On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded.
After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train.
The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded.
After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers.
"When the last call comes for me to take my final rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois...They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America."
Mother Jones
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They make Bluetooth keyboards that work with phones. I used to have a slick little one that folded up to the size of a cigarette case.
I have a blackberry 20 keyboard packaged in to a nice printed case and fitted with a battery and a bluetooth module. The issue is figuring out how to join it with the phone so as to be useable. So it's going t be a very weird cludge and I haven't really figured out how to make it work. The result is going to be enormous. Ugh. I hate this all so much. Keyboards are so much better than touchscreens but people have forgotten as powerful marketing campaigns from Apple, Google, and Samsung have largely erased the memory of a time when pre-iphone smartphones were productivity tools and pocket computers.