The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-12
Terror in the Coal Fields and
August u

When committees of miners go to government
officials to demand that this terror cease, that
the wholesale evctions be ended, the answers
are all substantially the same. II can do moth
ing for YOU" Governor White of Ohio says
When the striking miners asked Clifford Pin
chot, liberal" governor of Pennsylvania, for
the use of the national guards tents that are
lying unused, Pinchot replies in speech before
the national guard that the troops will be sent
into the coal fields if there is more trouble"
The coal miners, betrayed down into the very
depths of degradation in 1917 by the United
Mine Workers of America officialdom, are fight
ing desperately against starvation, struggling
for union conditions, SIS cents a ton pay, for a
checkweighman of their own to stop the com
pany from cheating them on weight, for the
abolition of the company town where the oper-
ator is lord, where money used is coined by the
operators and not by the U. S. mint, where
company stores charge double what other stores
charge, where terror is extreme where a mans
own parents cannot visit him without special
permission from his superintendent as in Ken
tucky-where mans own life the lives of his
wife and children are not their own but belong
to the operators The coal miners and their
families are striking for the right to livel
In Kentucky, an epidemic of flux has broken
out. This is a starvation disease, brought about
by living on grass and green apples Over 200
have the disease today and minimum of two
die every day in Evarts. Six died in one day
Many leading organizers are suffering from this
disease.
Hanging over the steep green hills of Harlan
County, KY, is charged tenseness-a sharp
wartime atmosphere. Boston is big city, and
when Sacco and Vanzetti were murdered, it was
done legally" Even college president was
brought in to give an added verdict bearing the
mark Of mock "impartiality" to quiet the ring
ing cries Of millions who demanded the freedom
Of their innocent fellow-workers and still the
voices of liberals who demanded flair inves-
tigation."
Harlan County, however, is a feudal kingdom
The operators make no bones about demo-
cracy." The mines and the company towns In
which the miners live, the streets they walk on,
the judges and the police all belong to the
monied Paisley interests, the insults and other
mine owners. And the people living in these
towns know they are poems, slaves. That is
what they fighting against
The history of the Kentucky strike is known
few locals of the United Mine Workers Of
America, the oily union the Kentucky miners
knew OF, we're organized Never did an organ
izer from this union venture into Harlan Coun-
ty. Then the operators began to fire union
members, giving them ten minutes to clear out
Oh camp. II Cn6y owed money 10 UL6 company
store-and what miner didnt?-the furniture
was withheld, for the debtors law enforced If
there was no furniture. and the miners thrown
into Jail.
Immediately strike flared up in Harlan Coun-
ty The bloody struggle in Evarts, when the
miners defended themselves from the armed at
tack of company gunner is history. Then fol-
lowed the period of martial law. Over hun
dred leading miners were thrown into Jail.
Thirty-eight were charged with murder. and the
others with banding and confederating" and
other charges Then the United Mine Workers
of America completely repudiated them. Relief
was refused the Kentucky miners. In the other
strike regions the U. M. w. A. had already
signed scab agreements and together with state
troopers invaded miners homes, TO terrorize
them back to work. The district president, Pat
Pagan, testified in court against striking miners.
After the soldiers left Harlan County, local
company gunner, deputized professional killers,
attempted to terrorize the countryside. One
striker was found hung from a high tree with
barbed wire. But these gunner we're licked
big union picnic was held in the last days of
July which the deputies did not dare invade.
statewide conference of the National Miners
Union called, hundreds of delegates elected
from mines all through Kentucky. Tennessee
and Virginia.