A Great Disaster in a Mine

by “Gineitis”

On April 23, 1913, a terrible explosion occurred in a coal mine in Courtney, Pennsylvania, killing 98 coal miners. The cause of the explosion is described in an article by Miranda Startare in the TribLive newspaper on the centenary of the disaster. It turns out that 18 Lithuanians were among the 98 dead.

The disaster was described in the May 15, 1913 issue of Draugas; the article was signed “Gineitis.”

Courtney, Pennsylvania. A great disaster in a mine

This town, and especially the Cincinnati mine neighborhood, was as if swept away. The terrible explosion in the Cincinnati mine on April 23rd carried off many sturdy young men to their eternal homeland. Widows and orphans were left behind. In one neighborhood of Courtney and the Cincinnati mine where most of the immigrants lived, 131 orphans were found. How many tears, how much misery this terrible calamity produced! How many hopes, how many beautiful ideas it has destroyed!

Many a Lithuanian brother of ours, too, had woven beautiful dreams for the future, only to find that those dreams were not destined to come true. Who will be able to understand the paths of fate? The Lithuanian fled his homeland most unnecessarily, thinking that he would find a good life in America, and the unfortunate one did not know that he would meet a horrible timeless death in an underground cave. He hoped to get rich in America, to find a tastier morsel of bread, and he did not shy away from the dungeons, where he met a most terrible death.

It was a terrible death indeed. Some Lithuanians escaped alive—somehow, surprisingly, they escaped death. Listening to their stories makes one shudder. The survivors had to crawl over the corpses of their friends and acquaintances, through dangerous gasses, to the gap opening to the outside.

At first, they say, a dozen or so people ran, but the closer they got to the light, the smaller the group became. The weaker ones fell dead. Imagine, dear reader, the struggle of those trying to save themselves. Amid the steaming gases in the darkness, a group of hapless coal miners looking for a crack or opening through which they might be able to escape. On the way they smell the corpses of their friends, a father sees his son dying in terrible agony, or the sons see the father unable to go on any longer, lying on the ground and waiting for death. They fall one by one by their pikes with which they had earned food for themselves and their families, like soldiers in the field with weapons in hand.

These are the American deserts that are so enticing to our brothers from the homeland. This terrible disaster in the mine, which took the lives of eighteen tough Lithuanian men before their time, is not the first nor the last. It is said, almost correctly, that in America Lithuanians do not die their own deaths, nor do they live to a ripe old age. One dies in a mine, another in a workshop. And how many Lithuanians are injured, how many lose their arms, legs, eyes, etc.? Yet all this does not deter the Lithuanians from America; they flee by the thousands to this land of misfortune, they lose their healthy jobs and occupations in Lithuania, they lose themselves, their children, their parents’ lands, and all that they ought to cherish infinitely. Here in America, if you do not spend your life without time, if you do not learn the benefits of American happiness, you become depraved, desolate, and a man worthy of pity. Such are the praises of America!

We who already live in America should not praise those American deserts when we write letters to our own in Lithuania. You should not send out letters to your friends and acquaintances from your homeland, because by doing so we are doing a great disservice to Lithuania and to those whom we send out letters full of praise.

Here are the names of the Lithuanians who died:

Married:

1. Aprimas Viktoras, 28 years old – left behind a wife and 2 children;

2. Mykelionis Karolis, 42 – wife and 4 children;

3. Lorentas Juozas, 43 years old – wife and 6 children;

4. Bacevičia Petras, 30 – wife and 1 child;

5. Paulauskas Vincas, 33 – wife and 3 children;

6. Martusevičia Juozas – wife and 2 children;

7. T. Kaušykas Juozas – wife and 3 children;

8. Grigaliūnas Ignas – the ship’s passenger ticket sent to his wife will be held, unless she has already sailed.

Single:

1. Sabulis Vincas, 34 years old;

2. Zaukus Jurgis, 40;

3. Terebeiža Jonas, 23;

4. Terebeiža Vladas, 21 years;

5. Paulauckas Jonas, 27 years;

6. Jokuža Simonas, 25 years;

7. Mockus Petras, 40 years;

8. Didjurgis Jurgis (buried in Pittsburgh);

9. Dyšmonas Petras;

10. Dambrauskas Vincas (others say Rutkauskas).

Seventeen of the dead were buried in Donora and one in Pittsburgh. We have not heard about additional victims.

Letter to the Editor (Keleivis, May 29, 1913, regarding Jurgis Didjurgis):

I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU ALL

On April 27th, from Courtney, Pa., they brought back the body of J. Didjurgis, whom they had killed in a recent mining accident. I went to see – he was a young man, about 25 years old, and now already a corpse. There are no signs of injury except for a scratched-up face. I felt sorry for him and I remembered these words of recitation:

Fallen as if pillars of a palace

Talented people are dying

Still young when striding into their graves

Men, men, men, what is happening here?

Women weep and say, “God willed it so,” because this is what is taught to them every Sunday in church. Whenever some misfortune happens through the greed of the capitalists, the priests immediately say that “God willed it so.”

Is your God really so terrible that he would cause 150 people to die on a single occasion, leaving their innocent babies without a morsel of bread? Oh no, it’s not God that willed it so. It’s the greed of employers that has made it so. The owners are not interested in protecting workers’ lives, but only look for more money to come from their workshops. And so disasters happen.

And as long as you listen to the lies of the priests, as long as you send your young children to their parochial schools to be made dumb instead of worrying about improving working conditions, then your brothers will continue to die in the mines and factories.

Signed: Godless in Soho