Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

Jack Battuello 2 7
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 Battuello Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield