Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

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