The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-03-17
60 to the Reds! Let Them
Help You!"
BY ANN BARTON

BY ANN BARTON
AT Glendon mine, Straight Greek, Kentucky
II there has been another cut. Twenty-Five
cents a ton Is the new slave wage for the coal
miners.
The other day some Straight Greek women
went to the office Of the Associated Charities
in Pineville, to see whether they could get few
bites of food for their families.
They trekked the narrow mud road in ragged
shoes. Mrs. Hutchinson, aristocratic wizened,
white haired head of the local Associated Chart
ties dismissed them with a curt. go to the
Reds. Let them help you. They got you into
this troubled"
Thus Mrs. Hutchinson, at the same time she
condemns working-class families to flN and
other attributes of starvation says good word
for submission to the hunger Law of the opera
tors, by accusing the REDS" Of the misery and
trouble of the miners.
She tries to distort the grim fight of the Ken
lucky miners against starvation and terror and
their building of the National Miners Union,
the growing class consciousness of the miners
into trouble" caused by the Reds"
"In all the houses on the Straight Greek Road,
as we came down we heard the cries of babies,
asking for bread" the miners wives said.
Mrs. Hutchinson dslnisses these cries as
trouble" caused by the Reds and eats her sub
stantial dinner untroubed.
Along Straight Greek, where families are try
ing to exist on the wage of 25 cents a ton, relief
from the Associated Charities is only for a few
of the loyal" citizens, those who will not be-
long to the National Miners Union.
What is the "trouble?" Who are the Reds
in these fields who caused the trouble" asks
the miners. Their version of the trouble they
suffer is different from the version OF Mrs.
Hutchinson. The system of starvation, of COM
pany-controlled appetites, of company controlled
lives is trouble" indeed-but caused by the
Reds" Who are the "reds?"
They are-in the opinion of the operators
the organizers of the National Miners Union.
Some thousands of workers in these parts are
Reds" They work down in the Mines live in
company shacks. Eat the few beans their scrip
buys at the commissary. Their children have
flux. Their wives die from hunger under their
very eyes
They joined the National Miners Union, their
own rank and file union, agreeing with its policy
OF militant mass resistance to starvation and
terror. They went out on strike on Jan. ! and
now are busy organizing locals of the National
Miners Union, where they do not already exist,
are building their union, both on the strike
front and in the mines
These Reds" were called 100 per cent Ameri-
cans until they joined the National Miners
Union and threw their tools down in organized
resistance-no more to take with thanks the
scrip from the operators that bought only enough
food to keep them from dying Of hunger Then
they were called "Reds'-because red means
danger means resistance to those who make
slaves out Of men, women and children.
go to the Reds" Mrs. Hutchinson said to the
miners The miners, to go to the Reds, need go
no farther than their own mining camps, no
farther than their next door neighbor. The
mumur OF rebel voices has swept through the
mine fields. Hundred per cent Americans have