The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-18
By ALEX JACKINsON.
A Mining Town Before the Strike.

Harmarville is mining town lying
on the banks of the Allegheny River
High, sloping hills, dotted with trees
fortify it. These hills form mas
sive bowl, in the bottom of which
Harmarville crawls like giant
spider. The bordering river is now
half frozen, and cakes of ice float
lazily with the stream. On the OPP
posite side tower huge steel mills
From there dense columns of smoke
continuously dim the horizon. Closer
to town is a car line over which
organe painted trolleys run. Spas
modic growths of trees also surround
the town, amidst them stand old
dilapidated houses. Miners live in
these houses.
Before the strike Harmarville was
one Of the most colorful of the many
mining camps which dot the blum
nous coal fields of Pennsylvania
The company houses were by far the
incest in the vicinity. Nothing pre-
tentious about them, just two-family
red-bricked dwellings, uniform in
architecture, yet homes. The interior
is divided into four and six room
flats, cozy, clean, modest.
There was plenty of spirited &C.
tivity in Harmarville then. Thencor-
ner ice cream parlor, which was also
the restaurant and general hangout,
did thriving business. Miners met
there. A motley, homogeneous crowd
of Slavs, Hungarians, Poles and
Americans, raw-boned, why,
strong. Together they talked, fra
ternized, drank beer and laughed.
On days when the mines were shut
they went swimming in Deer Greek,
or sat on the banks of the Allegheny,
listening to music, drifting from sum-
mer camps across the river.
But the strike changed all that.
2. The Town Today.
The same community of Harmar-
vile is now war-torn, hungry. With
the strike came great change, Wis
ible everywhere. The air one inhales
is suffused with uncertainty, bitter
ness. Suspicion hangs like thick
fog over the town. Miners no longer
come home singing. Smiling children
no longer greet them. These things
are life itself to these mining camps,
lying in distant, remote valleys.
The company houses are now oc-
cupied by scabs. The strikers having
long been evicted. Families who lived
there for many years found them
selves homeless, their furniture taken
away. Large "No Trespassing" signs,
hanging on each door tell of the
change. Wives no longer wait for
their husbands on the stoops. The
scabs are sullen, unhappy, keeping
indoors. The territory on which these
houses are built is patroled by com
pany gunner, carrying cooked rifles
in their armpits.
The schoolhouse is not far away
Even there the change is apparent.
The children are wary, divided. Those
OF strikers group together and nlerci-
lessly taunt those of scabs. Oftimes
they fight. Sometime ago the chill
dren of strikers went on a strike of
their own; protesting against being
in the same class rooms with those of
strikebreakers. They lost. but traces
Of bitterness are still visible. Pitt
full figures, these children, underfed.
poorly clothed, bearing the brunt of
the industrial war.
Only the hills remain unchanged.
Now they are bleak, snow-covered.
To hungry stomach their immen-
sity becomes heavy, depressing.
3. Life In the Barracks.
A private road. turning off from the
state highway Heads into union
grounds. Here barracks were erected
They are long, implanted, thin wooden
buildings, standing in row formation.
Smoke curls up from tiny chimneys
Here there are no paved streets, no
signs to distinguish one from another
No electric lights, no sinks, no run
ming water. Just one small room par
titioned in half. The roof is tar-pa-
pered, and during rains leaks consid-
erably. Outside pots and pans are
hung out. Inside table at which only
two can eat at one time stands in the
kitchen. A stove is its only other pos
session. The other room holds a bed
and some chairs.
The toilets are apart from the bar
racks. Water is pumped from we'll
At night this camp is swallowed in
darkness. The only means of light
are kerosene lamps. 1t gets dark
early here in the winter and it is
exceedingly cold, as the barracks are
built over marshes, continually wetted
by the Allegheny River.
Here life is raw, primitive, bitter
and bloody. No complicated modes of
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