Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

Jack Battuello 9
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 Battuello Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield