LABOR: Successful Rebellion

For eight days, miners from Washington State to Appalachia had filed into hundreds of washup shacks to vote—polling places with names like "Bill Shelby's bathhouse at the foot of Chicken Ridge." Many cast their ballots at the end of their shifts, still covered in coal dust. Despite the United Mine Workers' violent tradition, there was no disorder. And despite the membership's habit of following authoritarian leaders, the count last week showed that the men were bent on rebellion. By a vote of 70,373 to 56,334, they ousted W.A. ("Tony") Boyle, 70, their...

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