Fannie Never Flinched: "Fannie's Dream Lives On"

The strikers held fast at Hicks’s mines, but world events intervened.

Under new wartime regulations, the United States government brokered a wage deal with
 coal-mine operators across the nation, and Lewis 
Hicks agreed to give miners a 50 percent pay raise.

The war ended in November 1918, and soon after, the mine operators nixed their end of the contract, in which they had recognized the United Mine Workers Union.

Miners in Western Pennsylvania lost what little leverage they had gained and any hope of a new pay increase to cover the spike in prices over the last few years.

These were not impartial law enforcement officers. They were thugs and riffraff, deputized at the whim of industrial corporations in the valley.

These were not impartial law enforcement officers. They were thugs and riffraff, deputized at the whim of industrial corporations in the valley.

These were not impartial law enforcement officers. They were thugs and riffraff, deputized at the whim of industrial corporations in the valley.

Then a man came out of a nearby Allegheny Coal & Coke first-aid shack, carrying an armload of rifles. The man handed them out to the officers
 as Fannie continued to rebuke them.

Autopsies showed Fannie died of a crushed skull and suffered three gunshots, two to the side of the head and one in her back.

Fannie Sellins, organizer for the United Mine Workers, was leading a charging mob of men and women armed with clubs and bricks when she was killed by a volley of shots fired by guards at the plant of the Allegheny Steel Company, according to defense witnesses today at the trial of Edward Mannison and D. J. Riley, Deputy Sheriffs, charged with the murder of the woman union leader.

Then firing began and when the crowd was dispersed, Mrs. Sellins and Philip Strezelecki, a miner, lay dead on the roadway.

The New York Times reported on the trial of the three men indicted in Fannie Sellins’s death.

The United Mine Workers of America petitioned for a special prosecutor in an effort to insure an unbiased prosecution.

The coroner’s jury verdict found that Fannie Sellens [sic] died from a gunshot wound to the left temple.

The document also commended the local sheriff for his prompt and successful action to protect property and persons in the vicinity and for his judgment in selecting his deputies.

The document also commended the local sheriff for his prompt and successful action to protect property and persons in the vicinity and for his judgment in selecting his deputies.

A month later, the Allegheny County coroner’s jury convened in Pittsburgh to examine the evidence.

The jury disregarded the testimony of some sixty eyewitnesses who gave sworn
 statements that the attack by the deputies was unprovoked.

A Federal Department of Labor investigation languished amid prevailing American fears that labor unions harbored communists.

A Federal Department of Labor investigation languished amid prevailing American fears that labor unions harbored communists.

A Federal Department of Labor investigation languished amid prevailing American fears that labor unions harbored communists.

Since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, steel companies had incited this xenophobia and painted strikers as wanting to overthrow the government.

The other two were acquitted of all charges.

Today, both Fannie Sellins’s death and her passion for the welfare and rights of working people have been largely forgotten.

But her name remains hallowed among union people in Western Pennsylvania, and her spirit lives on whenever someone stands up for the American ideals of equality and justice for all.