MITCHELL, JOHN 1870-1919

Labor Leader

Background

John Mitchell, a driving force behind the organization of America's coal miners, endured a difficult childhood that included being orphaned at age six and that mixed hard work with irregular schooling. Mitchell was born in Briadwood, Illinois, in 1870. He never finished school; instead he entered the mines at the age of twelve in 1882. For the next several years Mitchell traveled around the West and Midwest from mine to mine. At age fifteen Mitchell joined the Knights of Labor, which was attempting to organize both skilled and unskilled workers in industry, mining, and railroads. The young miner returned to Illinois in 1888, where he found the mining towns filled with immigrants and wages down by 20 percent. Mitchell felt the working conditions in the mines were equal to slavery. After a prolonged but futile strike in 1891, Mitchell returned to the West but only stayed one year. He returned to his home state to marry Catherine O'Rourke and settle in Spring Valley. Mitchell had grown into a sensitive and introspective man by his late twenties, and he often brooded over the conditions miners were forced to endure. His concern with the plight of miners led him to join the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in the 1890s.

Meteoric Rise

During the depression of the 1890s Mitchell became the secretary/treasurer of the northern Illinois union subdistrict. In 1897 his hard work as a union advocate earned him a position as a legislative representative for the union in the state capital of Spring-field. Mitchell actively participated in the 1897 national bituminous coal strike and grabbed the attention of national union leaders by going into difficult areas of southern Illinois to organize workers. Mitchell attended his first national union convention in 1898 and left as a UMWA vice president. He impressed the delegates with his quiet dignity and proficiency on the state level. Mitchell's meteoric rise to the top of the union culminated in his appointment as acting president in the fall of 1898 and his unopposed run for the UMWA presidency the following year. He was well aware of the tremendous tasks that were ahead and hoped to lead the union ahead cautiously.

Union Leader

Mitchell began a movement to organize the outlying districts and anthracite regions under the auspices of the UMWA. The union leader realized that all miners, regardless of race or ethnic background, labored under cruel and harsh conditions. Most mining families existed in dire squalor. Miners themselves did not present a united front in their fight against the coal mine owners. Native-born American workers despised the new immigrants, and miners were divided by race, religion, and language barriers as well. Mitchell hoped to give the union effort stronger cohesion and devoted him-self to helping the most downtrodden workers. Mitchell looked for support wherever he could find it, including local priests and middle-class reformers. The labor president preached a gospel of unionism, dignity of man, and warmth of brotherhood. Under his strong guidance the UMWA improved the conditions of the miners by gaining them wage increases, grievance committees, and shorter work hours.

Strikes

In the early 1900s the UMWA gained enough support to strike against unfair labor practices. Pennsylvania's anthracite workers won an important strike in 1900, returning to work on 29 October and celebrating "Mitchell Day" in the pits. In 1902 Mitchell led a series of strikes aimed at improving the wages and hours of miners. J. P. Morgan, arguably the world's most powerful financier, met with Mitchell to end one strike, and the two men got along quite well, agreeing to a wage increase and the establishment of a grievance committee for the workers. Later the same year, when 150,000 workers struck for more than five months, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a special Anthracite Coal Strike Committee to resolve the differences. The committee awarded the miners a 10 percent wage increase and a shorter workday. The victory catapulted Mitchell into the national spotlight. Miners idolized him as their Moses. The public praised his temperate and tactful leadership, and President Roosevelt befriended him. The strikes took a great toll on Mitchell, however, and led to a nervous breakdown in 1906. He was forced to yield the presidency to his longtime rival, John L. Lewis, and Mitchell remained in poor health for the rest of his life.

New Activities

Despite his health problems, however, Mitchell remained an important and influential figure in labor and reform circles in the 1910s. From 1911 to 1914 he supported himself by lecturing and writing on the nation's labor problems. The labor leader was quite popular on the lecture circuit. He also participated in the meetings of the National Civic Federation, serving as the chairman of its trade agreement department from 1908 to 1911. From 1914 to 1915 Mitchell served as a member of the New York State Workmen's Compensation Commission and was chairman of the New York State Industrial Commission from 1915 until his death in 1919. In his later years Mitchell became a successful stock market speculator, and when he died of pneumonia in 1919 his estimated assets exceeded $250,000. But the words inscribed on Mitchell's tombstone best epitomize his true influence: "Champion of Liberty—Defender of Human Rights."

Source:

Charles A. Madison, American Labor Leaders: Personalities and Forces in the Labor Movement (New York: Ungar, 1950).

John Mitchell

John Mitchell (1870-1919) was one of the most respected American labor leaders in the early years of the 20th century.

John Mitchell was born on Feb. 4, 1870, in Braidwood, Ill., a coal mining village. Orphaned at the age of 6, he was raised by a strict Presbyterian stepmother. Economic circumstances compelled him to enter the mines at an early age. In 1886-1887 he tried mining in Colorado and Wyoming but returned to Illinois frustrated and penniless.

Mitchell decided coal miners could achieve a better and more secure life by organizing. He joined a Knights of Labor local, but its unsuccessful strikes convinced him to enter the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) at its founding in 1890. A year later he married Katherine O'Rourke, a miner's daughter, and began to read law and study social and economic problems. Mitchell rose rapidly within the union; in September 1898 he became the UMWA president.

President Theodore Roosevelt intervened in a strike in 1902 by the anthracite miners of northeastern Pennsylvania and assisted the strikers in gaining several aims. Mitchell's leadership of the strike won public acclaim for his moderate and restrained approach to industrial relations. Roosevelt said of him, "There was only one man in the room who behaved like a gentleman, and that was not I." Mitchell had also demonstrated that the southern and eastern European immigrants (the majority of anthracite miners) could be effectively organized into unions.

A slight, wiry man of conservative dress and a sober, thoughtful disposition, Mitchell wrote two books, Organized Labor (1903) and The Wage Earner (1913), expressing his basic idea that there need not be hostility between capital and labor and the prosperity of both were linked. His outlook led him to associate with the National Civic Federation, an organization of employers and labor leaders dedicated to establishing harmonious relations between businessmen and unions. But Mitchell's growing conservatism estranged the UMWA's members. After stepping down as UMWA president in 1908, Mitchell served as head of the Civic Federation's trade-agreement department while remaining second vice president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

In 1911 militants within the UMWA forced Mitchell to choose between the union and the Civic Federation; he resigned from the federation. In 1915 he was appointed chairman of the New York State Industrial Commission, a position he held until his death on Sept. 9, 1919.

Further Reading

The best biography of Mitchell is Elsie Gluck, John Mitchell, Miner: Labor's Bargain with the Gilded Age (1929). Mitchell's relationship with immigrant miners is dealt with in Victor R. Greene, The Slavic Community on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite (1968). For his contacts with the National Civic Federation see Marguerite Green, The National Civic Federation and the American Labor Movement, 1900-1925 (1956), which is detailed and objective. The only history of the UMWA is the old and unsatisfactory one by Chris Evans, History of United Mine Workers of America (2 vols., 1918-1920). □

John Mitchell 1870–1919, American labor leader, b. Braidwood, Ill. He became a miner at the age of 12 and in 1885 joined the Knights of Labor. When the United Mine Workers of America was formed (1890), he became a member; after his successful leadership of the S Illinois soft-coal miners in the strike of 1897, he was national vice president, then president from 1898 to 1908, when he resigned. His leadership of the anthracite miners' strike in 1902 secured better wages and working conditions in the industry, substantially increased membership in the union, and brought him recognition from members and the public as an outstandingly able leader. As a vice president (1899–1914) of the American Federation of Labor, he was a strong advocate of the "sacredness of contract," in which he was opposed by the more radical factions in the federation. In 1914 he was appointed commissioner of labor for New York state and was from 1915 to 1919 chairman of the state industrial commission. He wrote Organized Labor (1903) and The Wage Earner and His Problems (1913).

Bibliography: See biography by E. Glück (1929, repr. 1971).