"Then he'd come out looking like a sheep-killing dog and get in his truck and run. The National Industrial Recovery Act only partially succeeded in accomplishing its stated goals when it was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on May 27, 1935, which was three weeks before the Act was set to expire. Genders. The United Mine Workers of America represented 400,000 miners at that point and promised miners safer work conditions and higher wages. Eastover agreed to sign the 1971 wage pact of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association which is in force at 1,200 mines. As discussed in a previous video. Funeral Wednesday March 1 at 11 a.m. at Grays Knob Bible Church. safety director for the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; Moss Paterson, chief of the State Bureau of Mines and Minerals, and State and Federal mine inspectors. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. The airline magazine contains an article on southern skiing, a feature on hot, winter drinks for the "Piedmont palate," an article on how tough it is to be thirty-three and middle-class today, and a success story about an Atlanta bra, sleepwear, girdle, and pantie company. There was a scuffle when a state police captain tried to remove one of the women, she says, adding, "Captain Cromer did get hit several times; I hit him with a stick myself." Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . Other times, he says, "Roof was workin', rock was a-hangin', and it sounded like thunder. The decade-long conflict between miners and the coal operators who adamantly resisted unionization has been immortalized in folksong by Florence Reece and Aunt Molly Jackson, contemplated in prose by Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson, and long been obscured by . They are demanding the standard UMW provision requiring the company to pay a royalty of seventy-five cents a ton on mined coal into the UMW Welfare & Retirement Fund. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". Attempts to organize led to the dismissal of employees who were suspected of having leanings toward the organization and having them evicted from their family homes. "This whole country is like a layer cake," Si Kahn says, "a layer cake of shale, coal, and sandstone. He says that, standing. Here at Kentucky Tennessee Living we fully support the coal miners and their families. Source Citation [ }] Descriptive Note Contributors from initial SNAC EAC-CPF ingest. Did she find the stick on the ground? He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. The company also agreed to abide by any agreement reached between the . There had been several clashes with the "scabs," the mine guards, and the state police, Kahn says. At these locations, the mine wages began to be comparable to other jobs around the nation. The union abandoned its efforts after less than a year. The Harlan County Wars took on its own epic spin on the ongoing fight between labor disputes and the coal operators and owners lasting almost ten years. Sudie Crusenberg, a plain woman in a cotton dress, gives us some idea of what life is like for a coal-mining family. Special Judge F. Byrd Hogg, a neighboring county judge who has been assigned to the case, entered an early order limiting the strikers to three pickets at each of two entrances to the Eastover Mining Company property. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. Five miles north of Harlan, we drive up Inspiration Mountain. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. It is home to lawyers, doctors and coal operators; it has a hospital, several banks and a few fast-food . The aftermath of this battle led to wider strikes in the Harlan County area. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. They point out that most of the big coal companies, such as U.S. Steel and others, have signed UMW contracts, but that the smaller companies of eastern Kentucky have held out. This active organization is made up of those who represent the leader in the mining industry. It is unclear who fired that shot but both sides claim that the other side did it. Now, forty-three years later, Harlan County is again gripped in a UMW strike, this time at the Brookside mine of the Eastover Mining Company, and another citizens' group has been formed. 1931, only $13.5 million. knee-deep in water, he has experienced many electrical shocks. Documents the 1973 Kentucky coal miners' strike against the operators of the Brookside mine and the Duke Power Company, which resulted from the company's refusal to honor the . Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. Here and there, we also see white-blossoming pear and dogwood trees. The women furnish the panel with a copy of a report from the Harlan County Health Department, dated October 12, 1973, which states that the drinking water in the Eastover mining camp, where approximately thirty of the striking Brookside families live, is "highly contaminated" with fecal bacteria. Mr. Troops had to be called into the county three times to maintain order. The kind of house she would like, if she could find one, would rent for about $50 a month, but she and her husband cannot pay that much. There are very few vacant houses in the county. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. Almost immediately after the explosion became known rescue teams, under the direction of J. F. Bryson, safety director of the Harlan County Coal Operators association, started into the entry. Capitalizing on the general . The transcript will be published as a book. I remind her that Duke and Eastover executives were invited, and have refused to appear before us. The women spent the night. A young woman from the Associated Press asks me, aren't we getting only one side of the story? In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? In "Bloody Harlan" in the 1930s, miners and union organizers faced bayonets and many died fighting the coal bosses, helping to fuel a national wave of organizing. Unemployment in 2017 was 9.4 percent, far above the national average. Arnold Miller, who was an active coal miner until three years ago and is now the reform-minded president of the United Mine Workers, has asked me to serve as a member of a "Citizens Public Inquiry into the Brookside Strike.". Where will the families go? Destitute miners were in no position to take a 2 wage cut; yet, in February of 1931 the newest in a long series of wage cuts occurred, reducing miners' weekly pay by 10 percent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. She says that she and some of the other women hid out last night to avoid being served with a contempt citation from Judge Hogg's court. (That is a tough point.) All during the day they worked in shifts, trying to penetrate to the point where the explosion occurred. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. No. An investigation was conducted on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields. The accident was investigated by Rufus Bailey, Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. She speaks in a soft, pleasant voice. So we lay down in the road." Nobody knows how long the UMW can keep paying strike benefits. The county became nationally famous in 1931 and 1932 when it was the site of one of the earliest and bloodiest labor battles of the decade. ", What about federal inspection? Project Summary. On Friday, March 25, a continuous mining machine operator was killed by a wall collapse at the Huff Creek No. An organic shape, small and shiny and pinkish white, sits . the meeting room. I don't like- workin' in them kind of conditions." Before the first meeting of the Citizens Inquiry, we sit around and talk with the Inquiry chairman, Daniel Pollitt, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina. Office files covering topics such as "accounts receivable," "baseball club," "coal production," "garnishment orders," "Harlan Coal Operator's Association," "labor conditions," "medical conditions . I have attended the University of Kentucky. It was [and still is] used to signify that what happened in the realm of politics, a field largely controlled by men, affect women's everyday lives. On the way back to the Mount Aire at the end of the day, we pass back through Brookside with its deteriorating mining-camp houses along the stinking Clear Fork River. This caused the clergy to denounce the union. Harlan County U.S.A. by Felicia Elliott, August 2, 2016. James Willard Pope officiating. Evarts welcomed the miners because it was filled with spurned politicians and business owners who wished to see the company stores and company men in political positions vanish. Make your practice more effective and efficient with Casetext's legal research suite. Yarborough is tough and unyielding. The Act also made a provision for a National Labor-Relations Board to designate a legal structure for the workers to conduct fair and legal elections of their officers and representatives. Why wasn't the fuse replaced at once? The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! Louis Stacy that he has several times been running a defective roofbolting machine when word came that inspector was on his way. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. More than twenty-four babies out of a thousand die before they are one year old, and the expenditure per child in the public schools is one-half the national average. The most memorable of those are 1964, 1966, 1969 (The West Virginia Black Lung strike that the miners won) 1971, and the 1974 Strikes. "With all those state police, we knew we had three choices," she says. The distance a miner had to walk and how time was looked at was in 15-minute increments. Neither will Dr. Robert Coles, psychiatrist and author of Children of Crisis. "They didn't say nothin'; all they want's coal.' In response, the coal owners and operators decided to sell their fuel at below cost to increase the national dependency on coal. We huddle before breaking up. It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. But, I say, even without further investigation of each of the complaints, it is possible to conclude that fear is an everyday part of the miners' lives. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . ", We break for lunch, prepared by the women of the Evarts Community Center. Darrell Deaton says there is a direct telephone line to Washington for safety complaints, "but if you identify yourself; you're gonna be out of a job.". The AFSC fed almost 1500 children in Harlan by the end of the 1931-2 schoolyear, as well as about a hundred nursing and expectant mothers. The trees are barely beginning to bud in the early March warmth. These guards were legally able to protect these men during their off duty time. In Harlan County, Kentucky, are some of our country's richest natural resourcesand some of its poorest people. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Each contract varied from mine to mine. Sheriff T. R. Middleton replaced Blair under the pro-union campaign platform. Middleton died on the scene. A reporter asks us again how we can expect to make an unbiased report when we've heard only one side. A third generation coal operator, he served as President of the Harlan County Coal Operators and the Harlan Mining Institute, as Vice President of the Kentucky Coal Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Kentucky. What a marvelous view! The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. No one knows who fired the first shot but when it was over four were . Soon enough, most miners had gone on strike out of solidarity. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. On September 9, 1935, for the first time since the beginning of the war, troops were dispatched to Harlan County on behalf of the miners by the Governor of the State of Kentucky. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. "It's one of 'em," Yarborough says. "I don't try to blacklist anybody," he says. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. Interviews with residents of Hazard who discuss the coal miners' union, the harassment union miners faced from large mining companies, and the unofficial strikes that are being organized in Hazard County. ", "They've done discriminated me," Grover Jennings continues. Yarborough's affidavit stated that "the group swarmed out into the roads, stopped cars, and forced company employees into coercive conversations and indulged in generally raucous name-calling and abuse." (Eastover, to repeat, now pays portal-to-portal wages for inside workers in its other mines and has raised the wages of nonstrikers to the UMW level.) Jacqueline Brophy asks why public services have broken down. He tells me that the miners plan to picket on Wall Street, hoping to give Duke problems with its stock. That commitment has never waivered, and has grown . (There is such a provision in the standard UMW contract.). It was settled in 1819 by Virginians led by Samuel Howard and was known as Mount Pleasant until renamed in 1912 for Major Silas Harlan, who was killed during the American Revolution at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). Barbara Kopple 's Academy Award-winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners' strike in a small Kentucky town. It is beautiful in Harlan County, as pretty as any place in the world. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. We hope that our hearings will help hold down violence. The strikebreakers were under the protection of private mine guards. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." "A gun thug pulled a gun on us, and I broke a switch over his head, and the little gun thug pulled out," Lois Scott says matter-of-factly. Four men were arrested in connection with this murder. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' The officials were listed were the "veteran safety director of the Harlan Coal Operators Association, and Rufus Bailey and H. Hamlin, state . Only 23 percent of those in the county over the age of twenty-five have completed high school. On May 5, 1931, the Battle of Evarts began. It is clear that these women have been a main factor in keeping the mine shut down. The miners speak of other dissatisfactions with Eastover and the old Southern Labor Union contract. Only to be escorted to the county line and told not to return. These charities began to give aid to blacklisted miners who were unable to find employment as the soup kitchens had closed once the NMU had closed its doors. Prior to Miller's election, the union had become corrupt, dictatorial, and a frequent collaborator with the mine owners. Grover Jennings says that six months ago he applied for a job at the Mary Helen mine and was apparently accepted, but that when he went back for his physical, Clyde Goitis, an official at the mine, said, "Buddy, there just ain't no way I can do anything for you. In 1970, Joseph Yablonski had led a rank-and-file revolt against Boyle, and Yablonski and his wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by killers hired with union funds. The United Mine Workers union also cited that they did not have the resources to help in the battle. After breakfast, we travel fifteen miles east to Evarts. It does not store any personal data. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. As the motorcade approached a single shot rang out in the air. Coal companies refused to back down while the Red Cross refused to give aid . Mostly, the miners were fighting for improved working conditions, higher wages, and better housing options for their families. Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. Word precedes him. When fuses blow, they are not immediately replaced; the cable is spliced or "hot-wired" around the fuse. Si says Harlan is a dry countyno legal liquor and no beer. The county was once part of Knox County, only becoming official in 1819. ", Bill Doan says that he was hurt in a rockfall at 7:15 one morning and that he didn't get out of the mine until nine o'clock. The men and women were released on good behavior. Looking for protection by the Kentucky National Guard, many were surprised to find that they broke the picket lines instead. "Not at all," Yarborough says. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." They also plan to join with a North Carolina group in protesting Duke's requested rate increase, and they are going to attend the meeting of Duke's stockholders on May 30. During the rest of the afternoon, the miners talk about what has happened on the picket line and in the local court. While their main objectives were a steady job, a decent wage and a program of safety checks . The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The Federal Government, with the Commissioner of Labor in a fact finding role, acted as a 'neutral' for the first time in contributing to settlement of the bitter coal strike. But will Norman Yarborough ever agree to recognize the UMW? We stop for fish and chips at a chain-operated Long John Silver's Sea Food Shoppe, as out of place in the Cumberlands as a clam in a spruce tree. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. Frame houses with rusty tin roofs. United States Washington D.C. District of Columbia Washington D.C . California labor activist Caroline Decker also raised money for the relief of the striking miner efforts. They want the terms of the standard UMW contract or better. (This . McDonald's. There are very few vacant houses in Harlan County and virtually no available land to build on. Isolated trailer houses. To prevent operating at a loss, on February 16, 1931, the Harlan County Coal Operators Association decided to cut all wages by ten percent. Harlan County in eastern Kentucky, which has been brought out into the spotlight this summer by the violence with which the local Coal Operators' Association has carried on this attack, is, as far as I can find out, a pretty good medium exhibit of the entire industry: living conditions are better than in Alabama and perhaps a little worse . Done. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." We first hear from a number of the striking miners about safety conditions in the Brookside mine. If for example, they did not behave in the way the companies wanted them to, they could lose all their benefits up to and including their jobs. A shoulder blade and five of his ribs were broken. A thousand feet below me lies a small, green valley, partly shrouded by the morning mist. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. You just don't hit a woman in Harlan County." In the face of what promised to be a lengthy struggle for the Harlan County coal miners of 1931, their wildcat strike had left thousands jobless and many homeless as well. Dateline New York City, November 13, 1931: Dreiser again denies the charge and adds, "Even if it were true, I wouldn't give a damn. (Brookside) were the only two mines of the Harlan County owner/operators association who rejected a 10% pay increase in 1933. The motorcade stopped and the deputies got out of their cars to return fire. The local grand jury returned an indictment against Dreiser for adultery, but by that time Dreiser had finished his work and had left the county on the train. Sometimes, they'll be a black scum on the rag." The miners say that they often have to stand knee-deep in water while handling 440-volt electrical cables. Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. The decision caused unrest in the county among the miners. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. She says that the women decided that they couldn't fight guns with switches and that they had taken sticks with them the next time. They're trapped. The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act or NLRA) guaranteed the rights of workers to choose to organize. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. At first, there were little battles with gunshots being exchanged between the strikers and the private guards, and the local law enforcement agents. Battle of Evartshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, Battle of Evartshttps://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, Battle of Evartshttps://wiki2.org/en/Battle_of_Evarts, Harlan County Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, A Brief History of Harlan County, USAhttps://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, Harlan County Warhttps://everipedia.org/Harlan_County_War, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/background-coal-strike, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/local-elite, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/new-york-writers, https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/coal-strike/national-miners-union-and-other-radical-groups, The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relations Act)https://www.thebalancecareers.com/the-wagner-act-of-1935-national-labor-relations-act-2060509#:~:text=%20The%20Wagner%20Act%20defines%20and%20prohibits%20five,or%20administration%20of%20a%20labor%20organization.%20More%20, BOMB IN AUTO KILLS KENTUCKY OFFICIAL; Harlan County Attorney Predicted Assassination for Backing Troops in Election.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/05/archives/bomb-in-auto-kills-kentucky-official-harlan-county-attorney.html#:~:text=HARLAN%2C%20Ky.%2C%20Sept.%204%20%28AP%29.%20%20The%20death,his%20automobile.%20View%20Full%20Article%20in%20Timesmachine%20%C2%BB, Elmon Clay Middleton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, KENTUCKY HOLDS FOUR IN AUTO BOMB KILLING; Harlan Prosecutors Death Is Laid to His Fight Against Slot Machines.https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands and Miners Compensation in Limbo, https://ohiovalleyresource.org/2021/03/22/blackjewel-bankruptcy-finalized/, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, For more about us, you can visit our Facebook at:https://www.facebook.com/kytnliving, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0oV5gFzIS2JdMJ3HvTOgA, When we forget our past and who we are as a people, then we become who they say we are. The Great Depression of 1929 through the late 1930s hit Harlan County Kentucky. ", Bill McQueen says that when the shuttle's lights and brakes were not working and the inspector was coming, the foreman would say, "Park it." A Committee was formed and conducted by Activist Theodore Dreiser under the auspices of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners (NCDPP). Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. "Why couldn't the original thirteen colonies live with the same British policy that applied to all other British colonies?" Three of the federal reports state that there was no safety committee at Brookside, as required by law. Willard Wirtz says that it is important to remember that one side of the dispute felt confident enough about their case to arrange to spread it before the widest possible audience. I have also attended the University of Pikeville. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. It doesn't seem like enough. The Harlan County Coal Wars lasted from 1931-1939. Yarborough replies. They have probably helped keep their own men from exploding too. There is no water in the house. No help came to those that were in starving situations due to no money to spend on food and no admittance to the company store unless they were gainfully employed by the coal mine. It was Miller who defeated W. A. Harlan, city, seat of Harlan county, southeastern Kentucky, U.S., in the Cumberland Mountains, on the Clover Fork Cumberland River. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. They just laughed about it, and we kept on cuttin' coal. Some of the women cut switches and joined the picketers. Si sticks a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek and begins to fill us in on the background of the Brookside strike. In America, the word describes a region, including Harlan County, Kentucky, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlantic coast. They are neatly and attractively dressed. New subdivisions named Tall Oaks and Colonial Heights. The SLU was largely seen as serving the interests of the mine owners rather than the workers. In the throes of the Great Depression, Harlan County coal owners and operators, in an effort to expand national dependency on their fuel, chose to sell below cost. J. D. Skidmore says that, back in the mines, the phones are always out of order, there is no transportation out until the end of the shift, and it's a one-hour walk to daylight. the foreman would just say, "We gotta run coal. Now, along a cloudy green stream, or through deep cuts in the mountains, or high atop a timbered ridge, looking down on green quilt-patch valleys, we wind our way toward Harlan. He decided to make Harlan County a test case in the UMW's new, more aggressive organizing efforts. We drive to the Evarts Community Center and report to the other members of the Citizens Inquiry. On May 5, 1931 the pot boiled over; in Harlan County Kentucky, heavily armed deputies and company men, called "gun thugs" by miners, confronted disgruntled union men on a road near Evarts. (Eastover offered fifty cents a ton.) My man was mashed up in the mines. They were convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. J. D. Skidmore says, "I have no chance of getting a job in Harlan County if this strike is not settled." Filmed during the coal strike of 1974-1975, this documentary does much to capture the tension brought on by the injustice of the coal operators to the coal miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. They fed strikers' children as well as the employed, blacks as well as whites. We gather back in Evarts and announce that our report will be ready in two or three weeks. or smaller.