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William James Breen, Labor, Loyalty, & Rebellion: Southwestern Illinois Coal Miners and World War I, Journal of American History, Volume 93, Issue 1, June 2006, Pages 256–257, https://doi.org/10.2307/4486168
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Carl R. Weinberg argues that World War I triggered a seesaw struggle between patriotism and class interests among southwestern Illinois coal miners, who suffered from “an impossible dream” (p. 199) that they could be both patriotic and class-conscious. An ethnically diverse group with a sizable proportion of German origin, the Illinois coal miners were represented by the United Mine Workers of America (umwa), which was itself politically divided between socialist and conservative factions. Although the membership was divided over the war, the union leadership consistently supported the administration.
In the six months after American entry into the war, the unusual level of industrial unrest, primarily over demands for higher wages to compensate for rapid price rises, is seen as a triumph of class interests over patriotism. The resulting strikes were relatively successful but were mostly unauthorized by the umwa leadership. From late 1917 until the armistice, the miners basically stayed at work, a fact that the author laments because he sees it as a shift from their true class interests to patriotism. The Bolshevik Revolution, fears of German spies and sabotage, and lengthening casualty lists helped fuel an increasingly virulent patriotism that was not confined to coal town elites. Miners suspected of disloyalty were subjected to intimidation by local vigilante groups that included fellow miners. A brawl in a local saloon over German American miners' singing “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles” as late as January 1918 (p. 99) helps explain the drift to vigilantism. Illlinois miners reflected the rising tide of patriotism by insisting that American flags be flown at the mines.
