Tragedy and Hate

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 38, 1970, No. 2

Tragedy and Hate

WHILE THE TRIALS went on, the Castle Gate Mine Number 2 exploded on March 8, 1924. One hundred and seventy-two men were killed leaving 417 dependents. In seven families the father and oldest son were killed. Rescue teams under the direction of Imer Pett, manager of Bingham Mines Company, worked ten days to remove the bodies. Women brought pet canaries for their use in the rescue work. At the faintest sign of gas the canaries died, and the rescue teams waited until canaries survived in the rubble before continuing. Mass burials were held as the bodies were brought up.

Fifty Greeks were killed. The Greek church in Price was not large enough to hold services for the men and a public hall was used. The widows' keening of the mirologia, eerie high-pitched dirges recounting extemporaneously the life and hopes of the dead, echoed through Greek Towns. Black-dressed widows, children, and friends followed the caskets to the graveyards. The priest in black robes of mourning chanted final prayers, and the caskets were lowered into rocky excavations. On each casket, the priest sprinkled a few drops of holy oil and threw a handful of dirt. Crowded about, the people picked up a little dirt and tossed it into the open graves. The caskets were covered, rocks clanking on them. Black crosses with the names of the dead in Greek letters were driven into the ground.

Greek businessmen of Helper asked donations among the Greeks to provide food and money for the dead men's families. A public subscription raised $131,351.75 for relief; a Workmen's Compensation Law was not in effect then. The Industrial Commission ordered Utah Fuel Company to pay approximately $5,000 to widows with children. A few widows took their money in one payment and returned to Crete.

After a year the Greek orphans discarded their black clothing, but their mothers wore black dresses, stockings, and black Mother Hubbard caps for the rest of their lives.

At the same time of the trials a newly revived southern organization, the Ku Klux Klan, took equal space in the newspapers. On the day of Manousos's conviction for assault on Sam Dorrity, an article appeared in the News Advocate entitled "What Ku Klux Klan Stands For." It listed many divergent principles from "protecting American womanhood" to preventing fires. Newspapers gave sanction to the Klan with their continuing campaign against aliens. "Scum of Europe a Menace to the U.S." and "Immigration Worst Menace" were typical news headings that continued into 1923 and 1924.

The year 1923 was significant in the number of Greek businesses that were operating successfully in the state. Many native American girls were employed by the Greeks causing increasing tension, particularly in Carbon County.

In late summer a young girl was assaulted and Greeks were blamed for it. The News Advocate oi August 2, 1923, reported:

A mistaken idea prevailed that the men in the case were Greeks and indignation was centered against the Greek business houses of the city. Handbills were printed and posted carrying a warning that American girls would not be allowed to work in Greek confectionaries and restaurants, that no foreigners would be allowed to employ American girls in any capacity and that foreigners should not speak to American girls on the street on penalty of severe treatment. The handbill also stated that only the American language should be spoken on the streets of Price.

The article continued with a report on a fight between Steve Denos, a Greek who was supervising the finishing of his building in Price, and his workmen over one of the handbills nailed on to his building. A disturbance grew that threatened to become violent. It was stopped by Sheriff Deming who informed the gathering of Denos's rights. Many Price citizens, the paper stated, denounced the mob.

The News Advocate continued:

It [the paper] maintains as strongly as ever that there is too large a percentage of undesirables among the Greek immigrants. There are however a large number of Greeks making an earnest effort to be good citizens, to help build up the communities in which they live and they deserve credit for their efforts. There are lots of people in Carbon County of various nationalities who are just as undesirable as the most undesirable Greeks.

The paper concluded that if parents of American girls allowed them to work for Greeks, nothing could be done. The Sun joined in condemning the men who invaded the Greek restaurant kitchens and ordered the "American" girls home.

A week later the Greek priest, Father Damaskinos Smyrnopoulos, made a public protest that was printed by the News Advocate. The paper also contained a reprint from a San Francisco paper entitled, "Alien Influx Is National Menace: Must Be Stopped." A week later an American Legion convention was given front page space with the caption, "America Must Combat all Radicalism; Immigrant an American Soon or Menace." The IWW should be kept in prison, the speakers said, and as for immigrants there were too many who could not read or write English and their foreign-language newspaper should not be permitted circulation.

The complete failure of the compulsory education program, which required immigrants who could not read or write English at the fifth-grade level to pay a $10.00 registration fee and to begin classes, was acknowledged. The aliens were either belligerent or made sport of the program. The trouble between natives and aliens was heightening each day.

In the summer of 1924, the national pre-election campaigns recognized the existence of the Ku Klux Klan. In Utah the Democratic plank, executed by James H. Waters, state chairman, took a stand against the Klan. But all over the United States the Klan candidates were often winners. In Idaho the Democrats adopted a Klan plank. The activities of the Klan with their burning, flogging, and intimidation were daily news. In Utah the Klan paraded in Salt Lake City and in Magna and burned crosses on the Oquirrh foothills and in Helper, Utah. In Magna the Greeks followed the Klan to the park, pulled off their robes, and found what were called "prominent citizens" among the marchers. In Helper and Price the names of Klansmen filtered through to the immigrants. It was not a social stigma to belong to the Klan.

Helper, with its thirty-two different nationalities, was the center of the Klan activity. In Price and in the coal camps incidents were minor and were directed against business houses. But in Helper the entire population was involved in the intensity of the Klan's demonstrations.

The superior business establishments of the Greeks were a factor. TheGolden Rule Store, Success Market, Grill Cafe, Palace Candy Store, and The Toggery, among others, were leading businesses. When threats were made to the Italians through Italian banker Joseph Barboglio and to the Greeks through George Zeese, the two nationalities and the Slavic people banded together. The Irish-Catholic railroad men set themselves apart from their fellow workmen and joined the immigrants.

At night the Klan burned crosses on a mountainside and across the narrow valley the Catholics burned circles in answer. Hooded men had been seen in the vicinity of the Mormon church situated at the side of the railroad yards, and the immigrants believed that the Mormons were their robed enemies.

The Klan filed papers of incorporation in Salt Lake City asking the right to establish branches throughout the counties of the state. By this time the Klan was falling into disgrace. The resistance of the aliens and the Catholics continued and before the year was out, the Klan was forced underground.

The Ku Klux Klan episode was the last overt instance of prejudice against the Greek immigrants in the state, but the frustrated impulse to violence that had grown in Carbon County for years culminated in the lynching of a Negro.

The influence of professional people was the important factor in the social climate in mining towns. In Bingham where doctors, teachers, and later mine superintendents were interested in the immigrants, there was less hostility than in places like Carbon County where professional people were apathetical and often antagonistic.

A generation of children of Greek parentage was growing up with these events coloring and determining their lives. They took in the mistrust of the "Americans" from their parents. They did not know where their loyalties lay. The older girls of this generation, now in their late fifties, lived a hard life. To protect them from American influences, they were cloistered, their education cut short, and married, younger than they would have been in Greece, to much older men, the once obstreperous "disturbers of the peace." These women were far more Greek than American.

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