Power by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online

what they desired, it was no more than right. Oswick owned the miners’ homes; he had the right to say who should or should not live there. He hated the union and he was fighting it in the way he could fight best. If one objected to his action on humane grounds, then one interjected the question of humanity on most unlikely territory. I had not seen humanity or mercy as a profound or effective operational force, and I was not prepared to use it in my arguments with myself.
    So my thoughts went. I finished the cigarette and decided that I would write the interview the following morning. But before turning off my light, I read the mimeographed biography of Ben Holt that his union had issued. I kept it and it follows verbatim:
    BENJAMIN RENWELL HOLT
    For release on April 1, 1920
    Biographical notes
    In keeping with its tradition, the International Miners Union has elected a coal miner as its new president.
    Born on January 14, 1892, in the coal mining town of Ringman, Pa., Benjamin R. Holt is the youngest man ever to hold the presidency of his union. Of a coal-mining family, both his mother and father were of pioneer stock, Scotch-Irish on his maternal side and British and Welsh on his paternal side. His father and grandfather—paternally—were both miners and worked at the same Ringman Pits that Benjamin R. Holt entered at the age of twelve.
    Until his twelfth year, Ben Holt was a student at the Ringman elementary school. That he was an extraordinary student is attested to by the fact that he had finished eight grades of primary school when his father’s death forced him to enter the mines as the sole support of his widowed mother. There had been two older brothers—both killed in the Harkness cave-in of 1899.
    His father was killed in 1904 in the tragic coal-gas explosion which is remembered as the Ringman Massacre. Along with Denby Holt, Ben Holt’s father, 181 miners perished in a frightful accident that could have been avoided, had the mine operators only followed a few simple safety precautions that the miners had pleaded for.
    Ben Holt has stated that the Ringman Massacre was one of the decisive events of his life. Together with his mother, he stood the deathwatch at the pit head until the last of the bodies was brought to the surface, a matter of over thirty hours. An indelible impression of the conditions under which coal miners worked and died was then left with young Benjamin Holt, who had seen the three men closest to him die in the mines.
    During the following four years, Benjamin Holt worked in the pits at Ringman. He has never forgotten those years, for they forged a bond between him and the plain coal miner that can never be broken.
    During those years, Ben Holt continued his studies, and at the age of sixteen, he passed the entrance examination for the State University, qualifying for a scholarship. This scholarship, together with the compensation paid by the Ringman Coal Company for his father’s death and a part-time job, enabled Ben Holt to get an education and graduate with a college degree and with honors.
    Shortly before his graduation, Benjamin Holt was singled out by a distinguished Pittsburgh law firm, with an offer of their support for his legal training and an opening to read law with their house. This, Mr. Holt declined, already determined to devote his life and energy to the betterment of his fellow miners.
    A few weeks after his graduation, a second severe blow fell on Benjamin Holt. His mother, who had been his teacher and guide through the years, passed away. Thus, his closest family ties broken, Benjamin Holt decided to leave Ringman. For over a year, he traveled and worked in several western states. But always, his direction led him to share the fortunes of miners, to share and understand their problems. He worked in the gold and silver mines of Arizona. He also worked as a copper miner in Montana. While working as a coal miner in Colorado, he was trapped underground