In 1919, A. M. Fury managed the Robinson Grain Company in Palco, a small town in northwest Kansas. On December 18, he wrote Kansas governor Henry Allen of Topeka to say that his threshing operation would cease if he did not receive a shipment of coal soon. Many such letters reached the governor’s office that December from city mayors, teachers, and other residents all across the state. Just weeks before, 10,000 coal miners in southeast Kansas went on strike seeking better working conditions. Failed negotiations led the state to seize the mines and raise an army of volunteers and National Guardsmen to operate them. While the strike underscored the state’s dependence on coal and the mostly foreign-born labor force that mined it, it also led to the creation of an arbitration board that enraged labor organizations across the country and drew opposition from the US Supreme Court. Additional sources on the southeast Kansas coal strike of 1919 are available on Kansas Memory by selecting the category Business and Industry--Mining and quarying--Coal.
In this letter, Kansas governor Henry Allen of Topeka writes Adjutant General Charles Martin instructing him to take whatever means necessary to operate the coal mines in southeast Kansas with voluntary labor.
This document includes the names of some of the men reporting to work in the southeast Kansas coal fields during the state takeover of the mines.
In this letter, Colonel Hoisington, of the 4th Infantry, Kansas National Guard, informs the Kansas Adjutant General of supplies and costs related to the use of volunteers during the 1919 coal strike in southeast Kansas.
This photograph shows a national guardsman patrolling a southeast Kansas coal mine during the coal strike of 1919.
A.M. Fury of the Robinson Grain Company in Palco, Kansas, writes to Governor Henry Allen, of Topeka, requesting a car of threshing coal.
J. J. Bulger, counselor for the Wichita Trades and Labor Assembly, writes state senator O. W. Sparks, of Galena, Kansas, concerning pending legislation that would create an industrial court to mediate relations between labor and industry.
See Business and Industry--Mining and quarying--Coal for additional sources on the 1919 southeast Kansas coal strike and coal mining in Kansas generally. See Business and Industry--Labor or Government and Politics--Reform and Protest--Labor movement for additional sources on labor history in Kansas.