When it comes to labor disasters, mine tragedies are ours

Most of us return to work today after a three-day holiday where the focus was on food, family and fun under perfect skies.

But Wednesday will be the 125th anniversary on our nation's first Labor Day observation in New York, so it seems as if we should mention a few working stiffs -- like miners.

Last summer, in the wake of an emotional and dramatic mining tragedy in West Virginia that left 12 of the 13 trapped miners dead, President Bush signed the Miner Act of 2006. It beefed up mining safety and increased fines for health violations.

This year, we've still got plenty of mining tragedies in the headlines. During the three-day weekend, an abandoned mine in Chloride, Ariz., swallowed an all-terrain vehicle, killing a 13-year-old girl and critically injuring her younger sister.

In China, a blast Friday left 12 miners missing; while 181 more have been trapped underground for more than two weeks in another accident.

The New York Times reports that China's coal industry is the deadliest in the world, with 2,163 miners killed in 1,320 accidents in the first seven months of this year.

That dwarfs the casualties in the United States, where a Utah mine calamity has been in the headlines for a month. In that case, three rescue workers were killed in a futile search for six coal miners who, as of my deadline, remain trapped 1,500 feet beneath the surface since a cave-in on Aug. 6.

After many failed attempts, the search essentially ended Friday.

The Labor Department promises that an independent panel will investigate the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's handling of the search. "MSHA's investigation will fully examine all available evidence to find the cause of the ground failure at Crandall Canyon Mine and any violations of safety and health standards," Richard Stickler, administration chief, said in a news release.

Such stories stir the fertile mind of Brad Bradford, a retired newspaper editor, who e-mailed me a piece he wrote about how an Illinois mine blast catapulted Adlai Stevenson into the governor's mansion and runs for the White House.

In March of 1946, then-Illinois Gov. Dwight Green got a letter from William E. Rowekamp, recording secretary of United Mine Workers Local 52. "Please save our lives … please make the department of mines and minerals enforce the laws … before we have a dust explosion at the mine just like happened in Kentucky and West Virginia," Rowekamp pleaded.

"The complaint sounds a good deal worse than it is," said a dismissive Robert Medill, the political ally Green appointed to be director of the Illinois Mines and Minerals Department. No changes were made.

"One year later -- on March 25, 1947 -- a coal dust explosion at Centralia killed 111 members of UMW Local 52," Bradford writes. Bradford, a young United Press reporter at the time, credits acclaimed freelance reporter John Bartlow Martin with bringing that story to light.

"Martin's 'Who Killed the Centralia Miners?' first filled 28 pages in the Harper's Magazine March 1948 issue.

That was the longest piece in Harper's 98-year history. Then Reader's Digest ran a condensed version in April, just six months before that year's general election," Bradford writes.

"The 111 men who died in that explosion were killed needlessly," Martin wrote. "Almost everybody concerned had known for months, even years, that the mine was dangerous. Yet nobody had done anything effective about it. Why not? … Let us … seek to fix responsibility for the disaster."

To do that, Martin delved into Illinois politics, and into the deals made by the Republican leaders in power. "Martin's article fully back-grounded the corruption leading to the disaster in plenty of time to provide Democrats with enough political dynamite to blast Gov. Dwight Green out of Springfield that November," Bradford writes.

The recipient of that political windfall was a relative neophyte named Adlai Stevenson, a Democrat who swept into the governor's mansion. "The Green administration crooks lay so exposed in November of 1948 that almost any Democrat could have done as well," Bradford suggests. "Stevenson was never to win a second election."

Now, a federal investigation into mine safety is looking at the role politics may have played.

We saw a similar investigation after FEMA botched the Katrina relief efforts.

When it comes to improving safety for the working men and women in our nation, the most important and toughest part seems to be extracting the safety issues from the depths of politics.