1929 Tragedy in Marion

History demonstrates that when workers organize, bosses often use violence to stop them. In 1877 during the Great Railroad Strike for example, a Pennsylvania state militia killed 10 striking workers while quelling a riot. A skirmish between local miners and a private militia in Matewan, West Virginia resulted in the death of 12. During the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903, state militiamen killed twenty one miners and their families at the infamous Ludlow Massacre. The Marion County Massacre is an event that is very much in this tradition.

The individual causes of these violent episodes are nuanced and vary from case to case. However, one unifying factor is the presence of informal militias typically firing first. The people who made up these militias were hastily deputized private citizens who often used their own firearms. It goes without saying that they were always white. They were also not typically working class themselves but instead had some level of wealth that they thought organized labor might jeopardize. Their job was to provide support to the regular police or private detectives, who would otherwise be entirely outnumbered by the striking workers. This pattern repeated itself in Marion County, when a group of heavily armed strike breakers surrounded and fired into a picket line held by striking mill workers.

Corporations have never stopped using law enforcement to legitimize their violence against workers. In the late 1980’s for example, the owners of a meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota hired off-duty police to break up union picket lines. The lengths that bosses will go to in ensuring their workforce remains unorganized only demonstrates how much power unionized workers can wield.

Further Reading:

• Great Railroad Strike: https://www.american-rails.com/1877.html

• Matewan Massacre: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-matewan-massacre-was-epicenter-20th-century-mine-wars-180963026/

• Ludlow Massacre: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rockefellers-ludlow/

• Sioux Falls Strike: https://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/news/the-vault/fistfights-rocks-riot-police-34-years-ago-south-dakotas-largest-workforce-walked-off-slaughterhouse-jobs