The Waterbury Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1917-1946, 1932-04-07
Behind Kentucky's Great WalI,---Part 2
Brass Money Payof Suppresses Miners Liberty
Reporters Notes That Local
Officials Tried To Censor
Tell How Miners Exist

notes. They failed to get them
hence this story.
Around Pineville, / was told by
miners that If they tried to draw
out too much money in cash, in
stead of spending it at the COM
pany store, they would be fired.
However, this isn't always an
issue. A mine worker employed
by a coal company near Pineville
told me that he hadn't drawn any
real money since last fall-"not
even enough to buy postage
stamp"
His neighbor just across the
creek told me he has not drawn
any reaImoney in two years.
The first man is mine laborer
at 1925 a day now, and is wor-
ried over rumor that this is soon
to be cut to So. Last year this
time he was making $3.50; few
years back he was getting $6.2O
a day.
He has a wife, two small daugh-
ters and q son. Another baby is
due. The family lives in a rickety
two-room frame shack. His two
small daughters - five and three
years old - are among the num-
bers of mine children now being
allotted four cans of condensed
milk each week by the state OF
Kentucky.
The miners call this milk
cream" 1t is mixed half and
half with water and into this
cornbread is crumbled. On this
diet. they fight off starvation.
Furniture is Scanty
Across the rushing mountain
creek his neighbor lives in SINH
lar house with his wife and their
eight children. The house is a
rickety frame shack, erected years
ago. Chinks in it's board walls
are stuffed with paper and rags
cardboard replaces several missing
window panes.
The roof is tar paper, like that
used on chicken houses. The fur
niture consists Of:
Room /, two cheap iron beds
two cane chairs with burst bot
toms, a box on the floor that
serves as a trunk.
Room 2, another bed, a kitchen
stove, a few cooking utensils and
a homemade table.
To both houses-as well as the
others in this camp-water must
be "toted" from the camp we'll
Coal for cooking and heating
must be "toted" from the mine
There also are the fashioned
outhouses.
His wife was nursing nine
month-old baby when l called
Another small child was playing
on the bare, splintery floor with d
tin can. It's shoes were as ragged
as it's clothes, and not even mates
Soon the husband, who was not
working that day, came in. He
was a pale. wan man, looking
much past so.
I'm AZ years old and I've beer
in these mines "a years-started
as a trap boy at S-but I've never
seen times as hard as these he
said when l asked him how hi
was getting along.
I'm getting So a day now fol
a job on the tipple. My lung
went bad and / had to give VI
digging coal. During the boon
days, made $40 or S12 a da.
digging coal and so did lot o
the other boys. Times was .goot
then"
"Cuts" of Boom Days
Yet, according to the complain
of numerous miners, the mine own
ers have not reduced their "cuts'
for rent, coal, etc, since the day
of high wages. They also sa.
that the commissaries charg,
higher prices than ordinary stores
which some of the mine operator
admit with the explanation tina
they canont buy as cheaply as TIN
chain stores.
That the companies requir,
their employees to trade at tn,
commissaries was admitted b.
a coal operator who had just fin