MY KINFOLKS OF KY AND BEYOND
NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS
PAGE 9
Magazine personally owned by Kim Jones Dean
Life Magazine
May 29, 1939
"Bayonets Keep Pickets at Bay in
Bloody Harlan County's Little Coal War"
Page 26 of Life Magazine show photos of Harlan's Coal Mine Strike. The pictures have been separated out and each of the captions have been typed.
Under the glint of fixed bayonets, in Harlan County, Ky., "company men" and "union men" fought out the last-ditch battle of the Appalachian coal war. In all the other coal fields, the operators had given in to John L. Lewis, granted the C.I.O. demands. But in "Bloody Harlan" the operators held out and last week defiantly opened half their mines. National Guardesmen, ordered out by Governor Albert B. ("Happy") Chandler, grimly set up machine guns on every important road in the county, used their bayonets to keep pickets from molesting workers at mineheads. There was plenty of gunfire but both sides shot mostly in the air. One strikers was wounded.
President Roosevelet stayed aloof but the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation sent carloads of surplus grapefruit (see p. 28) which were distributed to needy strikers' homes. Federal conciliators predicted peace in Harlan County within the week.
(Photo on left) - A miner grins, shields timid woman as he quits for the day under heavy guard. About 2,500 reported for work, but after one day of it many miners changed their minds, stayed home.
(Photo on right) - Hand in pocket, a miner stands off a picket (right) with a rock in his hand. The picket lines held day and night. After one clash with the National Guardsmen, 46 miners were jailed.
These are surplus foods designated by Secretary of Agriculture Wallace and displayed by a Rochester grocer; butter, eggs, dried beans, dried prunes, oranges, grapefruit, flour and cornmeal. Up to now, the FSCC has bought and distributed billions of pounds of these to the needy. Sometimes families lived on pears, boys played baseball with oranges. Now an aged couple on relief (below) buy what they need from a grocer who profits on normal and surplus food.
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