The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-12
By BORIS ISRAEL.

Harlan County, KY. is owned by
coal operators. Before this year there
were about $1,000 miners working for
these owners: the Mellon Kenyir, the
Peabody insult, the U. S. Steel, the
Edison and other interests. Mining is
the sole source of food, clothing, and
shelter for the main part Of the pop
ulation OF this southern Kentucky
mountain country. Within the past
year this population has decreased
somewhat. Some miners have gone
out on the roads, trying to escape
starvation. Starvation is a real
thing in Harlan . for the workers,
that is. 1t is word vaguely heard by
the operators and their friends
throughout the country. But it has
settled with strange hold upon the
men, women and children who pro-
duce the coal which the operators
sell. 1t has crept into the shacks
which cluster in bleak rows about the
mine shafts, and is regularly an
nounced by the pay statements"
which are issued TO show the men
how much the company allows them
to earn e. or more often-how
much they still owe to their en-
ployerS.
There have been other population
decreases, too. Struggling little pro-
cesSions to the small graVeyards at
test to the victory OF fIux "a disease
brought on-mainly among children,
by lack Of proper diet; and the re-
volvers and machine guns Of mine
guard" thugs, and deputy sherriffs
have disposed OF more miners. 1t is
impossible to know how many miners
have gone this way. An ambulance
driver told Of thirteen men whom he
carried away from the scene Of one
of the clashes this spring. Sheriff
John Henry Blair is very jovial about
1t all and thinks it a huge joke. The
Harlan County Coal Operators ASso-
citation doesn't even know of any
trouble. Why, everything is all right
here. The mines are working all they
want to. We're getting along fine if
these outsiders would quit spreading
damnable lies. The "authori-
ties, then, are not very good
source OF information.
The miners, once they know you
are not another stool pigeon, tell
other stories. And when hollow
checked miner tells you Of two days
4 week work, nights spent cleaning
out rock and building props in the
mines so as to be able to get the coal
out the next day (all this is dead
work, and is not paid for), meals
consisting OF boiled weeds and grass,
one child dead from starvation, him
self, his wife, their remaining child
sleeping on the bare wood floor be-
cause he cannot afford single bed
or even a bale of straw when
large bodied but somewhat haggard
miner tells you these things with 2
slow burning in his eyes: they can
not be disbeieved. And his woman,
standing in the doorway, her entire
wasted body speaking in hopeless
tones as she mods her head, is some
what of a contrast to the stout, jo-
vial sheriff who laughs about these
things as he sends his men out Of
the office with high powered rifles
and machine guns.
There is reason for these guns,
eor the imported deputy sheriffs
Cagain, it is impossible to know the
exact number, the sheriff will tell
you It's none Of your damned bust
ness but somewhat more than z
hundred imported and domestic men
(the local ones with the unhidden
regulations Of being bad men" and
thugs have been deputized. The
miners have been attempting to or
ganize. They are organizing. They
are organizing now to struggle for
better conditions, for living wages,
for elimination Of the various STRAIT
agems the companies now use to get
back what pay they haven't already
cheated the miners out Of. An habit
ual trick is the use Of fixed scales