The Connecticut labor news., 1923-08-18
COAL MINERS ARE : KEPT ISOLATED
 DECLARE CLERGY
Rounded By Sheriffs Worse Than Convicts, Says Report of
 Committee.

Washington, Aug. I8.-Charges
 that employees of many coal-mining
 companies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Alabama are held in a
 state of virtual isolation in the towns
 where they reside, were made in a
 report addressed to the United States Coal Commission by committee of
 educators and clergymen.
 The payment of deputy sheriffs by coa lcompanies also was attacked,
 and the commission was asked to consider whether this practice does not constitute threat against the impartial application of the law and the fair maintenance of civil rights.
 The authors of the report, compos- ing voluntary committee of inquiry Zechariah Chafee, jr, professor of law at Harvard University; Prof Herbert A. Miller, of Oberlin College; Rev.
 John A. Ryan, director of the Ma tional Catholic Welfare Council, Washingtop; Rev. Arthur E. Holt, Social Service Secretary of the Con- gregational Church, Boston, and Kate Holladay Claghorn, read of the De- partment of Social Research of the New York School of Social Work. Winthrop D. Lane had charge of the committees investigations, assisted by Jerome Davis, assistant professor of ociology, Dartmouth College.
 The report said that the families of miners must live in houses in towns that are situated on company property and that they must sign leases. It then submitted copies of these leases. Some of these forbid the miner to receive in his house any person objectionable to the coal com pany.
 One company, w J. Rainey, inc, operating in Fayette County, Pa, the report said, allows the miner only three kinds of visitors: the doctor, the moving wagon man and the un- dertaker.
 The committee said:
 These towns are the continuous residence places of scores of thou sands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people. They stand to them for homes and for whatever degree of community life and existence these people possess. Over the cont1nuous home and social life of miners and their families these leases cast shadow of supervision and even of censorship"
 It Is common practice, according to the committee, for coal companies to pay, arm and employ large num- bers of deputy sherigs A former sheriff of Jefferson County, Ala, J. C. Hartsfe1d, declared in an affidavit. said the report, that in one month he commissioned Al deputy, sheriffs paid by coal companies, armed at their ex- pense and used by them as private guards. Of these, 4o7 were empolyed by the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Rail- read Company, the report says.
 Sheriz Hartsfeld said:
 Some of these men came from pool rooms and were mere loungers. Some went out to the companies for which they were to work, reported, got their arms and quit in six or eight 1 hours. When they drew their pay from private interests they were un- der strong temptation to be partial | They could not look at both sides | alike. It was not human nature to | be disinterested."
 The report declared that the sheriff | of Fayette County, Pa, commissioned | s, ,I8o men as deputy sheriffs during and after the coal strike of last year These men were paid entirely by the coal companies, 1t said, and consti- Iuted one deputy for every. five miners III tI1e county
 Between $3o.ooo and $4o,ooo was collected as personal reward by the sheriff of Somerset County, Pa, for deputy sheriffs to coal com oanies. said the report, It declared hat the sheriff levied a fee against he coal companies of from so cents o ST for each day.
 Declaring it had scores of af6davits -elating to interferences with the lib- erty of individuals in Logan County, w. Va, the committee said it be- ieved that these gave a picture "of conditions in which the rights and the yery lives of people are not safe from suppression and assault
 One affidavit asserted that miner vas beaten up by deputy sheriffs for asking why miners of Logan County were not organized.
 Details concerning nearly two hun fred interferences with the rights of and assaults upon them were submitted by the committee.
 The report was addressed to Thom- IS R. Marshall, the member of the commission receiving evidence con ,erning interferences with civil rights.