EDITORIAL: A haunting reminder (04/02/00)

EDITORIAL

A haunting reminder

The recent tragedy at the Barakova coal mine in the Ukrainian city of Krasnodon - in which 81 miners were killed during a methane gas explosion - is a haunting reminder of the tragedy that filled the daily lives of Ukrainians who came to America more than 100 years ago. It was the grim reality of the coal mines of Pennsylvania that gave birth to the Ukrainian National Association.

In the 19th century, America's industrialization and dramatic economic development was fueled, literally, by coal. Coal fueled the expansion of the railroad into America's undeveloped western states, and in Pennsylvania it fueled the mighty American steel industry.

But extracting coal was dangerous work. Dr. Myron B. Kuropas, in his history of the UNA, "The Ukrainian-American Citadel" writes that being a coal miner in America in the 19th century "meant working in a black hell six days a week." Illness, injury and death were common. Several hundred coal miners a year died from methane gas explosions in the mines of the Pennsylvania anthracite region - the same type of explosion that recently killed the miners in Ukraine. Annually, tens of thousands of miners were maimed.

The first European immigrants to work the mines in Pennsylvania were of English, Scottish, German, Welsh and Irish descent. Rejecting the abominable working conditions, they began to unionize for better conditions and to strike in protest when the terms were not met. It was into this tense stand-off between wealthy coal barons who owned the mines and the miners who worked them that the first East European immigrants arrived in the latter half of the 19th century.

Agents for the coal companies traveled to the territories of the Austro-Hungarian empire, recruiting Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Serbs, Slovenians and Ukrainians to come to Pennsylvania. The agents paid for transportation and promised a job in America - a job in the land of plenty. Young girls were promised jobs as maids and cooks, young men as miners. These young men, however, were unaware that they were actually being hired as cheap, exploitable labor, or worse, being recruited as unwitting strike-breakers.

From the adverse circumstances in which the new immigrants found themselves sprung the necessity to rely on one other. Particularly harsh was the situation in which the husband, a coal miner, was killed and left a widow and children penniless. Since coal mining was such a high-risk profession, traditional life insurance companies would not insure a miner. The government offered no relief, and the privately owned coal companies also provided no security.

Therefore, as writes Dr. Kuropas: "The fraternal benefit system in Pennsylvania grew out of a need to provide low-cost life insurance for workers either unable to obtain, or to afford coverage. ... Survivors, left with no source of income, suffered the most when miners were killed or disabled. Few families were left with much to live on after paying funeral expenses."

From this basic need, to make sure that a miner's family would not fall into destitution after his death, was born the UNA. And though the UNA has grown beyond its original purpose and has transformed itself several times over, there still are, nonetheless, among its more than 50,000 members, Ukrainian Americans only a generation or two removed from those difficult times, who can recall the immigrant stories of their parents and grandparents about the coal towns of Pennsylvania.

The tragic circumstances of a coal mining life were the practical impetus for the formation of this fraternal, but so was the emotional and very human desire to help. The Rev. Hryhory Hrushka, one of the UNA's founding members, wrote "One man cannot lift a heavy stone, but when three or four men put their strength to it, the stone will soon be lifted. It is just as difficult for one man to rid himself of want and poverty, but with the help of a few he can do it. One man cannot help all, but all can easily help one man."

Therefore, we encourage our UNA members to both remember the history of this fraternal and assist those suffering in the wake of the latest tragedy in Krasnodon by making a contribution to the UNA's fund to help the families of the deceased miners.

To donate to the UNA's fund, please make your check payable to: Ukrainian National Foundation Inc. (with the notation "Aid to Ukrainian Miners Fund"), and send your donation to: The Ukrainian National Association; 2200 Route 10, PO Box 280, Parsippany, NJ 07054. Donations are tax-deductible under IRS Code 501(c)(3).

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