Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 June 1937 — Page 23
VERS PTET er fie aiden
| Third Section
Third | Section
PAGE 23
The Indianapolis Times
"FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1937 SE Entered as
The Abdication i in 3loody arlan’ The Rev. C. C. Harold Takes
Post as Conference Secretary Coal Operators Change Tactics Astor Inquiry ———
Times Specias BATTLE GROUND, June 18.—The Rev. C. C. Harold, Lafayette, toe By WILLIS THORNTON NEA Service Staff Correspondent
day began his duties as secretary of the Northwest Indiana Conference ARLAN, Ky., June 18.—“8Bloody Harlan” has washed:
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Other officers chosen at yesterday's sessions were the Rev. Barl its face and hands and promised to keep them clean in future.
Heimburger, Zionsville, treasurer, ; sh RAINS SEND WABASH U2
Matter Ind.
Second-Class Indianapolis,
PARTY EDITOR FLAYS F. D. R. LABOR POLICY
Young Democrat Magazine
and the Rev. Henry M. Braun, Chesterton, statistician. The conference approved a vote
Hits Harlan Probe and .
One of the last “frontier mining camps” in the country, Harlan County has been ruled for 20 years by the
of appreciation, recognizing action by Purdue and Indiana Universities to exempt Methodist students from compulsory military training. Mili-
By United Press VINCENNES, Ind. June 18.—Additiorial heavy rains yesterday sent
Wagner Act. raw and ruthless methods common to an isolated mounTT tain community where bluster, bludgeon and bullet were the successive courts of appeal .in disputes personal and. . economic. Today a measure of freedom has appeared in Harlan County. The coal mines no longer hire and pay their private deputy sheriffs. Recent open-air mass meetings of miners drew 15,000 men, women and children
the Wabash River to the nine-foot stage here, causing apprehension among farmers over their crops.
tary. training was eliminated from the DePauw University curriculum several years ago after church efforts.
By RAYMOND CLAPPER Times Special Writer WASHINGTON, June 18.—From an official spokesman for young Democrats comes a warning that the New Deal is leaning too much toward labor. The Youfg Democratic Clubs of® America have an official publication called the National Young Democrat. Its current issue carries many pages of editorials and articles, condemning the La Follette Committee's recent. ex-
ercion from either operators or organizers. Federal Treasury auditors are here, going into the accounts of county officials (0 see whether they have paid proper taxes on incomes which bore little relation
posure of the mine terrorism in Har-
lan County, Kentucky, and warning
the Democratic Party against encouraging the young Wisconsin Senator. Because this publication is the official voice of the organized young Democrats, its attack may become
a matter of embarrassment in the Administration. It was received with
displeasure around Democratic National Committee where all responsibility for it is disavowed. The editor of the National Young Democrat, Leslie E. Sanders, signed article defending conditions in Harlan’ County, charges Senator La Follette with Presidential aspirations ana says: “The liberalism of
the New Deal has lent itself in great
measure to the ultraliberalism of the La Follette manner and policy. The operations of the NRA have been tinder for the La Follette priming box. The manifestly one- -sided legislation known as the Wagner Act has been fuel to the La Follette political bonfire.” Roosevelt Backed Probe : Senator La Follette's investigation of industrial espionage and terrorism has had the support of the Administration. Department of Justice agents went to Harlan County to follow up Senator La Follette’s disclosures. The wages-and-hours bill includes provisions intended to exterminate types of espionage and terrorism which the La Follette committee
uncovered.
Senator La Follette’ S investigation of conditions in the mining industry i
in Harlan County produced . testimony to the effect that mine own-
ers had maintained an army of
thugs and deputy sheriffs, many of them former criminals, union organizers out and to terrorize miners. is packed with stories of murder, dynamiting, kidnaping, assault, forcible breaking up of miners’ meetings, public officials playing on the side of the mine owners. A sheriff who, until he took office in 1935, had never earned more ' than $150 a month as town policeman, accumulated a fortune of $125,000. Added
headquarters,
in a
Administration’s
to keep
The committee record
to listen wonderingly to union organizers harangue them. Six, months ago this would have been impossible. Six months ago a union organizer's life was not safe in Harlan County. Six months ago any such open meeting would have been broken up by armed deputy sheriffs be-
fore it could assemble; signs announcing a meeting would have been torn down. Six months ago most miners who even talked to union organizers would have been in danger of losing their jobs, if not of a beating.
# o 2
T the very moment when
radios along the main street of “Harlan Town,” as the miners call it to distinguish it from the
county, were blaring out the feudal ceremonies of England’s coronation; the Harlan County Coal Operators’ Association was meeting in its dingy third-floor headquarters and preparing to ‘“‘abdicate.” For the first time the operators were badly split on what policy to adopt. The way was being prepared for the things that are going on today in Harlan: The coal miners’ union, which did not have a handful of members six months ago, now claims 8000, about half of all the coal miners of Harlan. The- deputy sheriffs, hired and paid by the mines, have been stricken off the rolls, their badges turned in.
# # #
HE State Police have been A sent in by Governor A. B. Chandler with definite orders to protect union organizers, and see to it that every miner has a free choice of organizing, without co-
Instead of the local
to their official salaries. G-men are here to find out whether prosecutions are justified under the “denial of civil rights” statute, Two deputy sheriffs face a coming grand jury and possible indictment as cold-blooded murderers of a ynion miner’s boy. Others face the possibility of similar charges as the whole county law-
i enforcement machinery is given a
complete overhaul. a on ”
NION organizers go about their business without being molested, though even today they prefer to remain in their hotel rooms at night rather than risk brushes on the dark, twisting mountain roads with “high-ridin’ gun-thugs.” or such former deputies as may harbor grudges. Federal-built PWA centralized schools are rising to replace the poor quarters often provided. Legislative action to abolish permanently the ‘“company-deputy” system, and to control sale and possession of guns, is being planned. The county which saw bloody civil war in 1931, with at least eight dead men along the roadside at Evarts, the county of 70,000 people which had 64 homicides in 1933 is being dry-cleaned by new influences. ” 2 ” HE influences which are changing Harlan County are these: 1. The Wagner Labor Relations
~ Act, which has brought the union-
resisting coal operators face to face with the Federal Government government which they dominated for 20 years. 8. The La Follette Civil Liberties investigation, which ventilated
‘the evil practices of the Harlan
coal region so publicly as to cause a revulsion even among some of the coal operators themselves. 3. The Musick murder, a killing so cold-blooded and heartless that even some of Harlan’s.gun-bear-ing deputy sheriffs condemn it. 4. The persistence of ' United
Right out in the open sunshine of a ‘Sunday afternoon, these miners at Wallins Creek, Ky., near Harlan, are holding a meeting, eating sandwiches, drinking beer, and listening to union organizers speak. Six months ago it would have been impossible. But the picture is the first sign of a “new deal” in what has been called for many years “Bloggy Harlan.”
Miners hear union organizers discuss the proposed contract held in the hand of the man at the left. Matt Bunch, right, and George Titler, behind him, are two U. M. W. organizers, recently shot at and bombed, now working in the open. This picture was made in Pineville, Ky., the town from which Theodore Dreiser and a group
of investigators were ejected a few years ago.
Mine Workers’ organizers, who repeatedly took the gravest chances in their efforts to organize the miners. 5. A Gdvernor who was able to read the writing on the wall and exert the force of the State at the psychological moment. 6. Comparative prosperity in the coal fields, making miners’ grievances less heavy, and making the
operators less willing to face a
bloody and costly strike.
8 ” #
NION leaders like William Turnblazer, head of District 19, United Mine Workers, are confident thaf by midsummer Harlan County coal mines will be thoroughly unionized. They claim 8000 members in 26 locals in the county today. Should unioniza-
tion be completed; much of the cause of bloody conflict will have been eliminated, though sporadic individual violence is to be expected in a “frontier” community in which men feel “undressed” without a gun, and “feudin’” is still a common occurrence. Because Harlan County, Kentucky, is in the east, few people realize that it is still a “frontier” community. It is only 30 years since the first railroad puffed its way through the green hills to the source of the Cumberland River. And the real development of the Harlan coal field is only 20 years old. -If it is crude and violent, i‘ is the crudeness and violence of the frontier.
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up, the testimony drew a picturegof industrial despotism, absolute and bloody. But the official young Democratic editor went to Harlan County and came back reporting that this was not' a true picture. He reported that Senator La Follette was conducting the investigation’ so that he, and John L. Lewis could combine to form a third party. He found that niners didn't want to organize. “I had gathered the impression in Washington,” Mr. Sanders continued, “that the miners of Harlan were being intimidated by deputies. This assertion, to the p&son who is , acquainted with his Kentucky or Tennessee mountaineer is ridiculous on the face of it. . . . Your average Harlan County miner has far more for luxury and for his own diversion than does your average clerk working in Washington for what has always been considered to. be an overindulgent government. , . . He would be happy if left alone, and he is not likely to be turned aside into the paths of radicalism by the hirelings
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