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And the result of the investigation was a vindication—and a triumph for the miners. The sub-committee of the committee on Education and Labor, to which was assigned the task of investigating, was highly satisfactory to the author of the resolution. It was proof positive against a white wash. Kern was particularly pleased with the presence on the committee of Borah, Kenyon and Martine, all of whom were temperamentally sympathetic toward the oppressed, and interested in social justice, and the first two were in addition able lawyers and men with vision. The committee sat in Charlestown in July and with a recess necessitated by important business in the senate, concluded its work in Washington in September and early October. The reports were all the more impressive because of their fairness and the conservatism of expression. Peonage in the legal sense was not disclosed. That men who were indebted to the companies were in a state of virtual peonage there is no doubt. No proof was found that any “attempt to prevent the delivery of mail to patrons of the postoffice” had been made, other than the fact that the postoffice, in the company stores, were frequented by the armed guards. No evidence was adduced showing a violation of the national immigration laws though the fact was disclosed that men were induced through “misinformation and misrepresentations” to accept employment in the coal fields and that “hardships in this respect were disclosed.” But the all important charge that the constitution had been set aside, martial law established, men arrested without warrant of the civil authorities, tried by drumhead court martials, and given sentences in excess of any provided in the statutes was made good. This phase of the investigation was in charge of Senator Borah, who treated the evidence in a conservative judicial manner. In his supplementary report Senator Martine took occasion to say: “I charge that the hiring of armed bodies of men by private mine owners and others corporations and the use of steel armored trains, machine guns and bloodhounds on defenseless women and children is but a little way removed from barbarism.” Senator Kenyon in discussing the cause of the trouble and the suggestion of Bishop Donahue that “human greed on both sides” was responsible said: “It is a little difficult to realize how there can be so much human greed on the side of a man who is supporting a family and working day by day in the mines at ordinary living wages, but there is greed on the part of the owners of the property.” And the committee report, commenting on the situation at the time of its preparation, said:
“The differences between the miners and operators, which were considered irreconcilable, have been amicably adjusted. Peace now reigns in this section where heretofore existed strife, contention, and armed conflict. The relations between the operators and the miners have become friendly and conciliatory. Business has been resumed and the mines are being operated. Martial law has been abolished and civil law and authority fully established. The committee is satisfied that the investigations have greatly aided in the accomplishment of these beneficial and much-desired results.”
And the miners knew, what was of more vital importance to them, that none of their men would serve twenty years in the penitentiary at the behest of a military despotism, and Mother Jones declared that “Senator Kern threw open the prison doors for me.”
The militant courage of Kern held high the torch that illuminated the darkness of the darkest spot, industrially on American soil, and it will never be so dark again. His action made him powerful foes, even in his own state. But it won him something that he cherished—the undying gratitude of the workers who go down into the earth for the fuel that warms mankind.