



(A copyrighted publication of West Virginia Archives and History) The United States Army and the Return to Normalcy in Labor Dispute Interventions: The Case of the West Virginia Coal Mine Wars, 1920-1921 By Clayton D. Laurie

On four separate occasions between 1919 and 1921 the United States Army was ordered to intervene in labor disputes between miners and coal mine operators in West Virginia. Federal military interventions to maintain or restore civil authority threatened by unrest or riots originating from labor disputes was not unknown duty to army personnel. Between 1877 and 1920 several presidents had called upon the army to assist civil officials in quelling domestic disorders under authority of the Constitution and congressional statutes. In the vast majority of federal military interventions prior to 1917, regular armytroops succeeded in restoring order quickly, with a minimum of injury and bloodshed, in strict adherence to orders issued within legal parameters set by the Constitution, federal statutes, and army regulations. Although questions of army neutrality were constantly raised, especially by labor groups and workingmen who were most often the focus of federal military interventions, historically United States Army actions during American domestic disturbances were amazingly non-partisan and non-violent when compared to the record of National Guard forces while under state control.1

Although intervention in labor disputes was a relatively routine duty for army personnel by 1920, the interventions in West Virginia represented a watershed in the history of the army role in suppressing domestic disorders. The Constitution and Revised Statutes of 1874 clearly defined the procedures for state