion 

in the first few years since they had been organized--following 

the trial of some hundred plus top leaders of the union--have almost 

completely diminished in number and today it's almost only a paper 

membership union. Would you care to comment as to why this union 

failed in its objectives? 

A. I'm going to give you a short answer on this one. The failure 

of the IWW as well as the failure of che Socialist movement, as well 

as the acceptance of the. doctrine of anarchism, and that appl.ies as 

well to many other lesser liberal organizations, is primartly because 

the American people are under the delusion that somehow or other they 

can beat the system and become capitalists. And that explains, Sn 

great part, why the labor movement is a failure today. 

Q. Since we have touched briefly on your membership and your participation 

in the Wobblies, I would like to come now to the discussion 

about movements within the United Mine Workers--which was perhaps as 

militant as the Wobblics were in their--in which you have been personally 

involved and I am speaking of the Progressive Mine Workers. 

Would you please take over from this point and describe what has 

caused the Progressive Mine Workers to be formed, the levels and the 

degrees of your personal involvement in this, and the eventual outcome 

of the Progressive Mine Workers movement? 

A. During the time when John Lewis was in the process of dismantling 

and destroying the autonomy and the right of referendum within the 

United Mine Workers, there was much dissent, particularly on the part 

of the Illinois miners. It's too lengthy to describe the legal maneuvers 

that took place hcre, in trying to block John Lewis from destroying 

the autonomy of the Illinois miners. All the autonomy of all the 

other coal-producing states had already been destroyed. Trustees 

had been appointed by John Lewis to all the local unions in those 

stascs and all of the state offices, as well as the Executive Board. 

But the Illinois miners held out and continued to resist John Lcwis' 

destruction of the autonomy of the nincrs. And as I said, much litigation 

on the part of our state organization, with the support of the 

rank and file in Illinois to prevent John Lewis from destroying our 

autonomy. And this entailed many legal maneuvers and expenditure of 

huge amounts of money and eventually, John Lewis declared an emergency. 

This emergency had to do with a scale reduction from the $6.00 a day 

scale to the $5.00 a day scale which John Lewis was recommending. 

The Illinois miners were opposed to this, but they had the right of 

referendum which had not yet been destroyed in Illinois, and that 

referendum was held. On the day when the ballots were being counted, 

at the close of the counting on that day, the ballots were placed in 

a safety box in the First National Bank of Springfield. During the 

night someone stole the ballots. The next day we knew, from the 



reports of the tellers, that the referendum was going against John 

Lewis. The wage reduction was being defeated and we suspect, as a 

matter of fact we know, that someone by the authority of the United 

Minr Workers, stole those ballots. We petitioned, the Illinois 

miners immedia.tely petitioned, for another referendum, John Lewis 

denied that referendum from another balloting and declared an emergency, 

declared the $5.00 a day in effect; whereupon we seceded from 

the United Mine Workers. 

Q. What was the date of the time when you seceded from the United 

Mine Workers? 

A. I can't give you the specific date now, I don't have my records 

here. 

Q. The year? 

A. Approximately 1930. 

Q. Would you describe TO us please, what had taken placc following 

this action on the part of the Illinois miners? 

A. We formcd an ad hoc committee immediately following the declaration 

of secession--prior to the formulation of the constitution and 

the official naming of the organization-and this committee then 

decided to canvass the state by marches, by demonstrations, leaf- 

Zeteering and other methods, to get the support of the other miners 

in the state of Illinois. This resulted in, later on, vhat has 

become known as the Mulkey,town march. It consisted of a caravan of 

about, well, the caravan was at least thirty to forty.mi1.e~ 1.ong. 

And we proceeded with this caravan, en route to Franldin County which 

had not yet given its vocal support to the Progressive Miners or to 

the struggle against John Lewis. As Frank Fries has already stated, 

that march was stopped at a little town by the name a£ Swanee and 

searched by the officers of the state and county, and when they did 

not find any weapons, even as much as a knife in that entire caravan, 

they permitted us to proceed on ,to the county. When we were ambushed 

at the location of the Mulkeytown River and hence has it become known 

as fhe Mulkeytown march. We failed in that instance of entering the 

County and persuading the miners of Benton and Franklin and Harrisburg 

and all of those coal-producing towns. But later on, of course, by 

different methods, we did penetrate the county and we held secret 

meetings in those vicinities. But we never did get: the miners in the 

southern part of Illinois to come out in full support of our stsugglc 

in the formulation of the Progressive Miners. 

Q. What were the casualties that were sustained by your people in 

this march? 

A. Well, there was many, many, many injuries, many wounded. Every 

car in ,the caravan was literally destroyed with ball bats. Of course 



when the caravan was shot into by, as Frank Fries explained, by sckoolkids--they 

employed and gave them ammunition and rifles and they 

stationed themselve~ in the wooded section and ambushed us--of course 

we left the cars and fled. During our absence they demoli~hed every 

car and they destroyed all of the food we had. We had anticipated 

in remaining in that county for a week or so. And so, as I said, 

that particular instance our demonstration and our march was a failure. 

Q. flow many people, approximately, par,ticipated in the march southward? 

A. Frank has given the figure of two thousand. I would say that there 

was probably four thousand in that particular march. 

Q. Frank Fries, that Jack has mentioned a few times in this interview, 

was the subject of a previous interview today. He is an old friend 

of Jack Bartuello and participated in many mining activities in addition 

to his also being, at one time, a congressman from this district 

and a sheriff of Macoupin County. Jack, would you give us please 

approximate numbers as to the membership at the height a£ the Progressive 

Mine Workers Union activities in Illinois as compared to the 

United >fine Workers membership in Illinois in those days? 

A. At the height of the Progressive Miners movement, our membership 

comprised of approximately twenty thousand active members with an 

additional ten thousand inactive members, or what we call exonerated 

members. This compared with the United Mine Wnrkcrs membership, oh, 

I'd say about sixty per cent Unitcd Mine Workers in control of the 

state mines and forty per cent Progressive Miners. 

Q. You would say then, that there were about some forty to fifty 

thousand United Mine Workers members in the state as compared to 

twenty to thirty thousand Progressive Miners, 

A. Yes, that's including the exonerated members, however. We must 

keep in mind that during rhe mechanizarion period, that: began about 

1930 on a large scale in most of the large producing mines in Illinois, 

that there occurred a great displacement of manpower, so thercfore 

many of the miners became exonerated, 

Q. What was your personal involvement and participation in the Progressive 

Mine Workers in Illinois? Were you a rank and file member, 

were you on the level of local 1-eadrrship, were you at the top leadrrship? 

Would you care LO go into this, please? 

A. I was both. I was a rank and filer, I have served as a mine 

committeeman, 1 have served as a Chairman of the Ruling Committee 

during the development of the Progressive Miners, I have served as 

a Board member of District Six, I was a member a£ the scale committee, 

and I was a member of the first constitutional convention. I helped 

write the first constitution of the Progressive Miners. 


Jack Battuel.10 

Q. Weren't you also President of one of the local . . . ? 

A. Oh yes, I forgot that. I served two terms of Local No. One which 

was the largcst local union of the Progressive Miners and, by the 

way, the largest local" union membership for one local in the United 

States. 11: had 2500 members. And it's rinteresting to note at this 

point that the Pacesi.dent of thTs large local, comprising 2500 members 

be included for two terms, was paid the magnificent sum of $7.50 a 

month. 

Q. Would you care to describe now as to why, in the final. outcome, 

the Progressive Miners did not achieve their goals? Also, what would 

you think had happened to the United Mine Workers had the Progressive 

Mine Workers been able to carry through with their proposed reforms 

and actions? 

A. I regret to say this, but the failure of the Progressive Miners 

primarily rested in the rcalm of lackluster leadership. When we formed 

the Progressive Miners, we were filled with enthusiasm and faith, and 

in that period placed men at the head of the Progressive Miners that 

had no experience, had very little social vision, and much less militance. 

As a result, they became enamoured with this office, and while 

they did nos receive large wages as such, in their own small way they 

became fat cats, and soon, they were not recognizable as coal miners 

any longer. So, in the heat of the struggle, which was an intense 

struggle and wrought with much violence, they lacked the leadership, 

the knowledge, the militancy and the courage to carry through with 

the stated objectives of the organization. There was, in my opinion, 

several times when offers were made to mediate the struggle, but the 

leadership was not brave enough to face these issues. They were not 

courageous enough tn look at realities and as a consequence, they let 

these opportunities slip by. I might mention in passing that, as they 

became more imbued with the office they became commensrxsatelymore 

conservative and so the big fight, instead of being lodged against 

the coal corporation and the tyrannical United Mine Workcrs, was made 

against the radicals within thc movement of the Progressive Miners. 

It became a virtual witch hunt. All of the time was spent hunting 

down Reds, they called them, and radicals. J became a victjm of it. 

1 was tried by the trial vote of the Progressive Miners, which was 

dominated pretty much by the machine, while 1 was a Board member, and 

I was convicted and removed from office. 

Q, For what charge? 

A, For alleged violation of the constitution. It was alleged in the 

trial that 1 had fraternized with the United Mine Workers, that by 

this fraternization with the United Mine Workers;, I was seeking to 

destroy the Progressive Mine Workers. That is, in subsranee, the 

charge that I was tried on. I'd likc to point out, however, that 

subsequently, or, subsequent to that trial, 1 wrote a pamphlet about 

this matter and I distributed kt throughout the state. The President 


Jack BatrueZlo 11 

was also tried, Dave Reed, and he, also, was removed from office. 

Be had become too militant for them. And so, the big struggle finally 

evolved into a witch hunt as I said, and they lost sight of the 

larger struggle and the Progressive Miners finally ended in failure, 

total failure. 

Q. You mentioned the pamphlet which you wrote at the conclusion of 

your trial, by the trial board of the Progressive Miners. Would you 

care to tell us what was the pamphlet titled, is it available today, 

is it out of print or is thcre any way that a copy can be obtained? 

A. 1'11 give you a copy, 1 have a copy. 

Q. Would you say that because the Progressive Mine Workers failed, 

that, for that rrason, the United Mine Workers fell to its--until 

recently--disreputable condi~ion which was culminated in the Yablonski 

murder, Tony Boyle's questionable reelection and the eventual defeat 

by Miller in a court ordered election? 

A. Of course the members of the United Mine Workers were, in great 

numbers, dissatisfied with the internal policies of the United Mine 

Workers, even in that period when we were struggling against the 

United Mine Workers. But hy the process of destroying the autonomy 

of thc United Mine Workers and appointing all of his henchmen to these 

various offices--local state and cxecutive Board--John Lewis, with 

his exchequer and millions in the treasury, had such control over 

that portion of his membership that Lhey were unable--at least without 

grave danger to their persons--to rebel against him. In other words, 

he had them hagtied because he controlled every semblance of that 

organization from its ground Eloor up to its top level. And th~ough 

the force of intimidation and reprisal and threats--threat of losing 

a job for instance, the threat of being moved out of the c~mnity 

because of their opposition to John Lewis--was so great that so~ehow 

or other they just did not find the courage to follow our suit, and 

become members of the Progressive Miners. Of course, the longer they 

delayed and the longer that John Lewis prevented their coming over 

to the Progressive Miners or joining any movement that was progressive, 

the more power John Lewis had, the more control. And in the meantime 

the Progressive Miners were deteriorating because of the lack of 

leadership, becausc they had become conservative, because they were 

witch hunting. And this became known so the outlying fields and once 

they saw this development of course, then, they had no desire to come 

over. Why leave a sinking ship for a worse one? 

Q. At the rime when you first joined the Mine Workers, what was the 

working day--how many hours did you work underground at that rime? 

A. The eight hour day had been established, when I started in the 

mines it was an eight hour day. Of course there were times, all of 

them worked in the mincs, within the mincs and with the primitive 

tools of the pick and shovel, and it was piece work except the haulage, 

except the timbermen and track layers. They were paid by the day. 



But there were many mines--especially where there wasn't a close-knit 

organization, where there wasn't any militancy, where there wasn't 

any cohesion, where they were newly founded and inexperienced, and 

perhaps lacking in a little militancy--where it was nothing unusual 

for miners to go into the mines and be there twelve hours, although 

it was an eight hour day in effect. 

Q. Let's touch up on a few other items along this line. Was there 

any overtime paid? Were there any insurance provisions, were there 

any items that today generally are classified as fringe benefits, 

safety precautions, et cetera? Would you like to comment on this? 

A. I'd be delighted to talk on that subject, For many years, after 

I started in the coal mines, there was nothing like compensation, 

there was nothing like safety laws, and . . . . (interruption) As 

I was saying in the early period of my mining career and for many 

years after that, thcre was no compensation of any kind, no industrial 

compensation, no unemployment compensation. Safety laws, if any, 

were practically unknown. The union was very young and not totally 

organized in that period and as a consequence, seniority rights as 

we know them today were unknown. There was no overtime payment for 

any thing. 

T think perhaps I can cxplain that better by saying, that we were 

not even free citizens in our community. The company, in the early 

period of the union, owned the houses in the community--company houses 

we called them--they owned the company store. In some cases they 

issued their own scrip for money and this kind of business you needed 

some change in as much as 30 to 35 per cent. The prices at their 

company store was about 15, 20, 25 per cent higher than in private 

store perhaps ten to Fifteen miles away. 

And rhe composition of those communities, like all communities, had 

its churches and its rectors and its priest-not too many in numbers 

but we had a church here and thcre, and a preacher here and there. 

But even the preacher, the tax collector and the sheriff and the 

judge, all belonged in the pocket of the coal company. We were virtual 

prisoners. And so, when we lamented too strongly about bad 

conditions, there being seniority and not too much of a union to 

protect us, we were liable to be taken off of a job and demoted to 

a worse job. 

For instance, if we had a good working place that was fairly safe 

and fairly productive and fairly profitable--if I may use that term-- 

and we became disenchanted with what was going on in the coal mines 

and in the community, by the virtual control of the company, if we 

lamented too loud, as I say, we were placed in a working place that 

was filled with water and in which we could not make a living. So 

by this method of terror and intimidation, we were careful sometimes, 

a little bit careful about making too much noises. 


Jack Battucllo 13 

But we eventually overcame them, we paid a stiff price for it. We 

lost thousands of miners by process of the gun thugs, and the militia, 

and the coal company thugs and so on and so forth. Many of them went 

to jail-. I've been in a few jails in my life, all because of unton 

activities. And if we got too loud, during that period of weakness, 

we were sometimes excommunicated and run out of the comunity. I'd 

like to relate as late as 1921, a condition that had attained, even 

in that period when the miners were not covered by insurance of any 

kind. My brother, my brother Camille, was killed in the coal mine 

in 1921 and . . . 

END OF TAPE ONE 

A. . . , and for which the family received not one cent compensa- 

tion. I would also like to relate the conditions that existed in 

the coal mine in that period. It was not: unusual for the mine executives 

to come to ~hc mine and conduct an investigatinn if a mule 

was injured or killed. But no such investigation ever took place 

when a miner was killed. 

Q. That's very interestingand of course, we in this country pride 

ourselves on our concept of value of human life. Would you like to 

add an additional comment at this time, in light of whar you have jusr 

now said? 

A. Well briefly, in accordance with the social conditions and the 

affairs of the world, life is about the cheapest commodity there is. 

Q, 1 also recall how, sometime during my personal encounter with you 

and your wife TilTie, the two of you have described to me the house 

in which you lived during those days. I believe it was $in Wilsohville, 

was it not? Would you describe rhe condition of the house, irs structural 

condition and the degree of prctection you had f r ~ m th.e elements, 

and so forth. 

A. That period you're talking about was in the Depression of 1929, 

and 1930 and 1931 and so on. We lived in a home, for which we paid 

$5.00 a month. To describe it briefly, that is describe the house, 

it was so badly constructed that really you could have thrown a fiveton 

truck through the entire house and never hit a weather board. 

That was rhs general condition in the mines, during the Depfes~ion~ 

On top of that, mechanization of the mines had caused a lot of unemployment 

among the miners. As a consequence, because wr wanted to 

stay together and share the bread, we agreed to a diviston of work. 

Considering the mines only worked maybe two days a week and we were 

on a five to one division--the mine would have to work probably five 

weeks before we got a shift. It was not unusual for us to come home 

with a paycheck of five dollars or ten dollars, never exceeding ren 

dollars. I had many receipts in my files over the years that I earned 



in the coal mines and many of them show $700 or $800 per year. 

don't think I ever reached $1000 a year, 

f 

Q. To come back to the house again, wasn't that the house where the 

roof was SO bad that everytime it rained you had pans and buckets 

all over the floor to catch the water that was coming from the roof? 

As I recall the roof was only repaired and a new one placed on after 

a tornado or a storm had carried it away. 1s that correct? 

A. That's correct* About this house and its leaky roof, actually-- 

and this is true--we had in rhe attic at least 300 cans which we had 

placed up there, to catch the raindrops to keep it from coming down 

into the house. I was very helpful towards my wife. I would lay in 

the room and look up to see where the hole was, while my wife climbed 

up in the attic to pl-ace the can to catch that new hole. That 5s 

true. 

The miner never earned anything commensurate to what you'd call a 

fair standard of living. Not even in the height of its strength 

while 1 was in the coal mine. I lcft the coal mines in 1939--or 

rather the coal mine left me. That's the year I was banished from 

the ranks of the coal miners, by this trial which I have already 

described. Subsequent to that I became an organizer for the Teamsters 

Union. I organized in the steel industry, and I also participated 

in the formation of the Automobile Workem Union in Detroit, 

I became a regional director of District 50 in the Alton area. It's 

interesting to note that 1 was getting $60 a week working for the 

Teamsters under the administration of Dan Tobin. This is prior to 

Dave Beck and Hoffa. Sixty dollars a week would pay their own per 

diem. That's interesting because today they're making $70,000 to 

$80,000 a year, and doing a hell ofla lor less than we did at $7.50 

a month. 

Q, Would you describe to us some of the attempts by the ownership 

of the mines to intimidate or to bribe miners and, particularly 

organizers such as yourself. 

A. lroaically, even though I was very controversial and very militant 

in the unions and paid for that activity, I was never offered 

a bribe but one time. I can't say truthfully that it was a bribe 

from either the coal miners or che union officrials. On one occasion 

a gentleman came to my home, introduced himself and after a two hour 

discussion he offered me $5000 if T would become a silent member of 

the union--not active in other words. I never did ascertain who this 

gentleman was representing. 

Q. Can you recall any orher instances, nor necessarily involving 

yoursel-f but people whom you knew from the union, who were either 

intimidated or offered a bribe? 

A. I'm talking about bribes now. Although the factional struggle 

between the United Mine Workers and the Progressive Mine Workers was 


Jack Battuello 1.5 

very fierce, there was some money utilized for purposes that weren't 

exactly honorable. Rut to my knowledge, not even in that fierce 

struggle was bribery a form of winning adherence to the cause of one 

side or the other. The coal operators didn't have to bribe, They 

owned the community, they owned our souls, add through the threat 

of a job or the lack of a job we were victims of the coal companies. 

If they bribed anybody, they bribed the officers of the county, the 

officers of the state. There was no doubt that we had our Watergate 

on a smaller scale, then. They probably contributed heavily to the 

Republicans, if they happcned to be the party of their choice or the 

Democrats. Their rewards were forthcoming immediately by the failure 

to inspect the mines, to ignore the conditions which obtained in the 

communities, and so on and so forth. 

Q. 1 would likc to explore now a very important and a very fascinating 

period of your life in which you were very personally and very deeply 

involved. I'm talking about your participation in a sit-down strike 

in a coal mine in this region. Give us the date, the num'ber of people 

who participated, the number of casualties that were sustained, and 

as much of the details as you possibly can. 

A. During the contractual relationship between the Superior Coal 

Company and Local Union No. One, that prevailed from the time of the 

inception of the Progressive Miners and the Coal Operators Association, 

that portion which signed up with the Progressive Miners, 

There had always been an unwritten law--ir was not stipulated in the 

contract--that if one of the mines of the Superior Coal Company closed 

down, then the company automatjcally divided the work of the membership 

mine, that was closed down, with the three remaining mines that continued 

to operate. There were four such mines; No, Qne in Agarville, No. Two 

in Sawyerville, No. Three in Mt. Claron and Na. Four in Wilsonvillc. 

This local was amalgamated and had jurisdiction over the Superior 

Coal Company Mines. Well, it happcned in 1937 that the coal company 

decided for some unknown reason that they would not immediately divide 

work with the No. One employees, whose mine had been closed for extensive 

and major repairs. It was anticipated that this mine would be 

down for maybe three or four months. Whereupon the Local union demanded 

with the coal company that they bring the mihers from No. One and 

divide the work within Two, lliree and Four Mines. We demanded to 

share the bread with these boys who were going to be unemployed. 

Well, the coal company denied this demand. We took it up through the 

regular tribunals of the miners courts. The miner committeemen 

approached the company First--they denied them the demands. The local 

president took the case up with the coal company and again it was 

denied. Then it was takm up with the Board member and again denScd- 

This was a flagrant violation of a condition that had obtained for 

years and years and years in these communities, and we were hard 

pressed to understand what the motive of the company was, But at thc 

time when we got through with the case, being handled by the Board 

member--you can understand that we were not only nonplussed, pexplexed, 

we were disgusted and very angry. 



The negotiations didn't stop there. In a special meeting, we elected 

a special committee, other than our regular officers and seat this 

committee to the coal company to discuss and negotiate this problem 

of the division of work for the Number One men at these other mines. 

Again the company denied it. At the next regular meeting they reported 

their failure. Well, you can understand our mood when we Lcft that 

meeting. We thought, "Well, this is a hard-nosed attitude and its 

purpose is to destroy somc kind of a condition." Perhaps this would 

be the leverage to which they would proceed to undermine all of the 

conditions subsequently. The next day we decided--the rank and file 

decided--that we would negotiate with the company -in a different 

manner. We decided to sit down and we sat down in the Number Four 

Mine. 

Q. Where was 4t located? 

A. Wilsonville. We sat down in that particular mine, in that present 

condition and present term. These was 544 miners at the Number Four 

mine. We gathered the miners at the bottom of the shaft on this 

particular day in April, 1937. We discussed and informed them about 

thc conditions that was facing us and the attitude of the company. 

After this explanation, the miners decided that we'd remain in the 

mine. To my knowledge, this was the first sit-down in a coal mine 

in the history of the United States. These four mines being connected 

by entries, underground, enablcd us, later on, to ga from this mine 

underground to the others, and we shut them all down. So we shut 

a11 four mines down. For nine days we sat down in the mines and 

waited for our officers--the local president, the Board member and 

the state--to do something about it. 

Q. Wcrr you an official of the union at that time? 

A. No, I was not. Anyhow, for nine days there was some sort of 

negotfations attempting to settle this dispute but the company 

remained adamant. The president of the company, who was also the 

president of the Chicago-Northwestern--the Superior Coal Company was 

a subsidiary of the Nort'hweste-rn. Mr. Fiedler came down from Chicago 

and he refuscd to settle it, refused to negatiate. We continued to 

sit down, Finally the thing came to an end and we gat our division 

of work. They had discharged--at least they publicly announced that 

they were going to discharge all of the. leaders of the sit-down strike, 

at least the local ones. The discharges didn't stick, they a11 went 

bac-k to work and we goc over that hurdle pretty good. We had not 

casualties whatsoever. We had full and complete control of the mines. 

We furnished the coal to the botler rooms to keep the ventilation 

goi.ng. We organized our underground sit-down strike which occurred 

only--the men were only in control actually of the Number Four mine 

on1.y. The other miners hadn't set down. They were out of the mines 

when we sat down, so they closed the mines. Then we formed a real 

civic community. We had our strike committee, we had our sick committee, 



we had our sanitation committee, we had all kinds of committees. 

never had one injury, not one man was harmed in any way. 

We 

But we had some interesting episodes that caused a few headaches. 

One of them was: we had what we called a check committee that counted 

the men every night to see that everybody was present. We had slowed 

down the air velocity and we could not get too far away from the 

bottom, because we were pumping only enough air to provide us air 

at this immediate bottom where we were sitting, One night they took 

a count, and we had one man missing. We searched every rock, looked 

mder every car and in every conceivable place trying to locate this 

man. We were frantic. We didn't want to lose a man, because that 

would have blighted our case in the public eye. Herc some of rhe 

people had the impression that it was a frfvolous escapade, you know, 

and if we'd have lost somebody or somebody had gotten killed or injured, 

that would have harmed our cause. And we were, consequently, damn 

frantic about the loss of this man, the absence of this man. So we 

looked everywhere. Almost four hours passed, and we hadn't located 

the man. We didn't even know the name of the man that was missing, 

we couldn't come up with his name. About four hours later we were 

sitting there, totally disgusted with this man being gone, and not 

knowing who he was or what happened to him. Suddenly ee looked down 

the entry and saw a faint, glimmering light coming from the area OF 

the air shaft, T knew that none of the strikers had wandered off in 

that direction, and so I jumped up and rushed down there and it 

happened to be a man by the name of Dominic Balestra. He speaks 

somewhat: brokenly. When I got down there and saw who it was I was 

somewhat angry. I kind of shook him a little roughly and I said, 

I I 

Goddammit! Whrre have you been? You know we've been worried here 

for three or four hours. We were afraid that you got hurt or that 

somebody got hurt." And hc said to me in his broken English, he 

said, "What kind of goddamn union you got?" He said, "I don't scab, 

I support the Union, L sit down in the coal mine." He said, "NOW 

'cause I want to go up the air shaft and see my wife for a few minutes 

and make a little love," he said, "what the hell? You contr~l my 

wife and my monkey business with her, too?" 

Q. What was the £ha1 outcome of your sit-down strike? How was it 

resolved? 

A. We got our demands, the No. One members were allowed to divide 

work. It required a couple of weeks to get the thing worked out of 

course, and nobody was discharged. We went back to work. 

Q. So there was no punitive action taken againsr any strikers? 

A. No. There was much recrimination on the part of our officials, 

because of our act of sitting down. As a matter of factt there was 

times when we thought our enemy was the Progressive Miner officials 

rather than the coal company officials. 


Jack Batruello 18 

Q. In looking over your numerous newspaper clippings, 1 recall that 

there was something perizaining to activities above the ground. It 

concerned the members of the families in, regard to food. I also 

recall something in regards to your post office. I think it was and 

musi.cal entertainment underground. Would you like to cover this a 

bit? 

A. I meant to mention those activities a while ago. In additjon to 

all of our other committees, we had a post office, and an orchestra. 

We had comprising that orchestra a drummer, two guitars, a clarinet 

and a trumpet. But we had no women. So to make up for that difference 

we asked the women--who were our real allies on top who had sent us 

down all the fond, clothing, and blankets that we needed--to send 

down a woman's dress and we dressed up Whitey Hayes. We powdered 

him up and fixed him up with a wig, and we danced poor old Whitey 

to death on the bottom that night. 

Q. Did the company officials or security personnel offer any resistance 

as to the food being brought down or the mail, et cetera? 

A. None, because they could not. We had control of the engine room, 

we had control of the cage, we had control of the mine. The mine 

was in the complete control of the miners. The officers of the 

company never showed up. 

Q. Is this rclating to other fields? Was this what was involved 

during the inter-union struggle between the Progressives and the 

United Mine Workers when the National Guard was called in? I recall 

seeing clippings to that effect. Would you explain that please? 

A. That was during the factional fight, during the early period of 

the Progressive Miners versus the United Mine Workcrs. We had invaded 

the Taylorvillc area in an attempt to get those miners to come but 

and support us, and join our movement. The Militia was called out 

and many of us were jailed, a Ecw were clubbed. On one occasion they 

filled the courthouse with prisoners--they'd run out of jails. In 

chat period, not on1.y did I go to jail, but my wife came up to see 

where I was at and they threw her in jail. But the Militia there 

had a court-martial rule, and one of the rules that applied during 

that court-martial period was that not more than three people could 

congregate in one group. We insisted on congregating in larger groups 

and as a consequence, hundreds of us went to jail. But because of 

the interference of the militia, and gun thugs as well--you must 

understand that Jahn Lewis had the money and as a consequence he had 

the influence of the state and the county officers, except in Macoupin 

County--and we failed as a result of that. We failed in getting the 

miners in the Taylorville area to come over to our side, Taylorvillc 

mines were Peabody Coal Mines--all of them were Peabody Coal Mines. 

That was Kincaid and Tovey and Taylorville and all of them were under 

the jurisdiction of the Peabody Coal Company. The conditions in the 



Taylotville mines were even worse. They were as bad as they were in 

Hazard, Kentucky or some portions of West Virginia. Yet it never 

happened that they came over to our side. 

Q. About four months ago I was staying with you and Tillie here in 

Brighton, and we were visiting some of your relatives and friends 

in this area. We visited the home of your former co-worker, John 

Florek, who was very seriously ill and was afflicted with black lung 

diseasc. Now you tell me that about three weeks or so after wc 

visited him, he had died. Black lung is a very significant part 

of miner's occupational hazards and I would like to ask you if you 

would go into this in greater detail. Discuss the black lung problem 

in the days when you were down and perhaps compare this with what is 

taking place today. Is these any improvement in this? 

A. There have been some attempts to improve these conditions in 

those reccnt modern mines, highly mechanized. But with all, of the 

improvements that they have attempled, there has been a total lack 

of enforcement, particularly on the part of the state and federal 

government. These mines have been ignored until something drastic 

happens, until maybe an explosion or maybe a large-scale number of 

fatalities. Then of course there's some small-time interest shown 

and for a brief moment there seems ro be some supervision over the 

conditions of the mine on the part of the federal government and 

the federal and state inspectors. But generally speaking, the conditions 

in the coal mine that relate to what we used to call silicosis 

or miner's asthma, now known as pneumoconiosis, is still a hazardous 

thing in the coal mines. No man can work in the coal mine, even 

undcr the present modern, mechanized equipment wirhout becoming 

inflicted with pneumoconiosis. TE he works as little as five years 

in the coal mine, you can bet that his lungs arc perforated with 

rock dust and coal dust. Of course I'd like to suggest that there 

are other industries that are equally as dangerous in this Gay. 

Such as the mills where grains are ground and such as the steel mills 

where you're working in tcrnperatures up to 180 degrees and where 

dust is omnipresent on the person all day long. No man can go very 

long without becoming afflicted with a lung conditlion, no man. 

Now, 1'd like to also mention in connection with this black lung 

thing that, when this became a law by Congress in late 1969 and 

became effective in 1970, of course naturally there was a lot of 

claims. Most of the miners arc afflicted in ode form or another-- 

some of them badly. Many of them like John Flosek is at the point 

where he couldn't breathe anymore. He couldn't exert himself even 

by walking two or three feet. There were many claims filed and 

there were many claims allowed. But suddenly, after Nixon's re-election--whcn 

he cut back on social programs, when he began to impound 

appropriations, when he began to cut back on the Health, Education 

and Welfare hills, whcn he began to veto the Rehabilitation Act and 

many other things--suddenly the benefits for black lung ceased. ft 

was cut-off and terminated suddenly, and as a resdt there is nothing 


Jack Battuello 2 0 

but rejections coming in today. A complete reversal of whar was 

happening three or four months after the claims were made and the 

cla.ims were allowed. Suddenly all of that was cut out, and now the 

miners-many of them who are toally incapacitated--are out, To me 

at least it seemed like the black I.ung is something that you can 

forget about: as long as Nixon remains Tn office, and the Congress 

remains too damn cowardly to do something about it. 

Q. As I was reading accounts of the Wal~~ut Creek disaster, when the 

slag heap dam that was constructed by the company in West Virginia 

in the minling areas gave way and lives were lost. The property of 

the miners was destroyed. Tt became apparent to me, at Least in my 

judgment, that there was definite collusinn on the part of the Uniced 

Mine Workers offi.cial.s, federal mine safety inspectors and the owners 

of the nines. One of the officials who was involved in the tnvestigation 

which followed, cal-led the disaster an act of God, even though 

the slag heap or dam was constructed by men and not created by nature. 

Would you care to comment on this particular disasrer and your related 

problems in the mining operation? 

A. All I know about what happened in West Virginia with regards to 

the breakage of that dam and the casualties and property destruction 

which ensued, is what I read in the daily papers and what I read in 

the Miner's --- Journal. I've never talked to anybody that was actually 

present in that occurrence. I: do know rhis: there is no doubt in 

my mind, knowing thc history of the United Mine Workers and knowing 

the personnel, that supervised the United Mine Workers, particularly 

under the Boyle administration, that there was collusion, and there 

was a total neglect of the miner's interests. Miners, I'm informed 

very authoritatively, in chat region and particularly in that tom, 

complained about the possibility of that dam breaking and flooding 

that town. Although they complained loud to the officers of the 

United Mine Workers and to the state and to the federal, nothing was 

done about it. The consequences was that they paid the penalty, an 

extreme penalty when the dam did break and destroyed their property 

and killed a lot of people. 

Q. Would you care to comment on Tony Boyle's administration and what 

your expectations are of the new Miller admlnlstration of the United 

Mine Workers? 

A, T don't have to waste too many words ta describe BoyLe, or his 

administration. Tony Boyle was not only a pawn and a tool for the 

coal companies, he was a fraud as a union labor leader. I think that's 

generally known, even within the United Mine Workers. I never was 

happier, that I can recal.1, than on the night when I received a report 

over the television that Arnold Miller--whom I do not know--had 

defeated Boyle. I regret: to say that that election was not the result 

of the miner's intellectual activities, but rather from a court 

decision. But despite that fact, I am pleased and gratified when 

Arnold Miller defeated Tony Boyle. I do not know Arnold Millet, but 



I do know that he has already began some reforms that are very 

interesting and very constructive. I believe him to be an honest 

person, I bel.ieve him to possess some courage. I am sure that if 

he'll continue to reform the United Mine Workers' structure, as he 

has already shown in his initial attempts, that he'll probably restore 

some dignity and honesty in the United Mine Workers. That's good 

that thar is happening because originally the United Mine Workers 

was the father of unionism in this country. From it came the American 

Federation of Labor in its greatest development and its greatest 

influence. From i.t came the CIO. The miners provided the sinews 

and the money for the formation of the CIO. Praci5cally every organizer 

in the beginning of that union was a coal miner. I participated 

in it. And perhaps the United Mine Workers, under this new administrati..on--.if 

it conti.nues in the same direction in which it i.s now 

going--might again be the foundation of a revolutionary change within 

the labor movement. 

I'm hoping that will happen, because if the working class and the 

poor people are concerned, if thc labor movement fails in the social 

cause, ir: cannot hope to look elsewhere for hrlp. A good example is 

the Viet Nam War. We were there without cause or wtthour rhyme, 

Lt's needless to go into the casualties, and the deaths, and huge 

expenditures, and the immorality that was brought about by that war. 

It's sufficient to say that even the American people, who can be 

beguiled very easily, were at one point, 76 per cent against that 

war and yet, despite that, the labor movement and all of its influence, 

in all of its branches, continued to support that war. In the latter 

period of President Johnson's administration, ha had no support from 

the public, ge-nerally speaking. He had only support of the labor 

movement. And in the beginning of ~ixon's administration, he could 

not have con~i.nued that war had not labor supported him in the continuation 

02 that war. So we can say thar the labor movement in America 

not only failed in its obligation to its members and to the working 

class, but it failed in the common cause of 

And I 

can't think of a greater betrayal in the history of the United States 

on the part of labor. 

Q. It's very educational for me and very rewarding to come and visit 

wirh you as I do from time to time despite my cweaty plus years involvement 

in labor movements myself. 

A. Ycs, I think I'd like to make one concluding statement. I'd like 

to makc a plea, not only to the working class, to the labor unions, 

but I'd like ta make a plea to society in general that as goes the 

cause of the poor people, so goes the cause of the destiny of zhe 

world. At the present moment, this society corrodes to its very 

foundation, unless there's some drastic fundamental changes made 

within society and irnmediarely so, then you can expect thar we will 

become a particle of sand in the statc of oblivion. 

Q. Thank you very much Jack. 

END OF TAPE TWO 



Q. [This is Bobbie Herndon, con,ci.nuing the interviews with Jack 

Battuello.] Cou1.d we go back a bit to about August 6, 1932, which 

according to our research is the day that the miners were asked to 

vote again on the five dollar a day wage, What was your reaction? 

A. This was the period when the contract was being negotiated and 

the question came up, at least John Lewis took the position, that 

the miners could not retain the $6.00 a day scale. In other words, 

he was proposin.g that we take a reduction to $5.00 a day, Subsequently, 

that matter was submitted to a referendum which we in 

Illinois stS11. had a right to do and which in other states had been 

taken away from them. Autonomy had been destroyed by John Lewis up 

to the Illinois boundary. That referendum was held and during the 

time when the votes were being counted on the first day, the tally 

showed--the auditors so reported to the watchers--that the wage 

reduction was being defeated three to one. During the night, out 

of the vaults of the bank, the ballots disappeared. 

We demanded another referendum--another election. John Lewis denied 

it and declared an emergency and put into effect the $5.00 a day 

wage reduction whereupon we seceded. That led to the secession. 

Of course then following that, there was the problem of setting up 

a temporary convention,election of temporary officers and primarily, 

the organization work to obtain the support. of the remainder of the 

Illino*is miners. Among them was the famous Mulkeytown march. That 

wa.s organized central.1~ at Gillespie, Illlinoi~. The march started 

from Gillespie and we picked up other contingents of miners on the 

way down to Marissa and Mulkeytown until that caravan extended some 

forty-five miles on the highway. The first thing that happened was 

we were stopped at Swansea by state police and county officers. We 

were searched; every car was thoroughly searched for weapons, no doubt. 

None were found and then we were allowed to proceed on into Franklin 

County. When we got to the Little Muddy--just beyond it, the first 

portion of the caravan--we were ambushed by rifle fire. Of course 

the miners were defenseless--unarmed totally--so we ran. We jumped 

out of the cars and ran out chrough the fields, pe1.l mell, id all 

directions. It was during that time when the officers--they had 

school children, high school kids armed with rifles--they proceeded 

along that caravan and demolished every car; windshields, the food-- 

they threw the food our. We were loaded wirh food, you know, intending 

to stay dam there until we conquered that county or the southern 

miners, or at least persuaded them to came along wirk us. You never 

saw such a mess or such a picture of desolation. Tkerr was food and 

blankets and coffee pots and whatever--cars pushed into the ditch and 

turned over, windshiel-ds smashed and tires slashed. 

Well, you can imagine what took place these with all of us in disarray, 

totally disorganized, running from gunmen who were shouting 

to kill, Poor defenseless men--some youngsters in the crowd, too, 

The kids joj.ncd us, you know, sone of them. When we returned tw our 

cars some of them couldn't get them started, same were in ditches; 



food had to be picked up and blankets and whatever else was salvagable. 

So slowly but surely we reorganized our lines and we moved back into 

DuQuoin. There, most of us stayed all night. We were being harassed 

and guarded by rhe police, though--by the state police, by the county 

officers and by thugs. There were thugs among them, hired by whom 

I can't sa,y at this moment, but evidently from all the history that 

we got and all the experience we had, we know that John Lewis was 

providing a lot of the money and influence in order to hire these 

people. 

Well, they wanted to get us out of town. We'd lost each other, We'd 

lost contact with each other. Some of our riders were here and some 

were there; it was an awful mess. Slowly but surely some of them 

started making same attempt to gct home. A great many of them finally 

found some way. Some walked out and some hitched rides and some got 

their cars started. Slowly but surely that disorganized mass began 

to become disciplined a little bit when the greater portion of marchers 

had gotten out of town. 

We were pretty incensed and we wanted to do something about it. 

Well, most of the activists in the group and the leaders of the Progressive 

miners decided--and this was the radical element that Jim 

talking about--we decided we were going to do somthing about this. 

They were going to run us whi.le we were defenseless, but maybe we 

were going to do something about not being defenseless. So we came 

back and we organized as many rifles as we could and as many men as 

we could trust and we moved back into Coulterville. We built ourself 

a fortress in Coulterville--an armed camp. We stayed down there far 

two weeks daring them to try to move us out of there. Our armed encampment 

remained i.n Coulterville for, oh, better than a week. We didn't 

attempt to infiltrate any farther down, but we had just made up our 

minds tha't they weren't going to run us complete out of there without 

some effort to defend ourselves. The important thing is this Mulkytown 

march--that happened in this Mulkeytotm march--is not so much 

thc ambush or the hirelings of the United Mine Workers as the neglect 

of the county--the breakdown nf county enforcement, 

There was a total conspiracy, an outright black conspiracy to deny 

the citizen--in this case the coal miner--of his elementary rights 

of marching peaceably and of demonstrating peaceably to further his 

union or to organize or to talk to people about unions or about the 

miner's problems. This was the thing that in retrospect seems even 

perhaps as black as the Watergate affair and Nixon's involvement in 

it. There was no outcry; there was no moral indignation and there 

was no investigation. There was not a word, not a syllable, on the 

part of the citizens, of the churches, of the state, the municipalities, 

of the federal governmcnt or any of its agencies to look into this 

total. breakdown of justice, of our liberties, a£ our freedoms--our 

so-called constitutional rights. So there wasn't anything done about 

it. 



The governor sat up there--and I noticed according to the papers here 

recently that Horner is numbered among the greats like Adlai Stevenson 

and so forth--Governor Horner sat up there and did nothing. He 

raised no cry, no dissent, no objection to this breakdown of law. 

So you see we were pretty friendless and we had no money--we were 

penniless. We had been on strike now for eight or nine months. We 

had no food in the house--absolutely no food whatever. And there was 

no relief of any kind except what we raised on our own and rhat was 

insignificant. 

I don't think anyone can criticize too severely the people who remained 

bitter toward John Lewis. Perhaps they were a littLe foolish in their 

bitterness and their anger because in later events they could have 

utilized whatever resources, whatever piece of an organization they 

had remaining to bring about some consideration, some compromise, 

some concession from John Lewis--any kind of a concession which would 

have savcd thc senior miners who had worked in the mines forty and 

fifty years and had been United Mine Workers for fifty and seventyfive 

years. Because at that moment we could see that the Progressive 

Miners--we who were concerned about the welfare of the miners and 

their persons and their families--we cou1.d see we had been defeated. 

We had been totally defeated and there was absolutely no chance to 

expand the organization. We were 1.ooking for some way to bring about 

an amelioration of this condition, some cooperation bctweea the two 

organizations so that something could be salvaged, if only the benefit 

of the $150 a month which would accrue to these miners who had put 

fifty and sixty years in the coal mines. 

The I.ef,t-wingers they called us; they called us anarchists; they 

called us socialists; they called us every unthinkable name under the 

sun. We were destructionists; we were committing grave sins, but 

we proposed chat we work with the United Mine Workers at least to 

salvage the working conditions and to bring about some restoration 

of dignity among the mhers. You see, there were two factions 

fighting--two miner's factions--with the coal operators setting in 

between reaping the rewards. In that interim, the coal operator 

destroyed every condition we had ever built up in fifty and sixty 

years. 

We were killing each other, but the conditions were going sour likewise 

and nobody would stop long enough to look at this, to sense 

what was being done; what would be the fate of the Progressive 

Miners, especially if we continued this onward plunge of killing 

each other and fighting each other and permitting the operators to 

remain free and untrammeled to do whatever he wanted to do in order 

to exact more profits. We proposed organizational unity and oar first 

beginning was the DuQuoin case. We figured that this would be a good 

moral thing to latch onto which would later perhaps make it possible 

for us to work on other issues within the miarrs organization--to 

rectify some of the bad conditions that had been established over 

this period of time, 


Sack Battucllo 25 

Then, the story is that when we began to cooperate with the United 

Mine Workers and began to get resdts; began to squeeze the operator 

and to hurt the conservative element who sought only to remain in 

office with that prestige--whatever it amounted to--they conspired 

to see that the lef,t-wingers, especially Jack Battuello and Dave Reed, 

would get the axe. And so they instituted the circdation of the 

petitions, the resolutions, among other local unions and they got 

thirty-three of them, I believe, so send rrsolutions in rhere asking 

that the trial. board try us for hcrcsy, so to speak. Elcvcn locals 

appeared out of the thirty-three. I have a transcript on that trial. 

I quoted from that transcript in my pamphlet. We issued 25,000 of 

those in the state--to every miner in the state. Friends of mine, 

they solicited and they made tIic money. 

So the endring is they tried us and they found us guilty and they 

removed us from office and from that day on, the Progressive Miners 

was just ended at that period for all practical purposes. The miners 

lost their benefits; we lost the battle, we lost the struggle. And 

John Lewis continued on from that point and finally Boyle became the 

president. You know the story of the United Mine Workers with the 

Yabl-onski murder and the candi~ions, the abominable conditions that 

they established; the bank they owned in Washington D.C., and how 

they had seventy or eighty million dollars ia that bank and no 

interest, The miners were being deprived of that interest money. 

So that's the long story. Both organizations, for practical puuposes, 

became less than a la.bor union. I'm hoping that: Arnvld 

Miller and the new regime of the United Mine Workers wS11 bring 

about some restoration of dignity there-I hope. 

Q. At the time that you were tried, what office did you hold? 

A. I was an executive board member of district six--the largest district 

in IlLinois of the Progressive Mine Workers. 

Q. And what office did Dave Reed hold? 

A. President--state president. 

Q. To go back just a bit, you said that after the ballots were 

stolen, "we. seceded." Who did you mean by we? 

A. The ProgressTve Miners element of the state of Illinois, practically 

speaking, but later on wc discovered that we didn't have the 

state of Illinois. We only had, counting the exonerated members, 

some 20,000. We had probably the majority of the miners in 1ll.inois 

at that time--working miners--but we ncver succeeded extending our 

lines beyond perhaps four or fjvc counties, That was Springfield, 

Nokomis, Gillespie, Edwardsville, Collinsville, one or two little 

places in Marissa, and one or two lirtlc places in Harrisburg. 


Jack Batruello 

Q. How do you go about organi.zing a ma.rch? 

A. You're an organizer and you go into a cornunity and you look 

around for its social climate, its ideological climate, and you find 

out who and what people arc and what element they belong to ideologically. 

Then you try to pick out one or possibly two, alert, knowledgable, 

somewhat liberal person and you start with that: one man or two 

men. You gather momen-tum by working through them and bringing others 

into your little secret meetings--usually clandestine meetings. 

Q. So even when you started organizing for the Progressives, it had 

to be secret? 

A. Well, we didn't have too many protective laws in that period 

prior to the legislation of those laws granting workers the right to 

belong to the union--NLRB'P--anyone who associated with the union or 

attempted to organize or was known. to be interested in the union, he 

was fired, So in this respect it had to remain secrer until you got 

your majority and then you petitioned for an election. 

Q. This was for both Progressi,ves and Uniteds? They both had to 

organize secretly? 

A. Well, in our Progressive-United Mine Workers struggle, the hazard 

was enemy retaliation, you know. If you held a meeting, they coald 

break it up, or if you were in their territory, where they had 

control; they nor only broke your meeting up, they'd shoot you--they 

killed you. 

Q. The Uniteds would shoot you? 

A. Oh sure, of course they would. Of course they would; of course 

they would. 

Q. After you seceded from the United Mine Workers, how would you 

get in touch with the men---to form the protest march to Plulkeytown? 

Who organized the march? 

A. We did. The Progrcssive Miners element here in the northern part 

05 thc state. I'm caUing Gillespic rhc northern part of the state. 

Q. So you were in on the organizational part, too. 

A. Oh yes. 

Q. I'm interested in how you got in touch with all those guys; how 

you set it up. 

A. Well, you see, when we seccdcd and held our first temporary cbnvention, 

we became aware of the fact that we did not have solidarity 

*NLRB - National Labor Relati.ons Board 



among the Tllinois miners completely; that there was some dissent 

against seces~ion itse1.f. Wc also knew very, very much, that in many 

of the Illinois coal mining camps--particularly in those that were 

dominated by the Peabody Coal Company--that had so much control in 

cheir community and over the miners themselves, that fear was the 

one thing that kept miners from declaring themselves or supporting 

any issue. Faced with those two obstacles, particularly those two 

obstacles, we knew we had to do some demonstrating, some marching, 

some advocating, so we conceived the march. 

Q. Who else was in on the conception of t'he march? 

A. All of the officers. 

Q. Who were they? 

A. Claude Pearcy, I3FI.l IZeck; 31.1 of them who later became conservative 

and tried me. They were for it. 

Q. Kekel? 

A. Keck, Ozanic, all of them were in favor of the march. Nobody 

objected to the marc'h. A1.l of them supported thc. march. All of them 

did their utmost to make it a success. 

Q. Did you contact people by telephone? 

A. Oh, we telephoned, we gave ourselves about, as I remember, about 

two weeks to organize it. But we had a spirit! At the inception of 

the Progressive M,iners in 1932, when we had finally decided we weren't 

going to allow John Lewis to either reduce our wages or to break up 

our autonomy, I, in all my 74 years never experienced such a spirit 

of brotherhood that existed in that young organization in its beginning. 

It did something that I have never witnessed in my life before. This 

is often true in all communities. There are little feuds, lit~le 

neighborhood feuds between people for religious, economic, or political 

reasons, They don.'t speak to each other--there is an estrangement 

among individuals. But when the Progressive Miners developed, 

we decided we were gobg to march with our lives for a good cause, 

As I said, I have never seen such a spiriL of brotherhood. Overnight, 

instantaneously it seemed, everybody became actually as close as 

possible to being brothers. 

They shared their little food; if one had a little more than the 

other, they shared it* They marched. There wasn't an onerous task 

of any kind that we could ask, that they wouldn'r instantly comply. 

Then, when the defeat began to set in--I say defeat, not defeat of 

the spirit, not defeat of their dignity, not defeat of their cause, 

but when the overwhelming odds began to appear insurmountable to the 

people-that bitterness remained with them about John Lewis, that 

hatred, that deep seated hatred. And you can understand that I 


Jack Rattuello 2 8 

among others--I was perhaps the gang leader of the thing--conceived 

the idea that we better move to salvage something out of this wreckage 

because we were finished. 

If you wa.nted to be logic-a1 and cool, calm and collected about it, 

wc were defeated and we better do something about restoring the conditions 

of the miners. And out of this organizational cooperation, 

hopefully we would bring about, ultimately,organize unity on a decent 

basis. That hatred was too much for me. They killed me in the process; 

they killed my person and killed my reputation and there just wasn't 

anything too bad thcy cou1.d do against: me. They would da it because 

I was in their minds, in their minds. I was betraying a holy cause. 

1 was betraying a trust by daring even to talk about organizational 

unity or obtaining the rel.ease of the DuQuoin boys. They were willing 

to sacrifice more lives, more property, and more working conditions, 

somehow believing that that wou1.d win for them in the end. But it 

was not so, of course. But I forgi.ve them for their blia.dness, for 

their ignorance, for their hatred, and their bitterness that impeded 

their foresight in this thing. 

I don't have too much criticism to make; 1 have the satisfaction. 

That's some thirty or forty years ago and I've had many, many people 

come to me--many, many miners--and apol-ogize profusely. I figured 

out later that the loss of the benefits that would have accrued from 

the United Mine Worker Benefit Fund would have amomred to $f0,000 

for each miner, from that time to this time. NOW you've got to 

understand how bad that was. See, we had no relief in that period. 

There was nothing, nothing. And here are miners who have been working 

in a mine--my father for one--for fifty or sixty years, And now when 

rhe Progressive Miners failed, thcy failed with their benefit. They 

paid benefits for a month of a few months--I don't know how many 

months. L left it eventually but the United Mine Workers kept paying 

$100, $150, $200 a month for all those years. Now that could have 

bcen rcdccmed. 

J can't describe the conditions of th.e miners. We were so poor honey, 

that we couldn't spil.1 food. We had to take shot guns and borrow 

shells and sometimes steal shells to go out and get rabbits and 

squirrels to eat. And fish nets, we'd seine in violation, of the 

law using one hundred foot tramoy to get fish and bring tons of it 

and fry it up for the whole community. That's how we ate--nuts and 

berries and fish and squirrels and ra.bbits. 

Q. Where were you living at that time? 

A. Wilsonville. But that's how the miners lost their chance to 

redeem something. 



Q. Would you say that the sccaling of the ballots triggered the 

formation of the Progressives? 

A. That tirggered it, but. there was among--let me say this. 1111- 

nois was probably the most articulate, knowledgeable section of the 

Uni.ted Mine Workers in affairs of uniontsm, of economic and politics. 

The more radical element resided in Illinois, When,.the destruction 

of the auronomy was taking place in Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, 

Canada, Pennsylvania and other coal producing states, we were raising 

hell here in Illinois about what they were dohg to the other miners 

and what the miners were permitting the United Mine Workers to do to 

them. That too, brought about some kind of estrangement between the 

outlying coal districts and the Illinois miner, 

We were criticizing them for allowing John Lewis t6 tear up their 

economy and the right to elect their own officials. This has been 

a sacred right founded back in the beginning of the United Mine 

Workers--the right: to elect your officers and the right of referendum 

on scale matrers. This is sacrosanct with us, but the miners in the 

outlying states didn't care; they took it lying down and when John 

Lewis got to our borders--the last fortress you know--we just didn't 

stand still Lor it, 

Tn retrospect, I look back and say that the srcession of the Progrcssive 

Miners from the United Minc Workers, was totally jus~ifiable and can 

be defended better today than it could at the moment--totally justifiable. 

We failed in our battle. We railed in winning the struggle, 

but that's not to say it was not justified; it was totally and perhaps 

belated maybe ten, fifteen or twenty years. We should have been 

fighting John Lewis a long time before that' What we did know about 

it--we couldn't win. 

When we used to go to the conventions, the. United Mine Workers conventions, 

the radical element from Illinois was forever in.ttroductng 

resolutions for industrial unionism, which later became the CLO. 

Convention after convention after convention, we were forever pestering 

thc United Mine Workers and John Lewis to adopt a course of 

industrial unionism--organizing the mass-producing industry. He was 

forever gavelling us down, out of order. He called us Bohemians from 

Illinois who had come over in a steerage boats, the. cattle boat, that 

had to stop every time it blew its whistle. And we did not prevail, 

that's all. 

9, Well, what was he in favor of? 

A. Well, to make it as short as possible, John had hallucinations 

about being the wise Ring Solomon with complete control of the union 

in the belief that the miners were too darned ignorant to handle 

their own affairs. It had to be his concept. That's what he worked 

on; that's what he developed in the United Mine Workers; that is the 



course he pursued. That's not to say that John Lewis didn't do some 

good thtngs--he did do some good things. I particularly remember 

the incident when he defied the United Sratcs Government and went 

on strike during our World War period and for that I lauded and 

praised the man, Another incident occurred in Herrin, Illinois when 

the coal operators in some company in Chicago wanted to develop a 

mine during the strike. John Lewis gave them permission to develop 

the mine but not to produce any coal., and that could nor be done 

until after the strike was settled. Well they violated that agreement. 

As a result, they fortified thc mine and scabbed it and 

attempted to produce coal which resulted in a conflict down there 

which killed some twcnty-one miners, coal operators, scabs, superintendents 

and so on and so Forth. 

Well John Lewis spent over a million, two million dollars to keep 

miners from going to jail in that thing. I consider that very justifiable 

and for that J gave him credit. John got hallucinations about 

being King Solomon--about being the b5g boy; the only one being conversant 

with coal mines and their solutions. On that theory he 

brought about the entire destruction of the referendum and autonomy. 

You know the history of the United Mine Workers after that. 

Q. After the ballots were stolen, you said that you attended the 

convention before you organized the Mulkeptown March. Where was the 

convent ion? 

A. The first convention, a temporary convention, was held in Benld, 

Q. In Benld. About how many people attended? 

A. We had a fairly nice representation. That included about the 

same number of membership that eventaully became the offical Progressive 

Miners Union. I'd say representative of about 25,000 miners. 

Q. How many men were actually there? 

A. Oh, 1'd say probably three or four hundred. 

Q. Where dSd you hold it? 

A. In the Benld Theatre. It's not there any more, but there was a 

theatre nn Central Avenue--it's since been demolished. 

Q. And from there the concept of the march came? 

A, We elected temporary officers there. Claude Pearcy hecame the 

acting president, Bill Keck became secretary-treasurer and we had, 

a fellow from Taylorvillc who was vice-president--1 don't remember 

his name. And then we had the problem of organking the remainder 

of the miners which resulted in the Mulkeytom March, among other 

things. 



Q. Just organizing the march must be a fantastically big job. 

A, It wasn't. You've got to recall that spirit I talked about that 

pervaded the miners. The most wholesome, the most enveloping thing 

you've ever seen in your whole life. I'm telling you, former enemies 

were embracing and loving each other--carrying on something like 

brothers. Actually, there were no secrets. If they had a half 

pound of cheese, they shared it among five people if necessary, 

Things they've never done. A11 greed, all selfishness seemed to 

evaporate over nigh,t. 

Q. Was this because you a.11 Felt like you were under the gun of the 

United Miners? 

A. Well, you see we had been 1-accrated with John ~ewis' destruction 

of autonomy in the outlying states. This wasn't an overnight feeling 

with the Illinois miners. We clccted our own officers. We refused 

to pay dues to John Lewis when he tried to interfere and intercede 

in our affairs. So wc'd go back to Fishwick and tka.t crowd and we'd 

research that and lawsuits after lawsuits between the International 

and United Mine Workers District 12 here. 

And so that feeling of disloyalty that existed among the Illinois 

miners, contrary to what feelings existed in other states toward him, 

was deep seated at thc time when we seceded. The stealing of the 

ballots just merely triggered things. Now, we did this, we remained 

calm in the situation pretty much. We asked htm for another referendum 

officially and pleaded that that was the only solution for this 

stealing of the ballots. Of course, he remaincd adamant and stern. 

Be said, "NO. Ir's an emergency. I declare it so and the $5.00 

scale is in effect and all miners are asked to go back to work," 

Many years later on, 1 saw another incident of this spontaneous 

jelling of the people in Spain; when Franco marched on Spain and h~ 

invaded the peninsula of Spain and finally got to the gates of Barcelona. 

And there the people LOO, rose up, and almost defenseless, 

almost painless, and without a friend in the world--including the 

United States--almost pulled thac thing out. 

Q. After the convention, what did you do personally to get ready 

for the march? 

A. Nothing. J~st put on my pants and shoes--all I had. Helped put 

sandwiches i,n the car and joined that caravan just like the rest of 

them, 

Q, You packed food, though? 

A. Oh, everybody packed a little food--what food we had. We didn't 

have a hell of a lot . 



Q. Cooking utensils? 

A. Some of them had some. 

Q 

Blankets? 

A. Oh yes. 

Q. How long did you plan to stay? 

A. As long as it was required, if we could have gotten in there. 

We were going to do some "Billy Graham" stuff on them down there. 

9. What town were you heading for? 

A. We were heading for Franklin County. That was Ziegler, Sesser, 

Benton, Orient No. I, No. 2, and No. 3 and DuQuoin; that's where all 

the mines are. WE were just going to divide our forces there and 

put a contingent at each mine. We were going to picket and demonstrate; 

we were going to do some preachments and advocating, same 

pleading, some beseeching, some imploring--anything that was required 

vocally to get them to respond. 

Q. What timc of day did you start out? 

A. In the morning. 

Q. In the morning. And you started from Wilsonville? 

A. No, we started from Gilles,pic. 

Q. You started from Gillcspic. About how many? It's hard for me 

to imagine, even thc cars coming in from all different directions. 

What was it like? 

A. Oh, it was forty-five miles long. Tt w as disciplined and organized. 

Q. Gi1lespi.e was the beginning, and thcn you picked up others as you 

went: on? 

A. Contingents all the way down. 

Q. Bow many cars did you have fn GiUespie when you started out? 

A. Oh, my, I guess we were twenty miles long when we left Gillespie. 

Springfield, Taylorville, Nokomis, Taylor Springs and all those mines 

over there; Staunton and all the mines around here. 

Q. And they all came to Gi.ll.espie ,to join in? 

A. Everything north and east a.nd west of Gillespie came to Gillespie 



and then we picked up contingents at Solomon, Edwardsville, Collinsvil.le, 

Marissa, and Be1levill.e an.d all of zzhose towns down there. 

Q. How 1on.g did it take for all of you to congregate? 

A. I don't think I can put into words the discipline, the organization, 

thc unity, the solidarity, tllc sweep of brotherhood that: pervaded. 

Every man was an organizer. Every man was a king. Nobody waited for 

anybody for orders. Everybody did what was necessary and out of that 

revolutionary spirit--it was a revolutionary spirit for the miners, 

it was. They had never read about Kropotkin; they had never read 

about [inaudible]. They had ncver read about Eugene V. Debs; they 

had never read about Clarence Darrow or Robert lngersoll or anybody 

else, bur that moment there became a sense of unity and solidarity 

that required no general, no lieutenant, no corporals. 

Everybody was a corporal or a general unto himself, so you can imagine 

how well. disciplined, how well organized, how efficient this thing 

was. Nobody had a worry. Every little car was a citadel unto itself 

and they were cognizant of the fact thar they were a part of the 

larger caravan and that they had to do what: was the right thing, the 

disciplined thing, in order that their brothers would be comfortable 

and would not be put out. I don't think I ran put into words better 

than that, but that's how that thing worked and that's how rit will 

work in a revolution when the social revolution occurs in America-- 

the same way. After we've experimented with a few more centuries of 

degredat ion. 

Q. Who did you ri.de with? 

A. I rode in the truck, of all things. Standing up. 

Q. What kind of a truck? 

A. A big old cattle truck with side boards on it. 

Q. How many of you were in there? 

A. Oh, there must haw been about forty of us in there. 

Q. Really packed in. How did you decide to go in the truck--just 

because there was room? 

A. I wanted to be up in front. I was pretty active in my region 

herc and I wanted to be up in front. We sort of interspersed our 

more informed men along the lines so that if anything came up,these 

would bc somebody there that they coold look to or kind of organize 

it, bur nothing came of it--nothing. 

Q. Who made the decision not to carry guns? 


Sac-k Eat tuelln 

A. We had a meeting before, 

Q. Did this occur at the convention? 

A. This was held in Gillespie at the ci.ty hall. That was the leaders 

of the movement and there it was decided that it would be peaceful. 

Q. Was therc any discussion on that pori.nt, ever? 

A. Not too much, not too much because somehow or other it seemed 

likc we were seeking to prove that we were going to be law-abiding. 

And after all, we wanted to win miners, not alienate them, and shooting 

wouldn't have been a good form of soliciting support. We figured 

that; we learned differently, of course. 

Q. How was that word passed down--just by word of mouth? You never 

had to search cars yourself to make sure thac some hothead wasn't 

involved? 

A. No, no, never. Never disputed a man's integrity, or word or his 

honesty. We said this is going to be a peaceful march; it's going 

to be one in which we're going to articulate our demands, our request 

for help, and we are going to plead to . . . , Illinois miners had 

always been a solid unit up until then--a pretty much solid unit, 

There was some variance between the northern miners of Illinois and 

the southern miners in T>ittle Egypt, of course that related to more 

religious, economic and political differences. But when it came to 

thc mine problems, we were pretty solid. For instance, we never had 

to put on picket lines in Illinois--never. 

Q. You never had to what? 

A. We never had to establish a picket line in a stlrike in Illinois. 

When we went on strike--we stayed home, Nobody ever dared to go 

through a line; there was no picket line, that's how solfd we were. 

Q. Bow do you explain 1llinoi.s' solidari~y? 

A. Prom experience, hard, cruel experiences in the past, There 

were some quite painful struggles took p1,ace in Illinois. Like Virden, 

you know. Do you remember John Al-tgeld? Governor Altgeld? 

He was in office when they tried to scab the Virden mines. They 

brought Negroes in with box cars and there were big killings there. 

Some of the miners were not allowed eo bc buried in Virdcn; they 

buried them in Mount Olive. 

Q. So you think it was the early mine struggles here that kept the 

miners aware of their autonomy? 

A. There's another explanation for chxt, too. The Illinois miners-- 

the radical element of Illinois miners--were always great activists. 


Jack Bartucllo 35 

They were great activists; they were busybody's in the field of politics, 

and economics, sociology--affecting minds and human welfare, 

And they had big mouths. They were always making speeches all the 

time, you know, platform orators, rabble rousers they called us, 

And that form of education left its seed; it germinated a little in 

Illinois, I think. 

Many years Inter, no, not many years later, I put in time in Kentucky 

at Hazard, West Virginia, Pennsylvania. I afltendcd all of those 

stccl strikes Ln Steubenville and Clarenton, Pennsylvania and the 

Keys Port and all of those places. I notices that those miners and 

those factory workers were not as active as we were here in Illinois. 

Wc had little groups, you know, we formed llittle groups. This might 

surprise you. buring the time when I was a member of the Unired Mine 

Workers, still residing in Wilsonville, we formed a little 1,W.W. 

group wichin the United Mine Workers. We carried on in Wilsonville 

and had a lot of members from around here. 

Q. How large did that group get to be? 

A. Numerically not too great, but effectively out of rhis world. 

We put out mare propaganda and more newspapers and periodicals-- 

labor periodicals. We brought speakers into this country here like 

Ralph Chaplin, the editor of the Industrial Worker one time and the 

author of many great I.W.W, songs. Be was probably the predominate 

labor songwriter of the period. Big Bill Thompson--we had them all 

here; we would bring anybody we could get. We'd go around and collect 

ni.cke1.s from each other and then we'd have little beer parti.es and 

picnics and rake a little mnney. We'd get a little money and bring 

an anarchist speaker in; we'd brtng a socialist speaker in--Eugene V. 

Debs. We had a group going all the time. 

And somehow or other, once you organize along ideological lines of 

this kind, it seems like you always know where to find such persons 

in another town so you form a little group and that little group 

gets a little bigger and a little bigger. And Illinois represents 

that kind of a development in the. mining industry. Now haw many 

encamprnenrs in the United States among the coal miners or in the 

factory towns carried on like that? Did you know that at one time 

we used to have our own dramas? We produced our own dramas in this 

coal mining camp--our own shows. They weren'r all that refined, but 

call it drama if you want to, hut that's what we did. We would have 

great speakers, grea.t spea.kers. It's all. gone by the board. 

Q. What was the rcactian of the I.ocal population to your march? 

A. That's a good question, that's a dandy question. It gets us 

into another era, another phase. It makes no difference how active, 

how concerned a communi.ty becomes, socially speaking. you've always 

got the reactionary and conservative el.ements that remin. They vary 



in some cases, some small, some rases a little larger, but these 

people, this element is thcre and how to move them out of that rut 

1'1.1 never know. But at the height of our movement here in Illinois, 

in organizational matters at least, we always had a certain numher 

of citizens in the community, for one reason or another, that represent 

the primitive idea; ,the obstinate idea of rernainiag in the rut 

and refusing to move forward despite any ecchnological development, 

despite the changes in the world. Primarily we found that it was 

religious in basis. 

The Father had told them too much about the Kingdom of God, you know, 

and forgot to tell them about the social implicatfons of the moment-- 

the realittes of the moment. And they became immersed in this theology, 

in this superstition, and they were wairiag for, I suppose, God 

to rectify the social condirion and they remained the backward element 

of their community--the obstacles for our social progress. Whenever 

there was a strike, you heard their voices of lament. And if th.ey 

were political1.y oriented, they believed of course that the electoral 

process--either Humphrey or -Johnson--was going to save the world, or 

Kennedy or somebody else. Now I'm being a little Sarcastic, but 

th%s is my concept of it. And so you had the political schtsm, 'St 

was the Democrats that said, "My Democratic. candidate is the best. 

You elect him and you're going to resol-ve all your economic problems." 

And the other side was just as vocif erous about voting for the Republicans. 

That schismremainedand they forgot about their own destiny, 

their own welfare, their own solutions for their own probl.ems,. 

And so you had that element in your community, but what happened there 

is if you gained the support of the majozity of the community in your 

economic endeavors, or your political advocacies, they controlled 

the town, so to speak. The reaction element became silent in the 

face of that majority; they wouldn't cause you too much trouble if 

you had that much control; they remained silent because of the fear 

of the majority, you see. But where you didn't have that activist 

group, that development, then the rational element actually controlled 

in all sieuations. It di.dnlt make any difference what it was; if it 

was a social rissue, amnesty, birth control or what have you. This 

e1emen.t remainw in control and this i.s the direction in which this 

community always flows. 

Q. Are some cotrununities better than others? Could you name a few of 

the so-called good ones? 

A. Wcll now, Gi1S.espi.e always had a socialist element--good strong 

socialist element. That socialist element showed up in all questions 

of politics; all questions of socia.1 concern. You could expecr a 

decent repsesenta,tion on any issue which came into that community. 

Whether it was civic, political or economic, it always showed in 

what took place. Benld, on the contrary, now this is an Italian and 

I'm Italian by descent. Something happened there; they lost the 



leadership there one time back. It used to be a hell of a town at 

one time, but everybody became a silent: social traveler--"We'll 

accept what is and the hell with tomorrow." 

So the community just sort of strayed waywardly away from all social. 

concern and it showed, too, in all these things I've menrioned and 

described. You could expect them to he reactionary in the mine situation 

if thc confrontation was between the coal miner and the coal 

operator on justifiable grounds. They were always lamenting that 

if they didn't come right out and say, "I'm against that," they'd 

say, "~et's take another course, let's reasan with them. After all, 

if wc lose this little condition, what the hell, that's not the end 

of the world. We'll accept it and go on." You know, things like 

that huild and develop and finally cngulf everybody. "Compromise, 

compromise. " 

Now Collinsville is Progressive. You go down there on a mine or 

civic issue, a political issue, speakers would be always good. 

Thcy're there with their money; they're there with the support. 

You know our labor and revolutionary periodics, they disappeared 

from the face of the United States a few years back. Evcry community 

years ago used to have flaming labor press, you know, in one form or 

another--magazines, papers. Everybody had a good paper like the 

Industrial Worker --, like the Socialist Paper, the Synd&calis,t, the 

--- 

Anarchist. Everybody was distributing and disseminating literature 

in these communities. Of course we looked for it; we developed it; 

we sought it. And so the communities that had good social advoca~es, 

they were friendly, they were gregarious, they treated you right, 

There was no fighting, no stealing; we didn't have to lock our doors, 

our cars. We could leave a car out there with thirty million dollars 

worth of bullion in it--nobody would ever touch it. We had no palfcc; 

we didn't use no jail--we talked against jail. 

We had no churches in our towns. If a Catholic died and he wanted 

services from the Catholics, then a priest would come from Bunker 

Hill at a little chapel there, just for that purpose. We wanted to 

debate with a Catholic prZest about the question of religion and 

social things; we challenged him to debate either in his house of 

worship or the saloon, we didn't care where--or On the street. So 

we had no churches; we had no polic-e; we had no guns except to hunt 

for food. WE had a hel"l of a community--had a hell of a region. 

Q. When you say community, you're meaning total community, not just 

the mine workers clement but the whole town? 

A. 1'11 tell you how Tar reaching it was. During the formation of 

the Progressive Miners and the strike which ensued, we ran out of 

food. Nobody had any food. Children were hungry and starving even 

in our town, especially those with eight or nine children in a family 

and some had ten. 



Conditions became so bad and this was in the midst of all the farming 

of the Progressive Miners and all that ensued. The boys came to me 

one day and said, "Jack, you've been gone for a couple weeks down in 

Franklin County, but these kids are starving to death here." 1 said, 

"Why in the hell didn't you do something abotit it?" "Well, we're 

waiting for you to come back." 1 said, "Okay," so I organized a 

truck and four or five fellows and one night in the stealth of the 

darkness, we went out to Fred Stems--a farmer who lived out just west 

of Wilsonville--and we killed one of his steers and dragged it ta 

the hard road, took it to the basement of one of the fellow workers, 

butchered it, and distributed meat at five o'clock in the morning. 

A year and a half later the mines hadn't been working too much and 

what little work we were getting was on a division of work of five 

to one. The mine l~ad to work five shifts in order for US to get one 

shift--we were dividing work. And so we were making about five dol.lars 

a week, sometimes five dollars for two weeks. That was our pay. Our 

annua, wage in that period was about six hundred dollars or seven 

hundred dollars. 

A year and a half later, I went around among the boys and I said give 

me a nickel, a dime, whatever you got. 1 didn't even tell them--some 

of them you can't talk to you know. I collected $37.50, 1: drove out 

with a fellow to Fred Stems place and hc was fixing fences, hamering 

that fence. He looked up--he knew me--and said, '%i, Jack, what the 

hell brings you out here?" And I said, "f came out to pay you some 

money." He straightened up and looked at me and said, "You don't 

owe me any money. " And I said, "Yes I do. I' I' Naw," he said, "You 

don't owe me any money." You know, T had rented a house from him once 

before and he said, "You paid your rent." And I said, "No, I owe you 

tl 

some money, Naw, I' hc said, "You don't owe me any money. You're 

kidding. I' I said, "No, hcrc's what happened: About a year ago we 

were hungry. The kids were starving, we needed food, protein especially, 

and we came out here one night and butchered one of your big 

black steers. I would say that he weighed, just guessing, 1100 pounds." 

And T reached in my pocket and said, "Now I collected $37.50, that's 

every nickel I could get to pay for that damn steer." And he said, 

"Well., 1'11 be go to hell .I1 He said, "You know, I didn't even miss 

that stecr." I said, "Well, that's what happened.'' ell," he said, 

"Now by gosh, I didn't miss that steer, but since you tell me, thaz's 

my contribution to the kids and the strike." I said, "NO, I've 

collrcted this dam money, 1 didn't even put it down. I don't even 

know who in the hell I got it from now." And I stuck it in his pocket, 

So you see, he had bccn molded and melted into this kind of philosophical 

thing that had occurred in the village. 

Well, we had mother experience there. Nellie Gahagirn and two children, 

about two and three years old--her husband had left her, had abandoned 

her. Before that happened, they had bought this house, years before, 

on a financing basis and they were paying so much a month for it. 



We11 after thc husband abandoned her, well Nellie was helpless. She 

had two little children and the home was being financed by the Staunton 

Building and Finance Company. One day, while wc were working and 

were unaware of it, the Sheri.ff came and evicted her from this home 

and moved her furniture into an old dil.apidated windowless old house 

that had served as a church years ago for a little old Baptist group 

or something--maybe five or ten people--and they had abandoned it, 

No windows, no doors, no nothing, no well,.no lights and there were 

some old rotten pews that had been left there--and they just piled 

her furniture in there. 

When 1 got home from the mine that night--1 was president of the local 

at the time--I came home and sct my dinner pail down on the floor and 

Tillie said, "Nellie Gahagan is in there, in the living room. She 

wants to talk to you." So I went in and Nellie Gahagan's father 

owned all that land on which that mine was developed and she had two 

brothers, from riches to poverty. Anyhow, she said, "~ack, today 

the Sheriff moved my furniture out of my house and me and my kids 

don't have any place to live and I just want you to come and see 

what they did with my furniture--the house they put it in." And 1 

said, "Well, I' 11 be glad to Nellie. " I fold Tillie I would eat 

supper later. So I walked down to this house about five or seven 

blocks from my place and there was this fusaiturc all just jammed-- 

just rhrew in there. I said, "Oh, this is awful." I looked around 

and I said, "Well Nellie, 1'11 tell you, I: don't, think there is anything 

I can do for you other than make a collection." I said very 

sternly, "You know the law has taken its course and T can't violate 

the law you know," She said, "Well, 1 didn't expect you to Jack. 

I just wanted you or somebody to see what they did to me and my 

kids." So I said, "Well, 1'11 see about making a collection for you 

Nellie. I' 

Well this happened to be Wednesday night--our local meeting night. 

Gee, I only had about two or three hours to work. We'd meet at nine 

o'clock and we wouldn't adjourn sometime until midnight--we'd convene 

ar that hour anyhow. Anyhow, in that three hours I organized another 

truck and about six or seven other good fellow workers, or eight--as 

many as I thought I needed--and I ordered my friend, Eddie Bollard, 

to pick Mrs. Gahagan up, oh,about ten o'clock. I said, "1'11 adjourn 

the goddamned meeting even if they're trying to impeach the presidenr." 

I said, "I'll adjourn the meeting about ten o'clock and we'll be back 

down here with this truck and we'll load this damned furniture back 

up and take it righr back to her home." And we Set it up. Well, 

Eddie brought Mrs, Gahagan hack as pcr instructions, exactly ar ten 

o'clock, no, eleven o'clock and dumped her off at the place where 

she had been evicted. 

And now she fills in the story the next day when I come home. She 

was sitting Tn my living room again. I said, "Hi, Nellie, how's 

ctrerything?" "Well," she said, "Jack I just want to tellu--she's an 

old typical American farmer girl, you know. She talks real drawly 


Jack Battuel1.o 40 

like--she said, "I wanted to te1.l you I prayed and prayed and me and 

my I.it,tle children prayed and last: night when Mr. Bollard brought me 

back home and I went in and my furniture was gone and f said to my 

two little children, 'Well maybe Cod has answered our prayers. Let's 

go back to our old home and maybe the furniture will be there.' And 

you know what, Mr. Battuel1.0, that furnittrrc was there. It was all 

set up, even the window shades and everything." 

So they let Mrs, Gahagan stay in that house for three, four or five 

more years and then one day down in the mines, one of the agents for 

the Staunton Building and Loan said to me, "~hey're going to evict 

her again." And I said, "~ete," 1 said real quick--Pete Grachetto 

was his name-1 said, "I heard only last night that .if they ever 

touched Nellie Gahagan again, thcy're going to blow that damn house 

over into Montgomery County." They never touched her again, She 

lived there as long as I can remember, And rhe Building and Loan 

never said anything, wasn't too ungrateful, wasn't too unkind or too 

harsh. 

The sheriff--Mickey Siefert was States Attorney--and when Mrs. Gahagan 

wcrit up to get her mother's pension, he and Judge George, Mickey 

Siefert, got her into the private chambers and pummeled her for a 

half hour trying to get her to admit that Jack Ba.ttuello had moved 

11 

that furniture back in. And as she related it to me, she said, You 

know, Mr. Battuello, I would have died hcfore 2 would have ever to1.d 

them that you did that, but honestly I didn't know; I don't know who 

moved my furniture back in," She said, "I prayed, and 1 think that 

God did and I think he answered my prayers." By this time, of course, 

time ha.d elapsed and I got a little humorous, a 1-ittle facetious 

about it .tlo say the least and I said, "Wel.1 Nellie, I don' t know about 

God, but I imagine that Ei've gallons of gasoline and a couple of 

workers did a hell of a I.ot about getting that furniture back in there. 

And it did at: that. 

Q, You mentioned churches as being conservative elemen~s in the 

town--any particular church or the churches in general? 

A. Churches generally. In the infancy of che labar organization in 

America, every church without exception in thosc communities, mining 

communities, in which I lived and worked; all of them were strictly 

opposed to unionism--labor unions. Labor unions were anathemato the 

churches, to the politicians, and all of them conspired to support: 

the governments--the coal operators fn one manner or another. The 

media was also on rhe side of the coal operators in that period. 

Some of them became a little more enlightened as time passed. Some 

churches in particular--some denominations--became a little bit more 

liberal. In many communities, the Unitarians were quite a social 

force. I've always admired the Jehovah's Witnesses although I'm an 

agnostic-I'm an athicst. I've always admired the Jehovah's Witnesses 

because of their opposition to war and their fight for civil liberties 

in dissemination of their religious tracts and their right to speak 

in assembly. 



Here of late in contemporary times, the great number of laymen among 

all denominations, including thc Catholics, have perceived the light 

of social progress and do something about it in one way or another. 

My father taught me some of this and he served as an acolyte in Ttaly-- 

that's an altar boy. And of course Catholicism dominated Italy and 

every phase of Italian I.ife. When hc landed on the shores of America 

and noticed that the religious climate was just a little bit different 

here than it was in Italy, well, he excommunicated the Pope, Usually 

the Pope excommunicates the layman. 

Q. I noticed in your tape that you did with Nick, you said that 

you'd been excommunicated from towns. 

A. I have. 

Q. I wondered if that had meant literally the chuch excommunication? 

A. No. 

Q. You rnran.1: being thrown out of town. 

A. Politically and socially. Well, you see I represented philosophically 

speaking, an extreme, extreme philosophy--extreme ideology. 

Don't get me started talking about the present of our social order 

and our social world. (laughs) 

Q. ~et's go back again to the reaction of the local population to 

your march. 

A. Oh, it was magnificent. The women, I tell you the women really 

were magnificent in our struggle. They formed the Progressive Miners 

Auxiliary; they marched in Springfield; they marched on the picket 

lines; they were gassed and bayonetted. When we had strikes, they 

supported us with food and clothing and moral support. ~hey're great. 

Women are great. In a struggle, women are great. Once you get a 

woman marching, they're like a Kentucky people or the Tennessee 

people. Once they're converted away from snake cultism to unionism 

or to some other social crusade, damn, you can't have a better supporter. 

And you know women are courageous--they're courageous. Damn, 

I've seen them wouldn't back up from the militia being gassed, you 

know. Blow it right in their faces and they'd laidin the grass and 

bury their heads in that grass and clutch that grass and just lay 

there; they wouldn'~ love. They're tough. 

Q. Were there any women with you on the march? 

A. Oh, yes, A few of them sneaked in; they weren't supposed to be 

there, you know, because they're thc supp1.y lines, They had to keep 

food--we were couriers and transported it. 


Jack Batruello 

Q. You did? Tell me about that. 

A. Anticipating that we were going to have a successful seige, we'd 

have to have supply lines to keep us down there and to bring us food 

and bring us clothing. We'd get dirty pretty soon, you know, mybe 

after a week or two or thrcc and so they had to man the home ground. 

But women are magnificent. In every struggle I've ever participated 

in, they've been magnificent. 

Q. They were organizhg food at home and then they were planning 

to send it in to you? 

A. Oh yes. We had trucks and cars to come back and get it. 

Q. How many of you were in your truck? 

A. I'd say about forty or fifty. We had a big cattle truck. A 

g1ea.t big thing--you know those huge things. 

Q. Did it belong to one of the guys? 

A. Oh, we had volunteers that loaned us cars and bring rucks, and 

o'h, my goodness, everybody just poured in. I can't go any further 

than I did a while ago. They just--spontaneous--just a spontaneous 

uprising, a spontaneous converging of everybody's support. 

Q. The trucks and cars weren't just owned by miners. 

A. We had farmers support us, some--nut too many--but we had farmers 

and we had . . . 

Q. Marching w-ith you, too? 

A. And we had truckers. Oh., yes. They supported us. They furnishd 

their own gas. Yes, we had to borrow and steal gas, you know. We 

had no money. 

Q. Ibw did you do that? 

A. Oh, we just--by hook and crook. We'd sometimes take a net and 

go over to the Ellinois River and bring three or four ton of fish 

back and tlhcn have a community fish fry--whole communities, anybody, 

just general invitation--"come and eat. I' 

Q. Did you sell any fish to buy gas? 

A. We never, no. I stole Tillie's gold piece. I have twins you know, 

boys, and they were such handsomc little rascals and physically perfect. 

We entered them in the State Fair for eight consecutive ycars in conjunction 

with the State. Fair of Illinois Better Babies Conference. 

They won that title--The Best Twins in Illinois for eight consecutive 



years. And in one of the awards she got a two dollar and fifty Cent 

gold piece among cups and ribbons--we got all that. But one day 

during the strike I found that $2.50 gold piece and I used it to buy 

gas and oil to haul that fish from the Illinois River to feed the 

community. 1 didn't tell her about it and one day she searched frantically 

and became hysterical. because she knew where she had put it 

and it wasn't there, And I let her believe the kids stole that damn 

thing for years. (laughter) I let her believe that those kids pilfered 

that damn $2.50 gold piece. Finally one day 1 confessed. But 1 said, 

"Tillie, it was for a good cause, don't worry." Bread cast on the 

water . . . 

Q. Were you afraid-of running into violence on your march? 

A. Something I never had, fear, when I was younger. I would have 

it now, but T didn't then. 

Q. The thought never crossed your mind. 

A. I've been faced with death about 50,000 times, wall, 50 times at 

least. 1 mean imminent death. They looked for me with guns several 

times, you know. And in picket lines there was shooting and bayonets. 

1 had the audacity in Taylorville, [inaudible] and my wife was in 

jail, too, you know, Wc all went to jail, hell, we went to jail. 

But when we marched on Tayl.orvil.l.e, they declared marshal law and 

not more than three people cou1.d congregate. If they did, they 

arrested you and they threw you in the courthouse, They had no place 

to p,ut you, so they put: you in the courthouse, They had the jail 

filled. But: anyhow, the militia was tear gassing us and had their 

bayonets you know; kepc pushing forward and pushing US back. And 

there was a young fellow right next to me who was pushing me back and 

in all that gas you can't breathe and you can't see--boy ir's an awful 

damn mess, it's nauseating--and I said to him, "I wonder what your 

father would think if he knew you were doing this to us? Do you know 

that we're asking only for bread, nor justice, just bread? You ought 

to be ashamed of yourself. Why don't you give me rhat damn rifle?" 

He gave me that damn rifle and you know he handed me that rifle and 

his corporal arrested him and took him out of the line. Yep. 

Q. But you never thought that you might be met with violence tn 

Franklin County or along the way? 

A. Well, there was some suspicion that we might be. There was some 

suspic5on but our feeling that the march and the numbers and the 

causes which we represented would overwhelm--supersede--that threat 

of violence. We somehow were naive to the point that we believed 

maybe the balance of power would flow to our side because of our cause. 

Tt di.dnl.t happen--it didn't happen. 

Q. Did you stop along the way? 


Jack Bartuello 4 4 

A. For emergency purpose cars would pull out of line and drop into 

the woods and then catch us again. Yes, but that's all. 

Q. Did you ta.ke gas with you? 

A. No. Hell no. We had no money. 

Q. You mean one tank got you there? 

A. Well, if we did run out 01 gas we could manage. Somebody maybe 

had a couple of nickel there; they could manage to get maybe a gallon 

or two or whatever was necessary. There was no fear that if we run 

out of gas and abandoned our cars. Wc'd salvage them somehow; we'd 

go back and get them. We were just so serene in thc whole process. 

You never thought about 1 itt1.e eventualities--1itt'l e emergencies. 

We'd overcome them. Like the Ncgroes who have a want to say in the 

civil rights movement, " ~ will e overcome." And you do, you do. 

4. Did you have to stop at all along the way--your truck? 

A. No. Well, at Swansea wc did; that's the only time. 

Q. I was wondering how, for instance, a gas station operator would 

have treated you. 

A. Wel+l, he'd have so1.d us thc gas if we 'd have had the money, Well., 

there would have been enough for emergency rationing a little bit, 

You know, everyone was so willing to dlvkde--if he had a dollar he'd 

give you fifty cen.ts. That was the thing. There was, 1 would say 

out of that 45 mile march, that chere was pr6babl.y 5,000 people didn't 

have a nickel in their pocket--dida't have a nickel. in their pocket. 

I was one; didn't have a damn nickel in my pocket--not a ntckel. I'm 

saying a nickel. 

Q, Where did the authorities stop you? Was that at Swaasea? 

A. Swansea was the First time. 

4. Where was the second timc? 

A. At the guns--at: the ambush. That's where we were stopped the 

second time. We run right into that ambush, 

Q. Where werc you In the l.ine of march at that time? 

A. Third car. 

Q. Who was the first? Can you remeniber? 

A. No, I don't. No, I don't. 


Jack Battuel.Lo 

Q. What was it like? 

A. Pandemonium when they shot into us. Pandemonium. 

Q. You hadn't expected it? 

A. Not that, no. No. We had an idea that when we got there that 

they were going to surround us with authorities to keep us intact and 

not let us get to thc mines. We figured that out. That we figured. 

We also felt that down in Franklin County there would be some kind 

of an injunction issued that would restrain. our activities. We figured 

that out. hat's what we figured, but never that ambush; we never 

figured that out. Never dreamed they'd do that to us. 

Q. So you were riding In the bac-k o f the truck. 

A. Yes, on the body. 

Q. This was an open truck. 

A. Yes. 

Q. And how were you first aware of the ambush? 

A. The shots. 

Q. Just pl.owing in? 

A. Shooting so they cou1.d hit the cars. 

END OF TAPE THREE 

A. The first fusillade of shots disabled the first: car. They shot 

into the tires and second one. And then it seemed to me, 1ooki.ng 

back and remembering in retrospect that the next fusillades of shots-- 

they shot over our heads. Then sporadic bullets began to hit the 

cars. Now I deduced from that tha.t they 'had orders to shoot at he 

wheels and deflate the tires and then shoot overhead to intimidate 

us and then I figured then that certain ones of them decided, "The 

hell with them, shoot right into them." And then those are the ones 

that hit us, hit our people. Those are the shots that hit our people. 

For ,the most part, though, the shots were either low or overhead. 

Q. You had no warning. No one and . . . 

A. No, no, just all of a sudden without any warning. We never, 

never figured that that was going to come to be ambushed. We'd 

didn't think wc was going to be ambushed. That was never even given 



any consideration. We thought we'd be harassed after we'd ge.t dawn 

in there with the authorities or probably circumscribe or an injunction 

which would calm them down. Then that ended it all. 

Q. No one sropped to say, "Fe'l.lows you can't come here?" 

A. Oh, no, no, no. The authortties after they searched us, this one 

said, "All right, you may proceed. I' We did. 

Q. So it was a complete surprise to you? 

A. Positively, cnmpl.ete1.y. Out of x clear sky. 

Q. Codd you see the men shooting or were they hidden? 

A. In the woods. 

Q. They were hidden? 

A. ~hese's a clump of woods like something like that: down there and 

they were in those woods. No, we couldn't see anybody. Well, we 

didn't take time to look, either. We didn't takc time, After that 

first fusillade that first car . . . well, I think thc first fusillade 

hit: one of our bays. Bullet: from a big rifle -33 went right through 

his . . . . HE dying today, too, incidentally. Whethet he's living 

roday, this morning or not. He's got cancer, Lefty Williams. He's 

from St, Louis. I got a call last night, he was the first one hit. 

Big bullet went right ~hrough his jaw. With that we left pell-mell 

through the fields. I outrun that kid . . . 

Q. How'd you get out of the truck, 

A. Just jumped out, Honey. I flew our of he damn thing. 

Q, All forty of you at the same time? 

A. Yes, all on top of each other. 

Q. Were chey firi.ng from both sides? 

A. No. One side, 

Q. Which side? 

A. Well, we were going south, would be on the right side, so it'd 

be west, wouldn't it? West side of the road, I gucss. Anyhow the 

shots werc coming from the woods on the right side of us, it'd be 

west. And af~er the Ei.rst warning we had, the only warning we had. 

And women got reports, see erroneous report that thcre were fifteen, 

twenty killed you know, and, oh, there was consternation back here 

something horrible. Women just fit to be .tied, you know, frantic. 


Jack Rattuello 4 7 

And T suppose, you know how rumors will grow. From twenty it grew 

to fifty and pretty soon everybody was annihilated. I didn't get 

home for three or four days. We were the Last ones home. 

Q. I'm trying to picture this. These thousands of people suddenly 

being attacked by gun fire and then you're running away from the fire. 

Was ir jusr a sea of people running? Were you running into the woods. 

A. That's the proper word, that's the proper description. Just a 

sea of people just runni.ng frantically. 

Q. Did you find cover? 

A. Well, we r,un i.n the opposite dirccrioa, of course, down to another 

section of woods. 

Q. You had to run across . . . 

A. Fields. 

Q. Open fields? 

A. Yes. And the bullets whining over head all the while. There's 

no doubt that they could have done more damage and killed more people 

and wounded more people if they had actually shot right at us. But 

like 1 say it seemed from the pattern that I figured out that they 

intended to scare us and demolish our caravan and then only a few 

must have shot right into the mass of .the people. 

Q. Row fast did you run? 

A, Well, they say the record was 9.1 or 9.2 I think I exceeded tha-tl. 

For a hundred yards anyhow. 

Q. Where did you finally stop, then. 

A. Well, hours later we didn't come back to the original front of 

the caravan but we circled around, and of course, that thing is like 

I say is forty miles long, you know, and we finally came back in to 

about the middle of the caravan some place and all cars were demolished 

and then, of course, we saw there was no more firing,no more gun men 

around, so we walked a little ways up towards the. front--not all the 

way. All those cars were pushed .in thc ditch, turned over, and food 

strung a11 over the place, and blankets, and pots, and pans, combs 

and you name it. Everything was just . . . 

Q. About what time was the ambush? 

A. When we finally walked in to Du Quoin that night? 



Q, Now, what time was the ambush itsclf? About what time of day was 

it when they fired on you? 

A. \hat have you got in rherc? 

Q, Well, you know just . . . 

A, Well., I would say that it was sometime around noon, a little after 

noon, Mid-day I'd say. 

Q, So then what: time did you . . . 

A. Maybe a little later. 

Q. Was it when you got back? 

A. Bur by the time I made my way into DuQuoin--that's on foot though, 

of course--that was night. It was dark. It was eight or oh, nine 

o'clock, I guess. But a11 of this was on foot. We all walked in 

there and there was another mess there. Here was all these people, 

no cars, no transportation, no place to sleep--just on the ground. 

All strewn all over town and police, everybody, you know the police 

had everybody corralled pretry much didn't let you go anyplace. They 

herded you l ike cattle. 

Q. Any offers of help? 

A. Not as far as I know. Not as far as I know. At least I didn't 

hear any. 

Q. Were they just firing on the first part of the caravan? 

A. No, as far as they could reach with the rtflss. 

Q. Well, you said the caravan was about forty miles long. So what 

happened to the back of the caravan? 

A. After that, then they came out of rhe woods after they got us 

a11 out of the cars running then they just demolished as many cars, 

oh God, hundreds of them. Then just sent down. the line with ball 

bats, pushing cars over, turning them over. 

(2. They went the whole thirty miles? As far as you know? 

A. No, I don't think they went the whole line, no. They went about 

ha.lf-way T guess. About half-way out, I suppose, But that was a 

mess. 1 don't think they got that thing cleaned up for a week. 

Q. Was here more than one ambush? 

A. No. That's it, Tha.t's the. only one, That was enough. That was 

enough. 


Jack BattueLlo 4 9 

Q. Did you get anything to eat that night in DuQuoin? Anything to 

drink? 

A. Well, we had water. I can't tcll you about what everybody did. 

We just at that point in time wc were just $cuffling for ourselves, 

you know, a place to slcep or drink of water or somebody in the tail 

end of the march they could turn their cars around, see, in the tail 

end of the march and they salvaged their cars and their food. Well, 

there was a little contingent of that part of the caravan that had a 

little food and s~n'Ie--I didn't get no food--but some of them did. 

Q. Did they come into DuQuoin with you? 

A. Yes, yes, they all stayed there that first night. Al.1 stayed 

there. 

Q. Did you pick up food and stuff as you passed the ambushed caravan 

on your way in to UuQuoin? 

A. No, wc Figured they're still around and we didn't want to, you 

know, tarry. We didn't know where they were at actually. 

Q. Were there a bunch of you that stuck together? Can you remember? 

A. At that point in time as John Dean is one to say in his testimony, 

the (airp1an.e passes overhead) thing became total disarray, total 

disorganized and a state of ,~otal confusion. There was just no 

heroics that could be performed and to pull that line together again 

in the matter of the time that we had, just couldn't be. Everybody 

was just scuffling for themselves. We were friends and talking to 

each other and consoling each other but the big question was, "What 

do we do now? How are we going to do it to get our lines organized 

again? " 

Q. The truck you've bccn riding in, you camped again? 

A. As far as I knew it stayed up there for a week. 

Q. Did you see it? 

A. No. 

Q. You didn't see it a.fter you'd left it. 

A. No, no. It mtght have been there for a week, I don't know how 

in the hell it ever got back. That big portion of that front line 

stayed there for a few days, you know. The ones that could turn 

around that weren't hit weren't involved in the first fusSllade. 

They got their cars turned around and back to DuQuain. Quite a few 

of them. But then there was pandemonium in DuQuoin, Jesus, you 

ought to have seen that mess. 



Q. Whereabouts DuQuoin did you go? 

A. Just any place tha.t you could sleep. 

Q. Park? 

A. Or front yards, alleys, any place. That's where we stayed all 

night, And most of us didn't have any food. Those that salvaged 

their car, they had food. They went back, they were the first ones 

to go back, they were the first ones to return to the [inaudible], 

Q. How long were you in DuQuoin? 

A. I was there about two days. Two days, maybe three. 1 was still 

insisting on trying to get some organization out of that thing. But 

it's beyond our control, my control, anybody's control. There was 

just too much consternation, confusion, pandemonium. And there's 

some degree of fear because the authorities were hostile. The state 

police were terrible. 

Q. In what way? 

A. Oh, they wouldn't give you the time of the day, they were sarcastic, 

they cut you. Aurhoritarian in its highest decimal. 

Q. Do they bother you personally? 

A. They just kept you moving, that's all. 1£ you were in the wrong 

place or they thought you were in the wrong place they just moved you 

and clubs were nut, you know. 

Q. Were you clubbed? 

A. No, Nobody was clubbed as I know of. They were roughed up a 

little bit in DuQuoin but not too bad, not too bad. They were pushed 

around and cussed (airplane goes overhead) and maybe, you know slapped 

with a club too bad. 

Q. If you were there for two days, did you ever eat? 

A. Oh, yes. I had some friends down there and I finally sneaked 

around and got to their house. They don't live exactly in DuQuoin 

but just down the road, oh, about four or five miles from there. 

Yes, 1 went to their home and I fed up the next day a little bit. 

Q. Good. How about the rest of the guys? 

A. Oh, mast of them started and went right on home. All that had 

their cars, they could get thei-r cars turned around and come back. 

They all came home. 



Q. So about how many of you stayed in DuQuoin? 

A. Oh, I'd say, as far as I know about ten or fifteen of the mare 

active leaders of the thing. But there was no hope to reorganizing 

the thing. 1t'd been broken up and successfully so, 

4, How did the other leaders survive? 

A. About the same way T did. 

Q. Friends? 

A, Some came back, some came back and some stayed down there but 

most of them had friends down there. 

Q. Were they miners? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Progressive? 

A. Yes. They paid the penalty too, you know. They lost their jobs. 

They were fi.red and 1.os.t their jobs and blacklisted. 

Q. Did you get any show of sympathy from the United Mine Workers 

since you really were brothers? 

A. Never got a chance to demonstrate it too much. We never got into 

the County, (clanging noisc) 

Q. They didn't come forward to help a.t all, after this? 

A. I still believe if we'd got into the county we would have pulled 

the county out for us, I'm sure. I feel sure about that. Now, I 

mi.gh.t be wrong but if we could have got into the county and talked 

with that show of power, demonstration, persuasion, if nothing else 

but numbers and we had a good cause and we could orate it damn elegantly 

too. No doubt in my mind we'd have struck every damn mine in that 

county, in southern part of the state. No doubt. But you see they 

used that force and it was surreptitious and secret, and it was instantaneous, 

and 5t broke us up, destroyed us. You can imagine being 

shot at with high powered rifles, you know, and there you are helpless 

and stranded in the middle of eighteen feet of concern and na 

place to go except run. And people are just not, even today and all 

of this cruelties are just not suhjecr to be .shot at, you know, in 

this matter. And so fear takes over. Preservation of life, the 

instinct to live, you know makes you run. Bur we couldn't, there was 

no hope of organizing that thing anymore. It just got beyond our 

control. It was just too big. It was catastrophic. But we did 

came back, the more activists and this was withnut the consent of 

the district organization of the international union so called. Wr 


Jack BattueUo 

formed a rnil.i.tary rifle briga.de and we went to Coulterville and we 

encamped and wc dared those son-of-birches to come and get us. We 

dared them to come and get us. 

Q. Bow many of you were there in on that? 

A. Oh, in that camp wc had probably two hundred. Two hundred to two 

hundred and fifty, had a good battalion there. And we alternared, 

two hundred and ftfty on one shift and two fifty and two fifty, three 

shifts there. I tell you . . . 

Q. People coming in and going out all the time? 

A. Yes, and you didn't dare come in that there thing without a password 

or you'd have got it. (laughs) 

Q. What was the password? 

A. Why, L don't remember but we used a password. (laughter) We 

held that thing for a week and dared them son-of-bitches if I use 

that term. 

Q. whereabouts in Coultervill-e was it? 

A. Out in the woods about a mile out of town. 

Q, Did you tent? 

A. No, madam, Well, you could call them ten%, There was a couple 

of them that had some pup tents, you know. Most of us would sleep 

on the ground. If irs rained it rained, that's all. We were rained 

on. We had good ammunition and we had Springfield rifles, 30-30. 

We had men that wouldn't run. They never bothered us. Now if we 

could have . . . I don't know just was looking backwards a little bit 

but I think if thc leaders would have consulted with us about that 

moment or wc had of consulted with the leaders, we lost contact down 

there. 

Q. Which leaders? 

A. I'm talking about the officers. Cloud Percy and them. 

Q, Of the Progressives? 

A. Of the Progressives. If at that moment while we were holdjng the 

fort in Coulterville which was our doings of the radicals, ours alone. 

See, we didn't consult with the executive officers or anybody, We 

got rifles and we had to steal them, we got them, we went down there, 

we organized our group quietly see, once we get down there we start 

making noises, The whole state of Illinois knew we were camped down 

there with guns, And we dared the damn state police to come in and 



get us. They never came. Nobody came. We'd have killed them. Pf 

they'd have tried we'd have killed them. (background of birds chirping) 

And I don't think we could have seen a search warrant that far away 

and we had our outpost established out quite a b i ~ , you know. 

They just wasn't going to get in there that's all. But if we could 

have got ahold of the officers at that moment maybe they could have 

used that as a wedge. Bring your forces down there first which we'd 

been amp1.y and well protected don't you see. And then knowing about 

the ambush that had happened we would have arranged some kind of plan 

for this army contingent to protect our: forces entering this town. 

That's looking backwards a 1ittl.e bit and when Ithink that could have 

been done. And we would have got in there by force if necessary, 

And it would have been one hell of a battle. 

Q. Why did you pick Coulterville? 

A. We picked any damned place we could go. The man that owned the 

land that's all we consulted. 

Q. Was he a farmer? 

A. Yes, 

Q. On your side? 

A, Friendly. 

Q. And how long were you encamped? 

A. About a week. 

Q. About a week. Looking back, did i,t accomplish anything? 

A. The fail.urc can be attributed to what 1 just described. I'd say 

to contact the officers at: that time and promote these plans to further 

another march. The failure rest in this area, 

Q. Did you try to contact Percy? 

A. We were encamped down there and wouldn'r move out of chere, 

Wouldn't move. Wouldn'~ move. 

Q. Did he try to con.tact you? 

A. No. You see there's a facet of this organization of Progressive 

Miners that rcmains enigmatic even to the insider. Why, they didn't 

show on the surface there at the beginning of the struggle there was 

always a difference between the officers that were elected, that were 

conservative, some cases reactionary. But at the moment of organization 

we didn't think about rhose things, didn't want to think about 



them because. that was another form of alienation, estrangement and 

we didn't want that to happen. So we accepted their nominees, we 

didn't run against them, we didn't put any candidates against them. 

So there was a cleavage there ideologically always right from vhe 

beginning. Dormant perhaps but it was there. Top echelon was conservative. 

The next line 0% defense was the radicals. The leftwimgcrs 

we called them. And that difference remained all. through 

that struggle. And so whenever wc got into a situation of that kind 

tJe knew, nobody else knew anything about his or didn't think about 

i.t, but we knew the radicals, the articu1,ate radicals. T don't want 

to say intelleceuals but the articulate, we knew that when we got 

faced with an emergency or some kind of a plan to counteract John 

Lewis' maneuvers it requi.red sometimes a little harshness, you know, 

or a little rough stuff, maybe, in ddending ourselves that they 

would not go with us. They would say, "No .I1 

Now if we persisted in pursuing this counseling between our farces 

we knew that they would back off, not only back off from it but they 

would become critical and that would widen the gap between us. All 

for a schism, a difference there, a variance that would grow into 

hostility. Which did eventually just: the same. Although we didn't 

push the thing it finally came that way so we were reluctant sometimes 

to consult with these conservatives about drastic moves or drastic 

revolutionary maneuvers. We wanted to be bold in some of these things 

and always wanted to defend ourselves if need be with arms. If need 

be. But that was unthinkable in their language, their ideology, their 

approach to the thing. 

And so OUT failure to contact them spontaneously as we would if it 

was friendly didn't happen because we were fearful of widenhg that 

gap of difference, alienating them and becoming our chief critics. 

And latcr they became our head hunters. They expelled all nf us 

radicals. They got Gerry Allard, you know, was the editor, out. 

Jack Batorus, executive warden, Dave Reed, out. They picked every 

radical out. They picked them out, sent them down the road. And as 

a result, Progressive Miners ceased to be, that's all. It quit ar; 

that mommt. It died. 

So in a sitdown strike, for instance, which followed 1937 all the 

officers were against it. In the DuQuoin case, I've described that. 

When I. ini,tiated the DuQuoin case, they charged me with every crime 

under the sun. I was collaborating with the United Mine Workers for 

the expressed purpose of destroying the Progressive Miners of America. 

And I said, "Suppose that I succeed? I and my fellow workers succeed 

in getting these boys out of prison. Then what would you say?" They 

had no answer. When they were finally conditioned they pardoned [me] 

on Christmas Eve, I looked in their faces and their eyes and I still 

was asking the question, "Bow what do you expect? You've railroaded 

me out of my office, you've reduced the Progressive Miners ro an 

organization of compromise that stinks, you've scabbed aga.inst the 


Jack Battuell-o 5 5 

United Mine Workers during their strike, which stinks, that's not 

only compromise that ' s col,l.abnration with a vengeance, We 've got 

the DuQuoin boys out, we've emulated some of the working conditions 

in or through our organization of unity during this interim, what do 

you say now?" I kept asking them with my eyes and I. wanted to know. 

I never got an answer from them. Never an apology at that poiat. 

Not a apology. And later 1 got rit from the rank and file but not 

from them. 

Q. Now is Percy still in? 

A. Percy's dead, now. 

Q. The president could only be in two years and then he could be in 

another office for two years. 

A. Yes. Be couldn't succeed himself, And 1 wrote the fifst constitution, 

I was a member of the constitutional committee addressing the 

first constitution. 

Q. But Percy was the president at the time of the DuQuoin case? 

A. Yes. And Kep wa.s later. See they alternated. Kep was president 

and then Percy was president, Kep was secretary, Kep was president, 

Percy was international secretary, you know, and then when they run 

out of state offices then they became international. They created 

an international paper organization, we didn't have ten cents worth 

of dues coming in. They c.reated an--and then Joe Ozanic became the 

international president and didn't have om dues payment. N0.t once. 

And then the conventions. 

Q. That's when you wrote thc constitution, that's what you thought 

you'd guarded against, wasn't it? So they fell into the same trap 

as the United's did, 

A. And part of it is my fault, too. Because when the Progressive 

Miners were formed I was pretty active in number one. As a matter 

of fact number one was the Progressive Miners for all practical purposes. 

Number one I.ocal was the Progressive Miners. 

Q. This is scholastic? 

A. Yes. And I served as prcsidcnt for two terms, They elected me 

to the convention, every year. And Progressive Miners without local 

number one would not: have been. When they run out of the state 

officers they created an international union and they ran for international 

president and international secretary. That was the biggest 

Caddamn joke that was ever formed on the poor coal miners. And, of 

course, I'm up there in a vanguard always critical about how you 

justify how do you explain, how do you defcnd the establishment of 

an international union when we're confined to three little counties 


Jack Battucllo 5 6 

wi.th two thousand, three .thousand membcrs? This is not only asininity, 

it is insane. Well, they didn't understand that, che offricers, 

Communist, see. Always making trouble, Communist. 

But that's the story of my life. What rhe hell are you going to do. 

That's the story of my life to tell you about this Goddamn government 

of ours, our social system, our wealth. Things I think are insane, 

people take for granted, thhk that's just common place. What's going 

on in this place? And it's going to be that way, I suppose, until 

the end, 

Q. Did you see anyone injured in town during the ambush? 

A. Lester Brady . 

Q. Where was he? Where were you in relacion to him? 

A. He was ahead of me. 

Q. In the truck? 

A. No, he was ahead of me. Two cars ahead. First or second car. 

Be was in the first, leading. 

Q. Did you see him get hit? 

A. I didn't see him get hit. I know he was hit. 

Q. Did you see anyone else get hit? 

A. No. No, ma'am. After that or a fcw minutes after that I was on 

my ponies running like hell. 

Q. How many were injured? Have you any idea? 

A. No, f don't. No, T never did tabulate that and never did figure 

it out. There's quite a few that stayed down there for a week, Got 

in there and they got hemmed in by the county authorities. They were 

heaten up pretty goad. 

Q. Where? 

A. After the march. 

Q. In DuQuain, you mean? 

A, Yes. They scattered around little villages, you know, and they 

were hunted down. They were hun'ted down. Oh, yes. They hunted us 

like prey. I was hemmed in at Frank Loetta three weeks and couldn't 

get in and couldn't get out. Got in a.nd couldn't get out, Slept in 

cemeteries. Cemeteries at night. 


Jack Battuellu 

Q . Which cemeteries? 

A. There at Zeigler. At Zeigler, One day we took over, three of us 

hemmed in there, me, Pat Asbray and Joc Prell. We were hemmed in 

there for three days and couldn't get out and not only slept in 

cemeteries but we took a person's home over, There was nobody home 

and they wcsc getting pretty close to us, catching up with US and 

all we had was two little pistols, damn lit~lc old pistols I think 

-32 they were and they had rifles, of course, high powered rifles and 

machine guns and they were looking for us and they caught up pretty 

close to us and we took over a house. Them was nobody homr. We 

knocked on the door and this was not too far from the Zeigler cemetery 

and there was nobody home so we went in. 

Now, this house is built on a hill side and the bottom part is basement, 

you know, and we could see to the south and we manned that as 

a fort w i ~ h our two 1ittl.e pistols and we had prccty good protection, 

the concrete wall. But nobody would attack us then. But this lady 

came home and found us in the house, there was three of us and we had 

taken possession of the house. She walked in. She was big red-headed, 

plump, overly plumply, and she was friendly. And she wanted to know, 

"What you doing here?" And wc said, "Wel.l, we gor to tell you. Wc're 

Progressive miners and they're hunting for us. And they've just about 

caught up with us here and we run inro your house." "Ah," she said, 

"that 's all right, I'm a Progressive Miner too. It I s okay .'I SO we 

stayed there. WE stayed there that day and that night and then during 

the next night we got out under cover of darkness. We moved again. 

Q. When was this, now? 

A. That was after the march that happened. 

Q. What were you doing in Zciglcr? 

A. Trying to get the miners to come out. Ray Edmund caught us in 

DuQuoin one night. Caught us with his thugs. Incidentally, Ray 

Ednunds and I became good friends out of this srruggle and he killed 

two, three, men, you know in this, in the Progressive Miners. 

Q. He killed Progressives? 

A. The latest one was Ed Ma.bic right on the Square in Springfield. 

Right on the square in Springfield. Right off the square we had a 

hall light on the corner of North . . . 

Q. Fourth and Manroe? No, no, that was . . 

A. Northeast corner. Northeast corner, 

Q. Where was that again? 



A. We had a hall . . . 

Q. The hall, 

A. Yes. Right on the northeast corner. That's northeast, yes. 

Northeast corner, Right on the corner and , . . 

Q. Of whi.ch streets was that? 

A. Well., 1 don't: know what street that is. That ought to be about, 

is that Sixth or what there? What is that? 1 don't remember. 1 

don't remember. Fifth or Sixth Street there. No. Well, it was 

Easter Day, I believe it was. Easter or Declaration Day? 

Q. Easter Sunday, I believe. 

A, I believc it was Easter. Anyhow Ray Edmunds is a bold son-of-abitch, 

you know. Whooo. Hc'd shoot you roo. He drove around there 

and miners just come out of the hall and loaded the street with thcm. 

Be couldn't get through with his car and they recognized him. Ed Mabie, 

I suppose, tsicd to open the door to get at him and he shot and killcd 

Ed Mabie right there. And then jumped out of his car and run up around 

the square disappeared and later was seen. Made bail from Taylorville. 

Oh, yes, Ray Edmunds killed two, three and, T wouldn't say we became 

good friends. I went to work later on as an organizer for CXO and 

AF of 2 District 50 all of three of thcm I organized for. 

Q. District 50? 

A. Yes, 1 wen.t and he was my boss when I was wirh District 50 in 

Chicago, You know, I never was treated any better. That's the damn 

truth and he one Lime had looked for me. I laid in ambush all night 

one night to kill him. 

Q. (laughs) Where did you do tha.t? 

A. I heard from a pretty good fel1.0~ that he was coming through on 

Route 4 going down south. He was corning from Gillespie. We laid 

there all night waittng for him. He caught me, Me and two other 

fel,l~ws in DuQuoin. I was going to make that miner's meeting that 

night and he caught us. 

Q. Now, which night was this? 

A. Oh, I don't know, 

Q, Oh, okay. Sorry. 

A. But we were in the cafeteria getting something to eat at Greek 

cafeteria, They had Zoods, short order and then some cars circling 

around, circulating around that building and I noticed that Goddamn 


Sack Battuello 5 9 

car go by wi.th three or four fellows in it two or three times. 'I, got 

curious and I went to the window waiting for it and sure as hell it 

was Ray Edmunds. Now it gets to be mtdnight and we haven't got our 

guns. Our guns are in a Goddamn car down the street down by the hall. 

We hadn't gotten to thc union meeting because they kept us from getting 

out, and we don'^ know llow to get out of there. So I asked that Creek 

if he'd let us stay upstairs--he had some room upstairs, not rented, 

just his own--"No. " "Would you loan us your: gun?" "No, I' He wouldn't 

loan us a gun. He said, "I'm going to close up at 12: 30." "well, 

if we walk out there we'rc dead. Be's going to kill us. here's no 

doabt about it. He's going to shoot us down like rats." So Pat Anbury 

said, "What are you going to do?" And 1 said, "Well, what the hell 

can we do?" He said, "Well, you better think about it, we got: to 

move out of here pretty soon." 

So S called the police and 1 told them who I was and where wc were 

at and we were being intimidated by thc United Mine Workers, didn't 

say kill, and we wanted protection down to our cars and out of town. 

The police came down and he said, "You walk on the sidewalks and I'll 

drive along the street with you." And we got in our cars (laughs) 

and stayed there just long enough and we didn't have any ideas where 

these other guys were at, now. They saw the policeman. And we got 

in that car and got to Pinckneyvillc. 

Now Joe Perell--I've got to describe him. He worked with the Teamsters, 

he's vice-president down there, he just retired. Worked for them for 

thirty years. And we p0.t to Pinckneyvillc and 1 said, "Why dan't we 

stop here and get a blow of fresh air." And so he stopped the car. 

Pat's in the back end and 1'm up front with Joe and Joe was driving. 

We stopped there and we crossed our leg and drew a great deep breath 

and Joe reac-hed over gingerly and pulled his pistol out with two 

fingers and raised it up cautiously and very carefulSy and he said, 

"Imagine what we've been in. " He said, "How do you shoot this damn 

thing?" (laughter) I said, "What a Goddamn army I had tonight. A 

son-of-a-bitch that can't shoot a pistol! He's got a and don't 

know how to shoot it ." (laughter) 

4. Kay Edmunds was Uni,ted Mine Workers? 

A. President, District President. 

Q. President. Of District 12? 

A. An international disrrict. 

Q. That's the whole state, right? 

A. An international board member. 

Q. Well, he made a habit of hunting for you guys? 


Jack Batcue110 6 0 

A. Oh, yes. There's something other to be said about Ray, But he 

treated me fine after I organized for Dan Toband, truck driver in the 

Teamster Union, Louisville, Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia and 

Fl.orida and then later I wenr LO work for District 50, he was my boss. 

And I was never treated better in my life. Ray Edmunds treated me 

like a gentleman. He called me Indian for some reason, I don't know 

why, but he called me Indian. 

1 recollect that 1 was organized with the Teamsters and damn our pay 

was miserable, We were getting sixty dollars a week, When I'd take 

my pay check home it would be more like fifteen dollars a week, twenty 

for your wife to livc on. And so I wasn't dohg very damn good and 

I was getting, now, forty years old and 1 was becoming a little fearful. 

a'bout security at my age. My family, I'd neglected them all of my 

life. I'd been on the road all the time, you know. I never was home. 

Tt's a wonder Tilly didn't run off with four or five men. Hell, she 

should have. I wouldn't have blamed her. But anyhow, I decided by 

God 1 can't make any money here. I can't really gain any equity. 

So I thought I'd come back to 11linoi.s. And I came back to Illinois 

and Goddamn i.f Ray Edmunds said, "Don't meet me at the Stsaford, not 

Straford, what is that, not St. Nick the one on the corner? 

Q. Leland? 

A. Went out of business. 

Q. Leland? 

A. Leland. Leland. I went. i.n there, I knew the manager of the 

Leland, I'd stayed there when I was on the joint state board. And 

we'd become acquainted, pretty good friends. I was going to Chicago, 

from Louisville to Chicago I stopped here. And Goddann if Ray doesn't 

come out of the meeting there at the Leland--a big dinner of some 

kind--and we run into each other. And he said--oh, by this rZme 

things had cooled down, you know, things were cool--we were no longer 

hunting each other. And he said, "Indian, what the hell. are you 

doing here?" I said, "Just going through. Going to Chicago ." 

"You still working at ~ouisvi~le?" I lied, I said, "Yes .I' 

Why, he 

said, "I've got: a hell of a meeting in there," and he says, "it's 

going to be over. Come on in and join us.'' He said, "And then after 

that we'll go up to the headquarters and sit down and do chatting." 

"Okay ." So I went in there and Goddamn i.f the first thing you know, 

why, he takes me a.nd goes towards the office and sets me down and he 

begins to pummel me with questions, "Why, don't: you go to work for 

me. " And I say, "Well, hell, I got a Job. " "Ah," he said, "you can 

resign but I don't think you're working down there. L think you . . . 

something tells me you're not: working down there. 

up here. Why don't you work for me?" 

You wouldn't be 

Well, to make a long story short, damn, if I don't go to work for him. 



Sign me up and sends me to Chicago. And I was walking out of the 

office and he said, "~ey, Indian, come back here." Be said, "In 

addition to reporting to Brennan Ford up in Chicago," he said--that's 

the district manager up there. He said, "How about Tilly and the kids?" 

Now think of this. He remcmbcred Tilly and the kids! hat's how 

thoughtful he was. I said, "They're in ~ouisville." Well, he said, 

"You're not going to 1-eave them down thcre." T said, "For a while." 

He said, "You are like hell." He said, "I want you to go down there 

and get them right now." And he said, "I know you don't have any 

damn money." He sat down and wrote me a check for three hundred and 

fifty dollars, and he said, "You go down there and get those kids and 

Tilly loaded up and move them right to Chicago." I said, "I can't 

pay this back right away, you know. Only as f get it." "That's all 

right," he said. "Don't worry about it. " And he always forever when 

he sent me, later on kc sent me down here and made me regional director 

in Alton. I broke all these company unions in Alton, it was all company 

union, And every time I had a Goddamn certification far a election 

coming up the phone would ring and it would be Kay [who would] say, 

"Do you need some money down there?" They are always forever using 

money, you know. They want money to swing everything, Like the Nixon 

crowd. And Z say, "Hell, if I have to organize with money I ain't 

going to have a good organization." I'd say, "1'11 send you down 

a . . . (tape ends abruptly) 

A. What's our destiny? I think we ought to talk about this a little 

bir. History is fine. We ought to learn from history but 1 think 

we ought to be concerned maybe about our social conditions of today. 

Our waywardness of today. Where art thou going? That's the good 

question. Whar do you think, Nick? Nick won't answer. I can't get 

Nick to say anything. He's with the Democrats now and Goddamn I got 

to trcad cautiously here. 

Q. Now you and Ray Edmunds were working together. I'm sure there's 

not a single dat~ that you can set but when did that start cooling off? 

A, The DuQuoin case wa.s the leader in subsiding the tensions and the 

hatred there between the leaders. Like when we were . . . 

Q. Like you and Ray Edmunds. 

A. When we were working with United Mine Workers on the DuQuoin case. 

Quite normally there would he a period of time where we discuss many 

ramifications of the mining industry and the miners' union had our 

problem. Our concerns, our own, "Where in "thc hell are wc going?" 

We asked each other things like this. If the move was good that pasticular 

moment, well, we elaborated and one wmd, one sentence led 

into a paragraph and a paragraph became a chapter and the chapter 

became the book. And we learned to trust each other at least in this 

realm of discussion and it brought a good feeling, Oh, we could quitc 

frantically say now killing ourselves like this in this factional 

struggle is not only insane it's criminal, criminal and it leads to 



nothing good. And we would also elaborate part of it by saying, "In 

the midst of all OF this the coal operators reeking no reward from our 

blood and sweat and our factionalism hc derives profits by worsening 

conditions, hy creating hazards in the m h e or permitting them to 

remain in the mine. So it was all becoming just a senseless piece of 

nonsense. 

4. After they threw you out of your position, were you still . . . 

A. Shur that thing off £or a second. (tape turned off and on again) 

Q. To check on the records, how many people were on the march? In 

approximate numbers. 

A. I'd have to guess about that, Nick. I'd have to guess at that. 

Q. That would be good. That's all right, ma. 

A. I'd say, ten, fifteen thousand. 

Q. Okay. You told us that you have no 5dea how many were injured 

in the ambush. 

A. No. 

Q. Were there any killed? 

A. No. No. No one was killed. 

Q. Do you have any idea how many people spent the first or two nights 

of the ambush in DuQuoin? 

A. Oh, I'd say the greater portion. I'd say at least ten thousand 

in DuQuoin that evening. 

Q. What was the population of DuQdoin at that time? Do you have any 

.idea? 

A. I'd have to guess about that too. I would say that ten, twelve 

thousand. 

Q. In other words it just about doubled. The population of the tom. 

A. Yes, Wc equaled the population, I'd say. 

Q. So there was a great congregation of Progressives in DuQuoin on 

that night. Was therc any tension of the town folks on that basis? 

A. Was there any what? 


Sack Battuello 

Q. Was there any tension? Or were they afraid . . , 

A. I would say the DuQuoin people were secluded and fearful lather 

than helpful and cooperative. 

Q. And where did most of thc people who came from the march spend 

that night? 

A. On the lawns a.nd in the streets. 

Q. They just about took over the town and there was this gveat mass 

of humanity . . . 

A. Took over in one respect as far as numbers is concern.ed. 

Q. Peacefully, but . . , 

A. Yes, but we were segregated to certain areas--we couldn't march 

around and pretend Like we're demonstrating, making speeches and so 

on and so forth. 

Q. Were great numbers of the pol-ice, National Guards etc. involved 

in DuQuoin? 

A. Great numbers of the state police were there in force that night* 

Great numbers. In addi.tion to that the county authorities had deputized 

literally hundreds of citizens. 

Q. Was there any violence in DuQuoin those two first nights except 

pushing by the. National Guard and an occasional clubbing? 

A. Except the. rough stuff on the part of the police and deputies and 

the deputized. 

Q. There was no bat~le? 

A. No. 

Q. Was the National Guard there? 

A. No. 

Q. Oh, there wasn't National Guard. Before you were talking about 

deputy sheriffs then? 

A. Deputy sherf ff s . 

Q. And the state troopers? 

A. Yes. In great numbers. In uth.er words we were restricted ta 

certain areas of the city. If we sought tu dispersc and sort of 


Jack Batcuello 64 

infiltrate the town we weren't permitted to do that. 

blocked off and could stay only certain places. 

They had streets 

Q. In a few days foll.owing your stop in DuQuoin after the ambush, most 

of the marchers returned to their communi.ties, is that correct? 

A. Yes. ~hdt's right. 

9. Did any action take place after that, once the people came back 

to their comunitics, were there any fo1l.o~ up meetings, any discussion 

of what was to be done, if anything? 

A. Unfor~unately there was a period, a long, long, long period, of 

the consternation and indignation and feudal laminations so to speak, 

Unfortunately in this respect somehow or other the leadership that 

had returned back just weren't capable of meeting that situation and 

organizing something out of it. 

Q. Would you say then that the . . . 

A. I'd say it was a period of complete, a vacuum so to speak, as a 

vacuum involving more lamentation and indignation than organization 

and discipline. 

Q. Wou1.d you say then thac the shock of the ambush was perhaps thc 

crucial factor in defeating the Progressive union? 

A. No. No. 

Q. No? 

A. No. No. That stiffened the backbone and increased the furor or 

anger among the miners. And deepened the enmity but as I said there 

was a period there following that disastrous march, the failure of 

that march in which thcrc was a lack of discipline and organization 

and plans. Now on the other hand I've pointed out that among the 

radical elements, that we did something about it which we considered 

a proper response to this massacre as I might term it. We organized 

a battalion of riflemen and took possession of an encampment at 

Goulterville and stayed there a week and dared every son-of-a-bitch 

in the county and statc to come and get us. 

Now this was a unilateral action on our part. 1 explain aga.in very 

patiently because it needs explaining. That we were reluctant to 

approach the conservative leadership of the Progressive Miners whom 

we knew intimately, worked in the mines with them for years, that 

ideologically they were not capable of understanding action of this 

kind. These tactics were foreign LO these people and we were afraid 

of pushing the issue with them and asking their cooperation for fear 

~ha.t it would alienate our unity, our solidarity. Now, we were 



absolutely right as events later proved because once or twice we 

attempted, well, let me give you a specific instance. Jerry AlJard 

was the editor of The Progressive Miner and Jerry Allard, ideologically 

is a socialist, a radical compared to the Keps and the Percys who were 

the officers of the Progressive Miner. And Jerry was writing dynamic 

stuff in there. He wasn't calling them Mr. Mondell, he was calling 

them thugs, gunmen and thugs. And he was hdicting the state for 

its failure to exercise proper law and order so to speak. Ha was 

calling a spade a spade. A conservative official began to say, "Now, 

Jerry, tone this paper. Tone down your tyrannies. This is no way 

to win the Illinois struggle." And we were saying, Jerry was saying 

through us, "You can go to hell. This is the way it is, this is the 

way it's going to be and this is what T'm going to keep saying." 

They got rid of him, fired him. 

Q. They did. 

A. Oh, sure, fired him. He was the first one that paid the penalty. 

Q. Al.lard was the editor. 

A. Sure he was removed. Bombed out and we raised hell, of course, 

we entered a local union, we threatened to stop thc payment of dues. 

We would raise hell. Well, now the hell continued so next they 

figured out a very elaborate scheme which is contained in this little 

pamphlet, between the coal operators and the officials in the Progsessive 

Miners to get the other radicals that were defending Jerry, that 

were proposing drastic fundamental movements and tactics. That was 

me and Dave Reed and Bill Capone and Mike Capone and John Fisher and 

a lot of others. So they moved on us. And they got us. The same way. 

So as I've said Sf we had to propose a rifle squadron at that period 

the same thing would have happened that later happened with Jerry 

and the other radicals when we kept insisting on proper tactics and 

proper program and proper planning. Revolutionary to them, it was. 

To them it was revolutionary but this is the only tactic that could 

win in this thing. We proposed the next best thing which also was 

the basis for our trial and expulsion: arganizati,onal unity, the 

pamphS.et describes that in detail. It's documented with stare official 

letters and so on and so forth. Let's work organizationally not 

only will we eliminate harsh feeling and bitterness and blood thirstiness 

that exist among our ranks, not only will it terminate this 

senseless depredation and killing that's going on but it will safeguard 

and improve the conditions that we have, what few we have left, 

Ul.timately, logically this should 1-ead to organized unity. ~on't you see. 

By the way, we couldn't talk to these people, we did and we held 

meetings in ColLinsville, we held meetings, we met with the United 

Mine Worker. We invited the official Lo go on, Here they were 

shooting, they call it on-ship shooting. Here's two and three 

hundred men in a mine and this is a condition that is unthinkable 



and they allowed them to shoot in the mines while men were there. 

All this powder, smoke and fumes and this is a violent Goddamn violation 

of the contract and the mi-ning laws, the IllinoTs and the Federal, 

and nobody could stop that but we got Ray Edmunds and we went up there 

in the department of mines, went to the governor, we got that stopped. 

Multiply shooting, compensation laws, all these thfngs we stopped and 

we only had from the time they tried us until the time they expelled 

us. TJe only had a few months in there but yet we accomplished tremendous 

Eoddamn cooperation between the two unions, And we got to the point 

where by God we had a feeling of unity agairi. We were acting. 

Let me give you another example. Gillespie coal miners number one 

local union--twenty-four hundred members one day were confronted with 

the decision they had to make or else lose some more conditions, bad 

conditions for them. The coal company decided that anybody could 

repair electrical circuits and conduits. Anybody. And we said no. 

Bill Capone was the president at that time. I was the executive board 

member and so when the company tried to force this condition oa to 

the miners of Number 1 local they rebelled and they struck. 

They struck by slowing down not striking. They slowed down the production 

and the coal company was forced to close the nine down. Now, 

here's miners locked out, figuratively speaking, because the miners 

didn't strike. They cut down production, of course, that was supposed 

to he sub rosa and all. Well, Dave Reed and I went over to the 

United Mine Workers Mr. Ray Edmunds and we said, "Ray, the miners 

are striking in Gil.lespie for a damn good cause, they're Progressive 

miners but the United Mine Workers should recognize this as a legitimate 

strike for a good cause and you should not permit the Taylorville 

Peabody Coal Company to load Superior Coal Company carst'--which they 

inten.ded to ship over thcre and get them loaded, to supply their own 

domestic use. Ray Edmunds said, "l'm with you, We'll not Load their 

damn cars. We'll support your strike." 

Now, just think of this, figuratively speaking, two weeks before that 

we were killing each other. That's figuratively. And here now we're 

supporting each other in a strike agai.nst a coal opeator that was 

trying to worsen our condition. And we released a statement to that 

effect, The next morning the papers come out and here Jack McCleggan, 

Dave Reed, Progressive Miner official, board member and president 

respectively agree with Ray Edmunds and district president of the 

United Mine Workers that they are going to cooperate in a cause benef 

icial to the miners . 

Well, you can imagine what Clyde Percy and them said the next day, 

"Gee," Their eyes told everything. We were charged with treason, 

Treason! Who is these two guys, they have no right to go up there 

and make an agreement with the United Mine Workers and so on and so 

on. I got the whole damn thing. It's in there. It's in there. 

There, it 's in thcre. Well. 


Jack Batturl1.o 6 7 

Q. Jack, I would like to ask you a couple more questions before we 

conclude. You mentioned that following ambush, at Mulkeytown, you 

had come on a couple or more occasions to Franklin County to secret 

meetings with the miners . . . 

A. To try to revive the movement. 

Q. Have you participated in any secret meetings of this nature prior 

to the march? In Franklin County or in that general region? 

A. Yes' One. That's the day that I met Jerry Allard. This was in 

Zeigler. Or was in . . . Zeigler. The United Mine Worker was holding 

some kind of a regional meeting in Zeigler and I, along with 

about ten or fifteen real activists from Local Number 1, attended 

that meeting and that's the day that I met Jerry Allard. 

Q. What are your reco1.lections of those meetings? 

A. We did not speak down there that day but we did a lot of talking. 

And in addition to meeting Jerry we had formed out of that occasion 

a little click that was to endure for the reminder of the struggle 

and for our life time. 

Q. Oh, what are your recollcctions of what was the sentiment among 

thc miners in that area? 

A. In that particular meeting it was good. Tt was considerable 

griping about the state of affairs within the Unfted Mine Workers, 

the destruction of autonomy, the loss of referendum in the outlying 

states. The worsening of conditions in the State of IllinoSs is 

within the mines. It was wholesome and very spontaneous that day. 

But when the bosses and the preachers and all of them got to the 

miners in the real struggle hat followed thca all of that was somehow 

or othcr lost. 

Q. Of the first legal action that John Lewis took against the miners 

automony in Illinois was actual.1~ in Franklin County because he charged 

that union funds were embezzled and it was . . . 

A. Expelled. He expelled them. 

Q. Right. That the fact District 12 as a whole came in support of 

Franklin County created more as the situation of the Progressive 

Miners came out. Why, if that was the case didn't the miners dawn 

south in Franklin County and surrounding areas come more actively in 

the Progressive ranks? 

A. I don't know whether I . . . 

Q. They were the first victims . . . 



A. I don't know . . . You were talking about the expulsion of the 

officers of the Sub-district 9. 

Q. Right. 

A. Wcll, that's not quite my version of it, my knowledge of the affair. 

I'm reluctant: to speak about this because I'm not, I don't have this 

research to even then as 1 should have. But from the knowledge that 

I have of that affair and thc affairs in Sub-district 9 and the persons 

involved who later became one member president of the Progressive 

Miners of America, later on, years later, was due to the fact of some 

embezzlement. Some mismanagement in tha.t office and there was not a 

great deal of uprising or resentment about chat in Franklin County 

and it had nothing to do about the formation or the leading of the 

formation of the Progressive Miners. It was pretty much a personal 

thing down there, involving persons within that district and I don't 

mind mentioning he's still living but Johnny Marshando was the secretary-treasurer 

of District 9, and after he was expelled he never 

supporred the Progressive Miners during its foerna.tion, during its 

struggles in the beginning but only after he was taken out of office 

for reasons that are not just exactly pure that he became sympathetic 

to the Progressive Miners. Later [he] became participant and later 

still a president. 

9. Jack, as the caravan started from Gillespie and moved on down south 

and as you were gohg through the small towns et cetera on your way 

south, what were the local people doing? Were they smiling and 

waving at you or shaking their fist, throwing rocks or clubbing you? 

What was taking place? 

A. The entire caravan was wrlcome and greeted very friendly all the 

way to Swansea, After that it became hostile territory. 

Q. Have you any explanation why there was this sudden break in that 

local people's attitude? Friendly and then [it changed] aftcr a 

certain imaginary line that you crossed, 

A. Well, I said friendly involving that Zefgler meeting only. I 

cannot attest to the sentiment of the Franklin County people generally 

at that time because I had not made other then visitations for personal 

reasons, 1 have not made any great examinatton or visitation ro that 

area. There's much to be said abouc the attitudes of the southern, 

LittJk Egypt, they call it, and of course that needs another chapter 

to describe. Originally those people were southerners in their 

heritage and, of course, they brought wirh them the southern ways 

and the southern attitudes. It was not too closely aligned with the 

northern attitudes in the northern part of the state which was more 

liberal, more radical., more conversant with economic conditions. 

But I still. maintain had we got i.nto thc county and could have talked 

to them over a period of a week, there's no question in my mind that 



we would have struck every mine down there and they would have eventually 

became the Progressives. I think the Mulkeytown march was disastrous 

for the Progressive Miners in this point of time, disastrous at least 

chat's the way I analyze it now. 

Q. At the point of ambush there was actually no battle, it was all 

one sided, is that correct? There was no resistance on the part of 

the marchers. 

A. We never resisted, we were defenseless, we were weaponless, we 

offered no resistance. As a matter of fact our whole tactic was one 

of pacifying, of persuading, of pleadings, one of convincing with 

logic and facts. We knew we could win with this tactic if we could 

get in there but we had no idea we'd be ambushed. We had, as I 

explained, we had talked about what they would do when we got there 

and we discussed among other things an injunction which would be 

issued naturally, perhaps even court martial law. We knew that the 

police would harass us and restrain US from participating in the 

community affairs and discussion with the citizens, we knew that. 

But some how or another we could have overcome that but when the 

ambush occurred all of that went down the drain and so we can only 

I-oak back in retrospect and use the word if. 

Q. You mentioned that there was no i.nvestiga.tion made. 

A. No, there wasn't even a loud outcry of indignatiod on the part 

of the citizens of Illinois. 

Q. A number of peop1.e lost their property there didn't they? Their 

cars, their trucks, thcir personal belongings, and all of that, 

A. Oh, yes. Those Progressi.vc Miners, or sympathizers of Progressive 

Miners that joined in sentiment with our movement they lost their job, 

they lost their homes. Hundreds of them had Lo move out of there, 

move elsewhere. 

Q. There was no reimbursements for the cars that were destroyed? 

A. None, not a nickel in reparations, nothing. There was no money-- 

who in the hell is going to give us reparations? There was no, the 

signkficant or what word am I struggling for? The unthinkable thing 

that happened in the state of Illinois, the lack of moral indignation 

of what happened there, how it was done, how it occurred, nothing, 

not even a governor made a mild protest about it. Not even a governor. 

I know John Steele personally. 1 met with Homer. I've talked to a 

lot of representatives. That was my job doing a lot of proselytizing 

among senators, representatives, you know, a little lobbying up at 

the State House, the most crooked Goddamn Statehouse outside of New 

Jersey that there is in the IJnited States. But we never had no sympathy, 

no help, not even any complaints on the part of the Illinois enforcement 

agencies about the flagrant, violent, blatant violation of civil rights, 

civil liberties not a centile. 


Sack Battuello 70 

Q. No General Assembly investigation nor tried to follow up in any 

way, 

A. who? 

Q. The General Assembly in Springfield. 

A. Not a word. 

Q. What about local representatives, local state representatives at 

that time? 

A. Their lines formed in conjunction with the sympathies of the 

unions. If it was a Progrcssive territory, they were Progressives. 

If it was United Mine they were for the United Mine Worker. Oh, 

once in a while, I think that the only papers that really showed any 

interest or any inclination to defend ci.vi1 liberties was the 

-St. Louis 

Star Times and the Post D,ispatch. Occasionally they have an editorial 

and a lead story in it. But the height of the protest that was made 

came from those papers, Springfield papers, those were arch Republicans, 

you know, and they'd print the news as i.t happened bur wirh distortions 

at that, distortions at that. So it was hard to keep track of the 

press at that time. We did have, we had no . . . just no support, 

none at all. No indignation about what was happening. 

Q. You want to tell us anything else? 

A. I was interested in a later occurrence when twenty eight or thirty 

eight men. went: to prison? And I've heard that there were . . . let's 

see how does that go? The . . . 

Q. Eighteen. (laughs) How does that come abouc? That a small . . . 

A. Of course, that's an interesting, fascinating movement, too. 

This is a11 the indictment of these men that were sent to Atlanta 

is all part of the movement of the United Mine Workers to destroy 

the Progressive Miner. That is jusr another facet of it. We figured, 

well, if they could get a few of the leaders, you know, and sent them 

to jail, why, that would further destroy the, nullify activities of 

the movement. Anyhow, primarily the indictment rest with the,Progressive 

Miners--the final indictment and then conviction rest with 

the Progressive Miners. It's a hell of a thing to say but it happened 

that way. 

I was subpoenaed and the United States Marshall came down to Wilsonville 

and go,t me and took me to Springfield. Next morning 1 was put 

into a room with about, oh, fifty, sixty other witnesses that: were 

waiting to appear before the Federal Grand Jury. And while 1 was 

$it,ting there 1 was listening to all the conversations that was going 

on in rherc in the conference room. It's supposed to be a secret room 


Jack Batt uello 71 

You couldn't get out or get in without bailiff consent. I heard these 

various people talking and Progressive Miner members--and I kept hearing 

them say, "I don't know why they called me. T don't know a damn 

thing." And they were worrying about: ir. Some of them say, "Well, 

I know some good about this," and I thought LO myself, "How foolish 

and naive can these people be?" So I went arouad and whispered to 

them and said, "You're talkfng a little loud, you guys. This room 

can be bugged, you know. " Said, "Close .your damn trap. I' I heard one 

of them say, "Well, what am I going to do? I don't know nothing about 

tlhis damn thing and if I do know some6hing about it I don't wane to 

tell. about it." I said, ell, you're going ta have to go in there 

and do the best yo,u know how but of course you don't have to say anything 

you don't want to. You just don't know." 

There's been depredation, property destruction and railroad tracks 

and coal trucks, coal cars and all of that. Sure, there was some of 

that. Hell., there was retaliation. There was--defensive purposes 

too. So I said, "Well, this room can be bugged, don't talk abourr 

that." "Oh, well, what can L tell. you?'' I said, "DO the best you 

know haw and don't get excited, take your time." "Well, what are 

you going to do?" I said, "Well, I'm sitting here thinking about 

tha.t very damn thing.'' And I'm pretty deep, I'm way at the top or 

at the "bottom, (laughs) I don't know which one you call it but, 

and I could talk a long time, you know, and say a lot of things and 

I thought, "Well, John, you've got to learn to protect yourself somehow 

and you're not going to lie about it if you don't have to. I'm 

going to tell you the damn truth about every damn word I'm telling 

you is the truth. 

So pretty soon the bailiff come in and said, "John Battuello." I wene 

into that Grand Jury room, first grand jury room I'd even been in my 

life and the first thing that I observed was here's twenty-three jurors 

sitting there a11 sprawled out, you know, all kind of manners. Their 

chairs tipped back and some of them drooping and some of them their 

legs crossed, all of them appeared bored, every damn one of them 

appeared bored. They had been listening to voluminous, monotonous 

testimony a1.l.. day. 

And I, didn't even know where the witness chair was at. So I seen the 

jurors and bailiff said, "This way Mr. Bat'tuello." And there was the 

~Stness chair and here's the counselor's table and there's about fifteen 

Federal lawyers sitting there and he led me around there and got up 

on the witness chair and beforc 1 could even take a breath he said, 

II 

Mr. Battuello, rise. " One of the lawyers dorm there, "Rise," and 

he gave me the oath, religious oath. I attempted to interrupt him. 

I said, "I decline LO take a religious oath." I said, "1'11 make an 

affirmation but I decline to take an oath." He just kept rambling on 

and completed the religious oath. And he said, "Be seated. What's 

your name? Whcre do you live? et cetera, et cetera." 



Then he asked me, "DO you know Clyde Percy?--that was one of the 

presidents--"Do you know Bill Kik?" And he started leading me into 

questions about them. "Wl~at do you know about ,chis and what: db you 

know about that, what a.bout this?" Finally one of the other lawyers-- 

thts all happened in a matter of five minutes--the other lawyer whispered 

something Lo him. The lawyer, he was cross-examining me looked 

up and said, "Did I: understand you to say that you refused to decline 

to take a religious oath?" And 3: said, "Yes, sir," And every Goddamn 

one of those jurors that had their chairs tipped back against the wall, 

let their chairs fall ~imul~taneous in one (laughs) big clank in that 

da.m jury room. 

And I: thought, "Now, he's going to get himself in a little deeper. 

He's going to ask me why I'm an agnostic or an atheist or an infidel, 

I know he's going to ask me this." And I. said, "Yes, sir." And f 

said, "I refuse to take a religious oath." And I, said, "I stated I 

would be happy to make an affirmation." And he said, "Why, do you 

refuse?" I said, "Because I'm agnosti.cally inclined." 

Now he started to lead me into another question and the other Lawyers 

(Laughs) two of them leaned over to him and he says, (laughs) "You 

better stop this." I heard him whisper something, "You better stop 

this or something, better get him an affirmation." And 1 heard him 

say, "How do you give an affirmation." He never in all his legal 

experience had ever given an affirmation, always a religious oath. 

And then I heard the guy say, "Just: delete the word of God and just 

substitute your word of honor." So he gave me an affirmation. (laughs) 

By this time I'd chilled everybody. He didn't want to ask me any more 

questions. 

He asked the bailiff to take me down and the bailiff told me, "Mr. 

oh, he was the chief prosecutor from Tennessee, Witiker, oh, T forget 

his name, "wanted to see me in his office a.t. two o'clock, privately." 

That's the only questions he asked me. Two o'clock I went in therc 

and I sat with that Witiker for two and a half hours, I'm sure he 

had that damn phone bugged because he wanted me to set in a certain 

place, see. You know, there were chairs there but I wanted to sit 

over here and he kept insisting T sit here. I said, "811 right let 

thc son-of-a-bitch be taped S don't case because I'm going to tell 

him something." We sat therc and honest to God we talked about 

socialism in France, socialism in England, socialism in Russia and 

nihilism in Russia, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harding, we talked about 

everythingand Tilly was sick at the time that he came and got me and 

I told him in the beginning that my wife was pretty sick and I'd certainly 

like to get home if it was possible, 

But afccr that conversation he thanked me, led me to the window to 

get my per diem expense, three dollars a day or what ever it was and 

wished Tilly well and a speedy recovery and I was released and I never 

heard no more from them. 

. . . 'I 


Sack Battuello 7 3 

But the Progressive Miners got in there, the members and the other 

officers and they squabbled and squawked on each other and that's 

how that indictment came about. They told. They betrayed themselves. 

(laughs) That's right. That's a hell of a thing to say but that's 

how it came about. They squealed. 

No United Mine Worker was ever tried. They killed forty-rwo of our 

people. Forty-two of our people and they clubbed and they beat and 

and they violated every law, every concept of civil liberties and 

not one man was ever tried of the United Mine Workers. They sent us 

to jail. That's it folks. 

Q. T heard there were check stubs pfcked up from the United Mine 

Workers that would have hel-ped in the defense of these men but they 

were not used. Have you ever heard that story? 

A. No, no. No nothing about it. 

Q. I was wondering who your lawyer was that decided not to use this 

information. 

A. I don't know. I don't know nothing about chat. b don't know anything 

about that. Well, T helped to raise band for them. And the 

bond was real high, tom. Seventy-five thousand dollars, fifty thousand 

dollars Tor each person. 

Q. For cach one? 

Q, What we.re they charged with? 

A. Conspiracy, depredation and property destruction and interstate 

violations all across everything. And 1 can tell you truthfully to 

my knowledge not one of those men that went to prison . , . I don't 

know of a single violation that they ever made, not one act of violence 

or depredation or property destruction. I don't know any of them. 

Q. How did they select thcm? 

A. I don't know. I think they wanted to . . The United Mine 

Worker's purpose was to establish a pattern of intimidation, They 

didn't care too much for an individual. I was surprised I wasn't . . . 

Q. I was going to ask you. Now dPd you stay out of the net? 

A. Why, 1 don't how, except that I refused to take a religious oath 

and they let me go. I've talked to them don't forget I had a two and 

a half hour conference with Mr. Witiker, though, he was the chief 

prosecator. And he asked me questions about Percy, he asked me 


Jack 13attvello 74 

questions about Joe Ozanic, he asked me questions about Bill Kik, 

oh, for hours. 

We finally ended up talking about socialism and anarchism and nihilism 

and syndicalism but: he questioned me about thar and I told him he, for 

instance, he. asked me how well I knew Percy and how well was I knowledgeable 

about his activities as an individual, as a citizen and as a 

member of the Yrogresstve Miners. I said, "Pairl..y." "Well, what kind 

of a man is he?" And I sa.id, "~e' s a good Democrat. 'I And I. said, 

"I don't think he ever got outside of the realm of the Democratic 

party and all that it stands for. That's the extent of his activities. 

h little conservative in the labor movement, 1 said, but he's not 

violent." I said, "He's an upstanding, upright citizen," 13iL1 Kik, 

Joe Ozanic, I said the same thing and they'd spit him in my face if 

they had me in the same situation. They'd spit in my face. 

I think the guy you ought to interview is Joe Ozanic. He's a little 

older than I am. He's seventy-five or seventy-six and they tell me 

he's not in too good physical shape. There's the guy you ought to 

interview, Get yourself prepared with some material, me and others 

and then interview him and see what the hell answers he gives for 

his posftion ar that time. That's what you ought to do. I'd give 

five dollars out of my pocket or ten if I could just meet him accidentl-y, 

I've been trying to run in to him. I've drove a mile and 

just look around to scc if I could see htm on the streets and 1 don't 

want to go to his house because that's his domain and he might tell 

mc not to come in, see, and I don't want that, But I'd like to talk 

to Joe Ozanic. I'd give a million dollars if I had it just to talk 

to him. I'd like to blccd him out of . . . look back at his records 

and what he stood for. I'd call him a company stooge at that--twentyfive 

thousand [dollars bond]--I just figured 1 never had no repercussions 

from that. I indicted Mr. D. D. Wilcoxen, too. You know in my 

interview 1 said I'd said I'd never been offered a bribe, That's not 

true I've bcen offered lots of bribes in lots of forms. 

Q. From companies? 

A. From companks. 

Q. Or the other union? 

A. 1927 the Superior Coal Company offered me a [job as] personnel 

director [of a company] he was buying if 1 would just be a good boy, 

come with him. I've organized Rroger Midwestern. Kroger Company 

offered me personnel director. About at that time fifteen thousand 

doll-ars was about like sixty-five thousand dollars now. That's back 

lin the thirties. All T did was gum up their Goddamn transportation 

system and make them sign a union contract. I was offered a job at 

the Sunshine Biscuit Company. Oh, every little bribe like that I got 

a lot of them. The only money bribe that I ever got was a stranger 

and never figured rit out yet. ~on't know who actually came from. 


Jack Batruello 75 

Came home one night from work i.n Wilsonville, I was working in a mine, 

active as hell, you know, in the union. That was a well-dressed fellow 

there. Tilly said he'd came about two o'clock and wanted to see me 

and . . .

Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

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