WHY WE REMEMBER
William Davis killed during class struggle between BESCO, miners.
In March of 1925, Cape Breton coal miners were receiving $3.65 in daily wages and had been working part-time for more than three years.
They burned company coal to heat company houses illuminated by company electricity. Their families drank company water, were indebted to the company store and were financially destitute.
Local clergy spoke of children clothed in flour sacks and dying of starvation from the infamous “four cent meal.” The miners had fought continuously since 1909 for decent working conditions, an eight-hour day as well as a living wage.
The British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO) was controlled by president Roy M. Wolvin and vice-president J.E. McLurg who defended these conditions by frankly stating: “Coal must be produced cheaper in Cape Breton, poor market conditions and increasing competition make this an absolute necessity. If the miners require more work, then the United Mine Workers of America District 26 Executive must recommend acceptance of a 20 per cent wage reduction.”
The stage had been set for a sequence of events that would lead to the tragic death of a union brother and father of 10 children, William Davis.
In the early days of 1925 McLurg added insult to injury by eliminating credit for miners at the company store and further reducing days of work at the collieries. On March 6, 1925, UMWA strategist, JB McLachlan, left with few options, called for the removal of all maintenance men from the collieries; a 100 per cent strike was necessary to do battle with BESCO. If the company would not negotiate an end to this deprivation and hunger, the mines would slowly fill with floodwater and die. The company response was brief and derogatory.
“We hold the cards, they will crawl back to work, they can’t stand the gaff.”
The next two months were filled with grief and hardship. BESCO cut off the sale of coal to miners houses and mounted a vigorous public relations campaign to blame the miners for their own predicament. The miners’ and their union lobbied for intervention from the Liberal provincial and federal governments to no avail. This prompted the union’s most difficult decision to date. June 3, 1925, the union withdrew the last maintenance men from BESCO’s power plant at Waterford Lake. In retaliation, the company cut off electricity and water to the Town of New Waterford, which included the hospital filled with extremely sick children. For more than a week the town mayor, P.G. Muise, begged company officials to restore electricity and water to his townspeople. BESCO ignored his requests.
On June 11, 1925, drunken company police charged down Plummer Avenue on horseback, beating all who stood in their path. They rode through the schoolyards, knocking down innocent children while joking that the miners were at home hiding under their beds. It was the last straw.
At 10 a.m. in New Waterford, the miners were organizing an army of angry men. They were determined to restore electricity and water to their homes and families. They marched
on the Waterford Lake power plant and were met by a wall of armed company thugs on horseback. Before the miners could state their demands, the riders charged the front line firing wildly into the crowd.
Gilbert Watson was shot in the stomach — he carried the bullet until the day he died in 1958. Michael O’Handley was shot and trampled by horses. William Davis, a father of 10 children, was fatally shot through the heart by a BESCO thug.
The miners’ reaction was swift and decisive. They swarmed the power plant, overpowered the company police and marched them off to the town jail. For several nights afterward, the
coal towns were under a state of siege by the miners. They raided the company stores to feed their starving families and then burned the stores to the ground to eliminate the last symbol of corporate greed and servitude in the Cape Breton coalfields. The company stores never re-opened after the coal wars of 1925.
The miners promised that no man would ever again work the black seam on June 11th. They kept that promise. In coal mining communities, many store owners close shop in respect for deceased coal miners and local schools still commemorate Davis Day.
The history of mine workers is filled with memories of class
struggle and of brotherhood. As a former District 26 president, I’ve summed it up below.
“There is no finer person on this planet than the working man who carries his lunch can deep into the bowels of the earth. Far beneath the ocean he works the black seam, an endless ribbon of steel his only link to fresh air and blue skies. The steel rails symbolize a miners’ life, half buried underground, half reaching toward his final reward. William Davis epitomized a miners’ life — it was filled with simple pleasures, family, friends and sunshine. He will always be one of us, he will never be forgotten.”