He was appointed as surgeon for the Norfolk and Western Railway (1895–1913) and surgeon in chief of State Hospital #1 in Welch, West Virginia (1899–1913). He entered local politics first as commissioner of district roads of McDowell County (1900–1905), eventually becoming a member of the State senate (1908–1912), and serving as president of the senate in 1911.
He was elected as Governor of West Virginia in 1912 when the southern coalfields were embroiled in the deadly Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike. His predecessor, William E. Glasscock, had imposed martial law and imprisoned many striking miners. Hatfield began his term by pardoning Mother Jones and the miners who had been imprisoned by military courts, and then moving to negotiate a compromise to end the strike. He appointed a board of arbitration, and he himself chaired the board. The settlement presented to coal operators by Hatfield and the UMWA was staunchly opposed by local Socialists. In response, Hatfield deployed soldiers to force miners to agree to the compromise and ordered presses at Socialist newspapers in Huntington and Charleston destroyed.[2] Following the expiration of his term in 1917, he entered the United States Army as a major in the Medical Corps, serving as chief of the Surgical Service at Base Hospital No. 36 in Detroit, Michigan.
He was discharged in 1919 and returned to West Virginia. In 1928, he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, and served from March 4, 1929, to January 3, 1935. He was defeated in a bid for reelection in 1934.
After leaving the Senate, Hatfield settled in Huntington, West Virginia and established a private medical practice, where he worked until his death in 1962.
References
^"West Virginia's First Ladies," West Virginia Division of Culture and History, June 2007.
^David A. Corbin, "Betrayal in the West Virginia Coal Fields: Eugene V. Debs and the Socialist Party of America, 1912-1914," March 1978.
