The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-02-17

SOLIDARITY OF the workers.
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONKI
area at the murder OF Sinlnas cannot
be exaggerated. Many STRIKERS wives
are still weeping over his death as
II he were a son The freeing Of the
murderer and the calling in of tin
horns National Guard has added
TO resentment and is convincing
larger and larger sections OF the
Kentucky and Tennessee workingclaSs
that every agency at the command
of the operators is being used &c
crush their heroic strike for a living
wage.
The cringing fear OF the Kentucky
ruling class was revealed in all It's
naked cowardice yesterday when a
full panoply of army, courts, police,
state, county and city governments,
newspapers and fascist elements in
the American Legion and U.M.W.A.
united to prevent miners from COM
ing into Barbourville to pay their
last working class hoiors to Harry
Simns, their murdered strike leader.
U.M.W.A- Leader Endorses Murder
James Shellhorse, local UNIV.
A. leader, openly expressed salts
faction at the murder OF Simms.
In a statement printed on the first
page of the News Sentinel he said:
At, as one member of the United
Mine Workers approve Of the at
titude OF the law enforcement
agencies in Kentucky in driving
out the Red movement"
The News Sentinel says further:
"Shellhorse says the United Mine
workers would help the Kentucky
authorities in driving out Commun'
ist organizations and that Sheriff
Blair, Sheriff Broughton, are dis
tinctly friendly to the United Mine
Workers and have given him (Shell'
horse) little booklet containing let
tiers of re-cognizance which allows
him absolute freedom IN Bell anc
Harlan Counties for the pursuance
OF his work. These letters are from
sheriffs of both Bell and Harlan
Counties, Mayor of Pineville and
John Pursifall, clerk of Bell County
Not sixty as capitalist newspapers
say, but several hundred Nationa,
Guardsmen from Harlan county were
called in by Governor Laffoon te
smash the memorial demonstration
Although the operators were fearful
of calling out the Barbourville Ma
tional Guards because many local
guardsmen are sympathetic to the
strikers, hundreds OF store-keepers
lawyers, doctors, city and county Of
ficiaIs, students and loafers were dep
utized and provided with guns. Fol-
lowing the example set last Wednes-
day In Pineville, scores Of school boys
were also deputized and carried re-
voIvers in their hands as they pa
trolled Barbourville streets.
1t sounds incredible but it is an alb
solute fact that Barbourville officials
told school-boys the reason they were
deputized was that the Japanese army
was about to attack Barbourville and
they had to defend their homes
against the vandalS. Students be-
lieved the lie and many were furious
when they learned they helped break
up the memorial melting. Evry deputy
was ordered to shoot to kill any min
er who insisted on viewing the body
of Sirnms lying at the undertaksrs
and no one was permitted TO wall
on the streets within hundreds o.
yards Of where the body lay. Every
bus, truck, railroad. car, wagon ano
automobile approaching Barbourvillf
from both sides was stopped anc
oSdlC2 ioi iiliIicio' OiliOii bdiue Ncis
taken from all miners and they wert
warned to return home Immediately
or be shot on the spot. 1t is probable
that Simns' fingerprints were taken
by Barbourville police. A police Off
cial told the undertaken that he was
going TO do this and when the unGer-
talSer went to the hotel to asx Of
Dorothy Wilks, w. I. r. nurse, and re-
turned to the establishment with a
refusal, the policeman had already
left.
At 2:45 when the train for New
York pulled in, the body was rushed
to the depot by police. Only miners
committee of two we're allowed to ac-