There were only three cars in the motorcade each of which contained a sheriffs deputy. We soon get into a discussion about Dreiser's 1931 inquiry. 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. Duke went into the coal business directly in 1970 when it organized Eastover Mining Company as a wholly owned subsidiary and, through it, bought several mines in eastern Kentucky, including the one at Brookside. On September 4, 1935, Harlan County Attorney Elmon Clay Middleton, age 31, was assassinated by a car bomb containing eighteen sticks of dynamite. corporateBody associatedWith : Heyl & Patterson, Inc . I was born in Florida and grew up in Burdine, Kentucky. The Brookside mine is capable of producing only about a half-million tons of the 15 million tons of coal Duke uses each year. Willard Wirtz says he senses that the Harlan County Coal Operators Association is a major factor in the dispute, that it doesn't want a settlement with higher wages and benefits and tough safety provisions to be made by Eastover, because it fears the domino effect of such a settlement on the rest of the companies in the county. The Harlan County coal miners campaigned and fought to organize their workplaces and better their wages and working conditions. The women spent the night. Sadly, the state and federal troops would occupy the county several times. He says that they do not need the UMW to look after them; he will do that. There are nearly 40,000 people in the county, a drop of 36 percent since 1960. The Act was an attempt to restructure the industrial sector of the economy and to alleviate unemployment with a public works program. Horn's letter questions the fair-mindedness of the inquiry members. The accident was the second worst mine fatality in the history of Harlan County coal mining, the worst being Harlan Fuel Company . The members of the Inquiry panel leave the Community Center to visit the coal camp at Brookside-rows of delapidated frame houses, identical except for their weathering gray, green, red, and beige paint. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. 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 cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". In Harlan County, Kentucky, the 1931 Battle of Evarts ended in four deaths. With this Supreme Court ruling, all but one of the open shops in Harlan County went back to the previous mine operations. "You could hunt for one, but there just weren't one there," he says. He said that when the coal industry was at its height in 1928, the peak of . I am the only man in the United States who would do that sort of thing.". Typical of counties with low income, counties where the mine companies own everything and pay low taxes, our UMW driver says. "Boss walks up and says, 'We've got to make this mine look good now, boys; the inspector's comin','" Jerry Johnson says. "We want safety all the time, not just when the inspector comes," Jerry Johnson says. The prospects for settlement do not look good unless Duke begins to feel public pressure. But I ain't leaving because this is my home.". "I've got so many duns from the hospital that I just quit lookin' at them. Three Point, Harlan County, Kentucky September 16, 1943 No. However, the battle continues to this day. Yellow-dog contracts (Contracts where the employees agreed to never organize into a union before they were employed with a coal company), company unions, blacklists, all tactics that were employed by the companies to bust up unions, and discrimination-based on union activity were all outlawed under this act. Grace Elizabeth Hale. 1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. He speaks of "my people" and "my men." 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. Pay ranged from $17 to $32 day, the average being $25. She talks about hiding behind cars on the picket line for protection from the "gun thugs." She talks about a standoff against Basil Collins and the scabs and gun thugs. I currently live in Tennessee but my hope is to one day come back home to live in the beautiful mountains once more. Where will the families go? those in the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association, were run as open shops from October 27, 1933 - March 31, 1935. 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. Trailer parks called Walnut Grove, Mobile Manor, and Mesa Village Mobile Manor. It reports that "Piedmont" is an adjective derived.from Italian words that literally mean "formed at the foot of the mountains." The unrest continues in Harlan and surrounding counties as there have been many strikes. Why haven't the car bodies been removed from the highway and the streets? Overturned car bodies everywhere. 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. "But if they call me and ask if a man works for me, I simply say yes or no.". My man was mashed up in the mines. That year, annual wages dropped from $1,235 to $749. Crossing the Clinch River, we turn onto Highway 421 and leave the modern world. Harlan, district mine inspector of the State Department of Mines and Minerals, and James Bryson, safety director, Harlan County Coal Operators Association. Five men and their titles are listed and all are doing all they can.. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". 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. Prior to the strike, the pay of the Brookside miners started and stopped at the face of coal. 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. Norman Yarborough, head of Eastover Mining Company, is not coming either. Burger Chef. Whitfield's family was from Alabama where his father had been in the coal business. What a marvelous view! The bosses wouldn't go in, but I've. There were shots exchanged and all three deputies and one striker were killed. Sheriff Blair was voted out of his office in 1933 and died just a year later. On top of that, we learn later, the union is spending $108,000 a year for medical and hospital coverage for the striking miners and their families. We drive through the streets of the town of Harlan, past the stores and houses, past the Harlan Baptist Church with a sign out front which reads: "If you are unkind, you are the wrong kind." 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. Someone had planted dynamite in his automobile and when he started it up the car blew up. The miners express extreme dissatisfaction with Eastover's medical and retirement benefits. The main problem, he says, is that the company wants a "no-strike" clause, so that the union cannot strike during the contract period. Available for both RF and RM licensing. A Brief History of Harlan County, USA. There is a suit still in litigation. She doesn't know where she will go when the camp is closed. As part of his New Deal, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented and had passed the National Industrial Act. 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. Yarborough says that he will not agree to the contract applying to Eastover's subcontractors. In the year of "the energy crisis," Coal is King again at $30 a ton. "They sent me to 'Waterhole No. 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 . Dalton points out that there were 132 mine fatalities in the United States in 1973, only seventeen of them in UMW mines. Only three of the families in the camp have indoor toilets. "We run because we wanted to testify, and if we hadn't run, he woulda had us in jail." But, Aaronson says, Norman Yarborough had then called back to say, simply, that there was nothing of further interest to them in the negotiations More public pressure on Duke is needed, he says. They tell of two night incidents when rifle shots were fired at the picketers by unidentified persons. 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. Yarborough replies. 2012: $1,552,717. : The Harlan County Coal Miners, 1931-39 (Paperback) at the best online prices at eBay! These women have organized a special kind of feminist movement, and the issues to them are life-and-death issues. Killed - 12. The three houses with baths rent for $24 a month, plus $14 a month for electricity. Harlan County Coal Miners Deaths 1940-1949 1940 1940 Hayes, Petry - Harlan Central Coal Company Totz No. Now, Tony Boyle is among those who have been convicted of complicity in the murders, and Arnold Miller is the head of the revamped union. The Harlan County Coal Operators Association, still functioning today, spent nearly a half million dollars from 1927 to 1938 to combat unionism, most of it going to pay strongarm men to terrorize . Strike benefits are $100 weekly for a family, $90 for a couple, and $80 for a single man. Their activities began with a demonstration and march in Harlan on September 27, 1973. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Harlan County. Among coal miners, Harlan County, Kentucky, is known as "Bloody Harlan." I have taken several classes in Journalism as well as in the Appalachian History, Literature, and Sociology during my time at those schools. Finally, in 1939, the coal companies agreed to allow unions in their coal mine operations. Done. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. We are picked up at the airport by Si (for Simon) Kahn, a Pennsylvania rabbi's son who graduated from Harvard, came to the Southern mountains as a Vista worker, and remained here, working for local community groups. CBS is represented by a camera crew, and there are a number of national reporters. 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. 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. 1931, only $13.5 million. The Citizens Inquiry meets in the attractive, river-rock Evarts Community Center, directly across the Clear Fork from the site of the 1931 "Battle of Evarts." The judge's fines and sentences were appealed. Leroy Helton says he still owes a lot of bills that should have been paid by SLU. Eight miners were sentenced to life in prison for the actions that were taken on May 5, 1931. Coal employment in Harlan county dropped 53.7% in the second quarter of this year compared with last year, driven by Blackjewel's bankruptcy. I've read that in its heyday, the Blackjoe coal camp consisted of 60 or so houses. Miner Curtis Cress, 34, says towns that . The remaining workforce then went on strike as a sign of solidarity with those that were fired from their jobs. The next morning the toothpicks were still in place, it was said. 1938) Copy Citation . Talking to Aaronson, I am reminded of an old tin sign I saw tacked on a tree along the highway as I left Harlan. 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. So we lay down in the road." She talks about the women being armed with sticks, mace . It is a warm night and at every bend in the asphalt road we hear a chorus of croaking frogs. Harry Simms, who was a Young Communist League organizer was killed in Harlan. The nearest ridge is green with spruce and pine. And lastly, the Harlan Fox Mining Co - presumably derived from the Harlan Fox Coal Co - was in operation from 1925-1932. October 31, 2016. The mining company had ordered a motorcade to deliver food and supplies to the strikebreakers known as Scabs. "We took the sticks with us," she says. 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. The Red Cross eventually became involved in the county along with several local charities. Perched atop Inspiration Mountain is the modern Mount Aire Motel. Visit us and take a step back in time to learn more about how Harlan County helped build a nation at Portal 31 Exhibition Mine tour or come experience the delight of . It was the most violent attack of the Harlan County Coal wars and the most violence would only last fifteen minutes in total but would forever change the name to Bloody Harlan. Bill Doan says, "When I got hurt, I couldn't find Jim Miller, the man who had charge of the sick fund." There were only nine hundred miners working and 5,800 miners were idle and striking during the first strike. (Fifty million tons of union coal are mined in western Kentucky; only 6.5 million tons of union coal are mined in eastern Kentucky.) In the bloody 1930s coal wars, miners known to be union members were fired and evicted from company-owned homes. Is that the only objection that is holding up a settlement? After nearly 40 years of working in coalmines, David . Miners laid in an ambush on the day of May 5, 1931, near the Evarts railroad crossing. I remind her of what Bill Doan has said: "You work with one eye on the roof, one eye on your job, and your mind's outside.". "Dreiser, Woman Indicted," one headline reads. Nonunion workers were attempting to leave the mine. Dixon and union leaders worry that the union's disappearance in Kentucky has opened the door for coal operators to . A rural county of 27,000, Harlan County's average household income is about $29,000. He is a sturdily built, self-assured man of about fifty, with a strong, square jaw and a rough, weathered face. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. It is also women's day before the Citizens In-quiry. They made several attempts at holding strikes against the coal companies, but these failed in Harlan County. 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. He is dressed more like a miner than a mining executive. We never would find out what happened. Strikebreakers were often beaten. If you wouldn't do it, they'd just say, 'Get your bucket.' Unlike the previous Coal Wars that took place in West Virginia with the Paint-Creek Strike of 1912 and Matewan that lasted for a year or two. They are neatly and attractively dressed. Harlan Daily Enterprise, September 17, 1943. Did she find the stick on the ground? On May 24, 1931, Sheriff Blair rescinded the miners right to assemble and tear-gassed a union rally. Willard Wirtz asks how it will all come out, how the strike will end. HARLAN COUNTY COAL OPERATORS ASSOCIATION. The latest unrest in Harlan County came when in July of 2019, Black jewel LLC filed for bankruptcy and liquidation. It is thought that Middleton was assassinated for backing troops who were present in the County to protect the miners. I have two children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage. Pricing; Switch; Big firm; Featuring a haunting soundtrack-with legendary country . Lois Scott, a woman of about forty-five, begins to speak first. Mrs. Herschel Gaw, wife of the ailing jailer, locked them all up. In response, the United Mine Workers of America attempted to organize the miners. The name comes from a series of United Mine Workers strikes and labor-management battles which ended in a gunfight between deputized mine guards and miners on May 4, 1931, in the tiny community of Evarts. During the big coal boom in the early 1900s, Harlan County was amongst the largest contributors. Even though things were doing better for the unions in Harlan County, there was still civil unrest. At Washington's National Airport, I board Piedmont Airline's fat little silver jet on a Sunday afternoon in early March. In 1981, he traded coal mining for gold mining as one of the founders of the current . I have been married to David W. Sergent since May 4, 2013. With the opening left by the United Mine Workers union the openly Communist (NMU) National Miners Union tried to help the miners to organize. Freda Armes says, "I run him off. From July 30, 2019, through September 28, 2019, coal miners and their families have blocked roads and railways demanding their payment. 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.". That means, among other things, an average daily wage of $45. Harlan Fuel Co. Download PDF. Those with running water rent for around $20 a month, plus electricity. The transcript will be published as a book. This was not just a flashy slogan, and the truth of it is . America in the Harlan County Mine Wars, 1931-1939 Carletta A. Bush Early accounts of the Harlan County mine wars place the inability of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) to establish a permanent foothold in the county, first at the feet of of the Harlan County Coal Operators Association (HCCOA) and secondly at The Price of Coal, Part II. Others claim that his death was caused by an election concerning slot machines into the county. 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. 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. . Harry Caudill, attorney and author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, will not be able to join us in Harlan because of legal business. Harlan County Coal Operators' Association. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Which Side are You on? Daniels was one of the most hated deputies in the county due to his anti-union views. That's an old term in Harlan County, used to describe special, plain-clothed guards. had them make me go in and pin it because it wasn't done right the first time. "The personal is political" was a rallying cry of second wave feminism. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". After the Battle of Evarts, the Red Cross and the United Mine Workers Union refused to help the striking men on the basis that it was now an industrial conflict that needed to be resolved internally. The Seco Train Accident September 20, 1917, New Bank in the Coal Country Installed in 1911, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/new-deal/national-industrial-recovery-act-of-1933/, https://pipiwiki.com/wiki/Battle_of_Evarts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War, https://labornotes.org/blogs/2019/08/brief-history-harlan-county-usa, 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, 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, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/70804679/elmon-clay-middleton, https://www.nytimes.com/1935/09/06/archives/kentucky-holds-four-in-auto-bomb-killing-harlan-prosecutors-death.html, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/?fbclid=IwAR21nYphw4Dul-_EwuAmSWgzsvPLNwsMM0FtV75j0y-mGUHq-lCZjJxZot8, The Flatwoods Monster: Weird Appalachia Cases, Rotherwood Mansion: Weird Appalachia Cases, The Brown Mountain Ghostly Lights: Weird Appalachia Cases.