The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-20
Postpone Trial Of IS Ky. Miners, Defense
Funds and Relief Greatest Need Now

drove along the road near Wallins
Greek. Crawford escaped the volley
with nothing more serious than a
wound in the foot.
Saturday four thugs stopped Basil
Rice with volley Of shots from the
forested hillside OF the road to Har-
Ian. Rice is active for the National
Miners Union. He was going along
the road in his car and the gunner
were ambushed waiting for him.
The thugs car was parked nearby.
Rice was not hit, but several bull
lets hit the car, two going through
the windshield near where he sat.
He stopped his car as soon as pos
sible and slipped out the other side.
The gunner showed themselves,
thinking they had killed him, and
Rice got several shots at them be-
fore they escaped in their own car
He does not know whether he hit
any of them.
Rice found in his car a threaten
ing note the day before the at
tempted assassination. 1t said:
"This is a warning to Rice and Gibbs
to get out and stop their work. We
don't want any Reds around here"
Gibbs is a miner who has been &C
tive in organization work.
Both Rice and Gibbs are world
war veterans.
Wednesday night operators gun
men caught a Negro miner named
Mckinney Baldwin, chairman of the
Pennsylvania Ohio-West Virginia.
Kentucky Striking Miners Relief
station at Harlan, and took him out,
tied him to a tree, stripped off his
clothes and beat him up horribly.
The thugs used Sheriff Blairs auto
to do the job.
PITTSBURGH, Pa, Aug. 19.-Dur-
ing the last few weeks the coal COM
panies in Armstrong County, Pa,
have been forcing miners to load
hard coal with coke forks, and all
that slides between the tines of the
fork goes into the "gob." A coke
fork is huge affair with tines which
are inches apart. The COB is the
pile of waste material for which no
payment Is made to the miner. 1t
is against the state law to put any
coal in the COB, but the companies
have been doing that for some time,
Months ago these companies began
to screen their coal. All the small
pieces that went through the screen,
which at first had a comparatively
small mesh, we're paid for at lower
rate. They they stopped paying for
the small coal. Then they began to
make the mesh in the screen larger
and larger, so that less Of the coal
was paid for.
Now, with the loading with coke
forks, only the very large pieces are
paid for and the rest doesn't count"
This is only one of the indirect
wage-cuts being put into effect.
HARLAN, KY, Aug. 19.-The As
ISOLATED Press southern service joins
the coal operators county officials In
Harlan County, Kentucky, in exctls-
ing the destruction by dynamite of
the Pennsylvania-Ohio Vir-
ginia- Kentucky Striking Miners Re-
lief Committees relief station and
kitchen at Evarts, KY. This station
was blown up by the gunner of the
coal operators in the dark of the
night, Aug. 10. What chance there
is of the claw" doing anything about
it can be seen from the following As
ISOLATED Press dispatch, dated April
II, and appearing in Tennessee and
Kentucky papers:
"An explosion early today de-
stroyed brick building at Evarts,
used as soup kitchen for the Ma
tional Miners Union, and broke plate
glass windows in the Blue Ribbon
Restaurant and hardware store
nearby. Windows in several nearby
homes we're broken, but no one was
reported injured. Sheriff ]. H. Blair
sent deputies to investigate the latest
violence in the labor trouble and at
his office the opinion was expressed
that an accidental explosion Of min
ers' dynamite had caused the dam
age"
PRICEDALE, Pa, Aug. 19.-Mine
pay slips turned over to the National
Miners Union here by men working
in the Pittsburgh Coal Companys
Sommers Mine show s12 credited for
two weeks work--and of course no
wages actually paid, but all checked
off for expenses to the company.
PITTSBURGH, Pa, Aug. IT,
Scores of mass meetings of striking
miners and those previously forced
back to work are taking place all
over the coal fields of Western Penn
sylvania, West Virginia and Ohio as
this is written. Monday August II.