Here’s an excerpt from the audio memoirs of Jack Battuello on mine war violence. Press play to listen:

[audio:http://minewaro.startlogic.com/Word_Press/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/blog_gimme_that_rifle.mp3|titles=”Gimme That Rifle.”]

“I was in Taylorville on half a dozen occasions.  And on those occasions we picketed.  And I recall that the first time, the first time that I went to Taylorville and become among the picketeers that the militia had been called out….On this occasion that I’m referring to we could not picket.  We could not get close to the mines.

As a matter of fact I went up to a militiaman and I talked to him as I would a brother and I said, ‘Do you know what you, what you boys are doing to us?  You’re taking bread out of our mouths.  And you’re support the coal company that would enslave us.’

And I said, ‘Gimme that rifle.’  And he handed it to me.  His superiors immediately grabbed me but I don’t know what they did to him.  They may have court-martialed him.  I don’t know.  They immediately pulled him out of the lines.

There was no peaceful picketing wherever I occurred.  In Franklin County, in Taylorville it was always violence and always violent from the other side.  Never from our side.

As a matter of fact I was that radical that I – if I could have my way we would have been radical – and violent.  And violent.  I would have paid them back.  Tooth for tooth, eye for eye.  But we never did somehow.”

This audio is excerpted from Jack Battuello’s audio memoirs housed at the University of Illinois at Springfield, Oral History Archives.  The interview was conducted by Nick Cherniavsky and Barbara “Bobbe” Herndon in 1973.