# Speaking Out (January 1973) **URL:** **By** Joseph R. Peden **Published:** January 1, 1973 --- “The State is used by private corporations to protect themselves from the responsibilities they incur when they endanger the lives and properties of others.” Last February, 113 West Virginians drowned when a dam made of mine wastes broke, pouring tons of water down a hollow called Buffalo Creek in Logan County. Even before the full number of dead was known, controversy broke out as to who was responsible for failing to inspect and monitor the dam, used by the local Buffalo Mining Company as a dump for mine waste. The company blamed the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the Bureau denied the dam was under its jurisdiction. Soon, no less than four government agencies were “investigating”—Senate and House committees, the Interior Department and a special panel set up by Republican governor Arch Moore. Moore, then running for re-election against John D. Rockefeller IV, was deeply grieved—not so much by the disaster itself as by the press coverage it received. The Great State of West Virginia, he said, “took a terrible beating which far overshadowed the beating which the individuals that lost their lives took, and I consider this an even greater tragedy than the accident itself.” With his priorities so eloquently set forth, Moore then set up his investigatory panel. Its members included the dean of the state’s School of Mines, the directors of the State Bureau of Mines, the Department of Natural Resources, the Public Service Commission, representatives from the Bureau of Mines and the Geological Survey, an employee of the American Viscose Division of FMC, and the editor of the Logan County _Banner_. In these circumstances, is is not surprising that local miners and other citizens decided that Moore’s panel is beholden to the coal industry, and that private citizens would have to establish their own commission of inquiry to determine the causes of and responsibility for the flood which destroyed hundreds of homes and buildings and which took at least 113 lives. Their action reflects once again the growing realization by many Americans that one can expect neither impartiality nor common justice from the instrumentalities of the State; that the State is used by private corporations to protect themselves from the responsibilities they incur when they endanger the lives and properties of others; that the so-called reforms which involve federal inspection and supervision of mine operations are another hoax, a cruel deception, which further frees the mine owners from personal liability for their negligent operations.