The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-03-10
PROSPERITY OF
The NON-UNION
MINERS IS BUNK
Miners Beaten When
They Protest Low Wages
BY ART SHIELDS, Federated Press.

! BY ART SHIELDS, Federated Press.
! LOGAN, w. Va (FP) II have
never seen more squalid miner homes
than those l. passed hiking into Lo-
gan county, the back way, along
Georges Creek and Dingess Run.
What contrast to the model places
the Logan chamber of commerce es-
corted us to when senators Kenyon
and Shortridge made their sham in
vestigation after the armed march of
1921.
saw novels Of the Argyle and Rex
coal mining companies standing in
puddles inches to a foot deep. 1t
had been raining. There was no pip
ing to carry off the water and it stood
there till it soaked out. ! saw chill
dren, all in rags, and some without
stockings In the February cold.
And to relieve the dinginess of this
life there was not even pretense Of
welfare work, except in the larger
communities where are club houses
and Y. M. C. AS, pretty we'll monopol-
; lied by the bosses and straw bosses.
J In few places is there anywhere to go
J at night, but to the overcrowded
shack called home. If man dreamed
: of taking his family to Logan for
: vaudeville show from Ethyl, 6 miles
away, he would have to pay rs cents
} per head bus fare each way.
Prosperity Is Missing
The ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
err talk which operators feed to the
union men in Pennsylvania, Ohio, In
diana and Illinois is bunk. The big
: money that Logan men are supposed
to make is just so much company
scrip. A store keeper-whose name
is withheld to save his job-admitted
that all the men earn goes back to his
company through the company store.
They can never get ahead. They are
always in debt. They draw in adj
vance, not money but company scrip,
good only at the store. And these
men are among the comparatively
few who work g. days a week. Most
y of the SIS Logan county companies
0 work only three and four days week.
0 Even the huge Island Creek Coal Co
0 is getting in only days week for
0 it's 81 Logan county mines as it waits
0 for the lake trade to open.
5 Knock Miner Cold
0 Not merely the wage rates or what
o the miners call the prices are low
% The men cannot be sure of getting
5 what the rates call for. At the Five
70 Block Coal Co. few days ago, min
% err went into the Office to question
10 pay statement. He was carried out
10 unconscious. What happened is dis
10 puted. But there was no one inside
10 but the superintendent, the bookkeep
q er and a piece of iron pipe.
10 Unionism is treated as crime
10 Deputized gunner still SLOUGH abou
10 every mining camp, though there il
10 less Haunting of revolvers and some
IS what less aggressiveness since Dol
80 Chain, boss of this mountain Goa
10 land. went to Atlanta on bottlegginI
50 charge. But the guns are still there
20 as you see when the hips bend gettini
10 in and out of autos. And the rougl
20 tactics are ready. Just the other da'
10 two Polish miners were beaten ant
10 run out of the Island Creek town 0
Holden, one kept in Jail over night
for possession of a labor paper. The
10 we're lucky to escape alive. Fou
,f months ago a committee from tn
TIT Of fnn1l nff
cers-registered at the Aracoma he
tel and were run out of town by
committee from the chamber of con
MERGE and gang of thugs.
Organization Will Return
But the basis of organization is a
ready in Logan. There is bitter dis
content. Many former union men ar
ready to whip it into line when tn
organization makes a drive. Thes
once union men are those who wer
starved out in the 4-year strike GU
side and went up Guyan" for met
ticket. The fight to unionize and hol
the Guyan valley, when 1t comes, WI
test the sinews of the whole labt
. movement. There will be many tho
= sands OF men to feed and house
tents and barracks and more tina
- likely there will be big defense east
to fight as the violence and frame-r
machinery gets to work.
but Logan must be organized 4
the sake, not only of its own worker
but Of the whole United Mine Wor
ers union. Its more than 100000
tons Of scab coal year are an impc
tant part of the southern flood that
breaking down the union markets al
keeping the union men to the nor