December 15 - Troops Put Down the Mothers March

On this day in labor history, the year was 1921.

That was the day Kansas National Guard troops marched into Crawford County coal fields to quell the “Mothers March.”

8000 miners went on strike that September to protest the jailing of their UMW district leader, Alexander Howat.

Howat was found guilty of violating a statewide strike injunction for calling workers out on strike in 1919.

Governor Henry Justin Allen had established a state industrial court which ruled strikes illegal.

Howat’s members considered it a new kind of fugitive slave act.

They likened their jailed leader to a modern-day John Brown.

The UMW opposed the court and the increasing number of unauthorized strikes.

Many district leaders were divided over this protest strike and chose not to support it.

The strike also divided the membership and some went back to work.

Conditions worsened after three months until the striking miners’ wives took matters into their own hands.

They met in Franklin to organize a march that would effectively shut down the mines.

Their numbers grew from 500 the first day to over 4000.

According to Benjamin Goosen, “for three days the women stormed area mines, obstructed traffic, and assaulted workers. When met with resistance, they threw red pepper at “scab” workers and overturned their lunch buckets, showering the miners with coffee and what had been intended as their midday meals.”

Four companies of National Guard troops, including a machine gun division, arrived to stop the march and break the strike.

The press derisively referred to the women as the “Amazon Army.”

Many women were arrested but mobilized their newly won voting power to unseat anti-labor politicians the next spring.

As a result, the state industrial court was ruled unconstitutional.