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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 15, 1920
Logan County, West Virginia – Bastion of Industrial Feudalism
From The Nation of June 12, 1920:
Company-Owned Americans
By ARTHUR GLEASON
Montani semper liberi
(Motto of West Virginia)THE attorney of the Mine Workers has filed suits against the coal companies who have evicted miners. Each suit is for $10,000 damages for unlawful eviction. This touches the heart of the West Virginia trouble. In the non-union counties, houses are owned by the coal companies. Justice is administered by the coal companies. Constitutional rights are interpreted by the coal companies. Food and clothing are sold (though not exclusively) in company stores. The miners worship in a company church, are preached at by a company pastor; play pool in the company Y. M. C. A.; gain education in a company school; receive treatment from a company doctor and hospital; die on company land. From the cradle to the grave, they draw breath by the grace of the sometimes absentee coal owner, one of whose visible representatives is the deputy sheriff, a public official in the pay of the coal owner. As a worker under similar conditions once said: “We work in his plant. We live in his house. Our children go to his school. On Sunday we go to hear his preacher. And when we die we are buried in his cemetery.”
The employees live in company houses. Everything belongs to the mine owners, and home ownership is not permitted. The lease of the Logan Mining Company reads that when the miner’s employment ceases, “either for cause or without cause the right of said employee and his family to use and occupy premises shall simultaneously end and terminate.” The miners generally pay $8 a month for a four room house, a dollar for coal, 50 cents to a dollar for lights. Fulton Mitchell, deputy sheriff, states:
My understanding is that most of the companies have a form of lease, and when they lease to miners they reserve the right to object to any person other than employees coming on their possessions.