U.S. Big Business Goes on Trial in Harlan, Ky.
OLIVER, BRYCE
U.S. Big Business Goes on Trial in Harlan, Ky. Industrialists Finally Face Jail for Bloody-Union Suppression By BRYCE OLIVER WKVD's Labor New* Commentator IN a tiny Kentucky courtroom—London,...
...More than four months will elapse after the final passage of the bill before it becomes effective and a whole year following that period before it reaches thirty cents an hour...
...Be told Thug Johnson jjjgt_here's the testimony in quotation: Senator LaFollette: "Well, what was said...
...Formerly, he had the job th* Harlan County Coal Operators' Association that Ben rjathank later had...
...headache, typhus, diabetes, convulsions and mental disorders...
...Merle, it seems, was pretty mad m^mt something one bight in Harlan...
...A Nazi who has heart-disease must not use digitalis, which comes from the Jew, Ludwig Traube...
...With 1928 as 100%, it stood at 67.8 in 1933, the year when Hitler came to power, and at 111.7 at the end of Mjp.- Bankruptcies have enormously decreased...
...Some time later, Musick and his wife were fired at as they sat in their motor car...
...In order to bring the bill before the,House with as little delay as possible, we substituted the Senate bill for the House bill, amended it, and reported it to the House...
...If he is a good •J* and has luck, he may some day stand on a platform and be p •* button or a ribbon or something...
...When he pleaded for the privilege of going back to get his wife, they told him: "Your wife is a good-looking woman and she can find another man...
...Sheriff Middleton claims he never saw the report of the Grand Jury, naming his relatives as among the law-breaking deputies...
...We recognized this opposition and in our recommitted bill provided an administrator within the Department of Labor with power to create Wage and Hour Boards to consider each industry and establish a minimum wage and maximum hour rate...
...The minimum wage bill will come before the House for debate on May 23rd...
...The enforcement is carried out by the Department of Justice...
...The Rules Committee refused to give us a rule so that the House might consider the bill and we were compelled to resort to the petition method to bring the bill before the House...
...It contains a challenge that I feel sure the American people will 1 accept...
...DOES IT ATTRACT YOU...
...I was in such condition after being kicked ggl was unable to go wfthoat bOpBOrt...
...Nearly all of the opposition was based upon this phase of the bill...
...This legislation we believe will go far to remedy this situation by establishing a floor for wages, a ceiling for hours and abolishing child labor...
...DECISION MUST COME FROM ALL FAIR-MINDED AMERICANS ^¦ANY people have asked me about how many workers will benefit from the provisions of the bill...
...OPPOSITION ON BOARD-POWER AND DIFFERENTIALS A MONG the provisions including a forty-cent-an-hour wage and a forty-hour week, the Senate bill creates a Labor Standards Board of five members, appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, each member to receive ten thousand dollars a year...
...Every business man knows that with the decline in business we have experienced during the past few months wage cutting has been set in motion and that this causes a vicious spiral of deflation which,, if allowed to gather sufficient strength, might threaten the very foundations of government itself...
...During three* years 250,000 ?2**e have been added at a cost of nearly a billion marks...
...And this was exehtsire of the various "voluntary" levies...
...It gives to the Secretary of Labor the power to investigate to determine whether violations have occurred but no power of enforcement...
...The people are employed...
...572 a year...
...This bill also ajnends the Senate bill but its provisions are entirely different both from the bill which passed the Senate and from the recommitted bill...
...Each of these efforts was made the object of a campaign—as in Russia...
...If he has a toothache, a Nazi will not use cocaine, or he will benefit by the work of a Jew, Solomon Strieker...
...Johnson: "Merle Middleton...
...It passed the Senate shortlyAhereafter and was referred to the House Committee on Labor on August 6th...
...They kept their hands free of blood by deliberately blinding their eyes to—refusing to know anything about—the practices of their underlings...
...This bill, which will be considered by the House on May 23rd, prohibits the transportation in interstate commerce of goods produced under substandard labor conditions...
...Hitler has done more—far more—than a Thyssen could have expected...
...It would be unthinkable for the coal mine owners, members of the Association, to know anything about Ben Unthank...
...Harlan County, as almost everybody knows, is a coal mine county, and the owners of the mines there are organized in what is known as the Harlan County Coal Operators' Association—its purposes, according to the membership regulations, much like' the purposes of any other membership association of employers...
...In the midst of "prosperity," foreign trade is kept ststfasMQT at a very low level only by a punishing subsidy...
...One writer tells me that he works sixty-two hours a week and receives a hovel to live in owned by the company, some potatoes, cabbage and bread each week, a pound of coffee a month and five dollars...
...When I was thugging, you know, I always had a chief that 1 took to ht the chief.** Senator LaFollette: "When you were thugging, whom did you take to be the chief...
...It is written to provide for gradual increases in order that it may not dislocate arty business...
...THERE THEY ARE— IN THE DOCK •"THE pillars of Harlan County took great pride in" the fact that W they supplied welfare workers and teachers for the schools, also physicians...
...This will give industry an opportunity to prepare for the change...
...Free Medical Advice for the Nazis OINCE Hitler has made it imperative that all loyal Nazis *^ avoid all contact with Jewish influences, we advise the Hitlerites to heed the following: A Nazi who has syphilis must not allow himself to be cured by salvarsan, because it was discovered by a Jew, Ehrlich...
...That's the closest the testimony ever came to the jjKlosure of real business relationship between any of the pillars of Harlan County and the thug-deputies...
...An American businessman should approve of all this...
...You read through the minutes of the meetings of resolutions on the Guffey Coal Bill, the Tennessee Valley Authority, of con- . tributions to the Merchants' Association, to the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the American Legion...
...and Otto Warburg: of the dermatologists, Judassohn, Bruno Block and Unna...
...But here is a pleasant thought for members of the Manufactures Association...
...They even thought it was a public service to help pay for the deputy sheriffs...
...If he has a headache, he must shun pyramidon and anti-pyrin because of the Jews, Spiro and Eilege...
...The so-called Wages and Hours Bill was then before *the committee...
...This increasing the production of mines, farms, forests—not to BJJ¦* people what they need but to produce substitutes for oil, tmltextiles- The prospects for success are dark...
...The businessman's function is not glamorous, he is no merchant adventurer...
...Merle, in-eidental.y, was paid for being deputy sheriff by the big Harlan-Wallins Coal Corporation...
...Our experience, then, decided us to bring to the_j(Congress a bill without differentials which would provide a wage which would be equally reasonable and fair for the entire country...
...They wast allow their men to organize...
...By WILLIAM E. BONN AMERICAN capitalists are always weeping for themselves...
...ALL ENERGIES TO WAR STRENGTH BUSINESS is good and employment figures high because the ' nation's energy has been thrown into three projects successively: the building of military highways, the frantic production of armaments, and the struggle for esgnomic independence...
...German economist* and business ten**** were not consulted...
...The Institute of Business Research estimates that to produce the raw materials Germany will have to add 16,000,000 hectares, more than sen her present territory—which reduces the whole idea the reSUi of day-dreams...
...As the story was told at the LaFollette investigation, a miner preacher, A. Musick, pleaded with the sheriff about that case, but was told to mind his own business...
...DDLETON, himself, was a witness and testified that he was in the liquor business with Pear Bassham, one of the coal : ine operators...
...All of this would mean a hujre expense to the government and very great power to the Board...
...of the surgeon, Istael...
...And yet, there they are, along with the thugs, in the prisoners' dock—simply amazed that they should be indicted for crime along with such men...
...let the mere amounts paid to the bureaucrats are not the ••ell of the capitalist's chief complaint...
...Their prayers and petitions should not go unanswered...
...Germany usee •" produce goods for export, and for these goods she reeeW" food and raw materials...
...It's an astounding thing—and somewhat frightening—to observe the practical owners of Harlan County, richest county in the Blue Grass State, sitting in the prisoners' dock as co-defendants with gunmen—all in the same boat...
...same period 267 hectares have bpen withdrawn for ^••rjF roads and other similar purposes...
...Following that request the Labor Committee again took up the consideration of a wages and hours bill...
...The capitalist's virtuous desire for a profit was frustrated along *a% labor's selfish yearning for beer and sausage...
...Barangaj...
...a floor below which wages cannot go, and a ceil- v: ing for hours which will have the effect of spreading employment...
...etr*S...
...The Board is to be provided with secretary, attorneys, examiners, regional directors, accountants, special consultants, clerks, etc...
...There is a High Sheriff in Harlan County, named Theodore Roosevelt Middleton, who for years has been appointing as deputies the guards of the coal mines...
...In the last analysis the taxpayers of the country are paying the bill...
...His'deputies were armed by the mining companies...
...This wage would give the worker the first year, providing that he worked for 52 weeks a year which is not at all usual...
...The final decision on a bill was reached about the middle of April and it was reported to the House with almost a unanimous vote by the Labor Committee...
...and of many such other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts...
...Nazi doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements of the Nobel Prize men — Volitzer...
...When it rains trouble here let them look at the fkwd which engulfs their poor German brothers...
...Tee government is both stockholder and market...
...They thought of him as the regular politician...
...If Roosevelt and Epiaaiaei are big bad wolves, then Adolf Hitler is a whole' pack of wolves with a few tigers and hyenas added for good measure...
...The system appears to be stable, tabor must take what it gets and be thankful...
...Apparently, they were as much surprised as anybody when it was testified at the LaFollette investigation that Unthank, a deputy sheriff of Harlan County, used the thousands of dollars he received in expenses for purposes which the wives and daughters of the mine operators would shrink from...
...Unless the wages paid by private employers are sufficient to maintain the bare cost <rf livjng such demands must continue...
...He did this by terrorizing the miners and keeping union organizers out of Harlan County at the point of the gun...
...Those who owned Harlan County would have him, and Sheriff Middleton, and his numerous relatives—all deputized—saved enormous profits for the coal mine owners...
...Tomorrow this system may break down...
...The only indication that might lead one to believe that the ssias liwitais wore not so terribly innocent of all knowledge of the Urrorism was the extreme precautions they took to keep from jjasing what the deputies did, and what use they made of guns sjki expense money supplied through Ben Unthank...
...It seemed quite natural to these mine owners to supply those things...
...IN short, a good loyal Nazi may fittingly and properly * remain afflicted with syphilis, gonorrhea, heart disease, ?"^thei-H...
...tt you look at the right figures, you will see at once that this system is a "•great success...
...I have been advised by the Department of Labor that approximately two million people are working under substandard labor conditions and these statistics were compiled some months ago so it is safe to assume that now this number will be increased...
...At the opening of the third session of the 75th Congress the President again asked Congress to pass a minimum wage and maximum hour bill to outlaw sub-standard labor conditions in interstate commerce...
...Today it is working perfectly...
...He said: "We walked down the railroad track from the town I lived in, - Louellan, and we got very close to the place known as Ridgeway, where the pike, the highway and the railroad run very close to-gether,,and there we were stopped by a band of deputy sheriffs, armed with revolvers, sub-machine guns, and shotguns...
...But this five-year-old govern-ssent has yanked the whole population into line—including the super-capitalists...
...Like the R**** the Germans are told that if they will stand it like good Spartes*) great will be their reward in the future...
...A Wage-Hour Bill Nowl Fight on Vital New Deal Law Rallies All Progressive Forces LOW WAGES, LONG HOURS IN MANY PARTS OF U. S. MAKE IMMEDIATE PASSAGE OF BILL ESSENTIAL—2,000,000 FOUND WORKING AT SUBSTANDARD CONDITIONS...
...Tax receipts by the federal government increased by nearly 200...
...It's going to be difficult to convict these mine owners of eonspiring with the thugs to break the law...
...Free of blood—yes...
...We were successful in having the petition signed by the required number of members—218,—debated the bill in the House for five days and at the end of that time it was recommitted to the Labor Committee...
...It is in the business administration...
...The heart of the Nazi system is not in courts and concentration etmps...
...There is an atmosphere of murder in this trial in London, Ky., where the sixty-six defendants include admitted thugs as well-as the leading citizens—supporters of the Boy Scouts, fjjirl Scouts, the Merchants' Association and the American Legion...
...The law would not apply to nor interfere with anyone receiving more than forty cents an hour who is working less than forty hours a week...
...They must pay taxes...
...The Labor * Committee and those other friends of labor in the House intend to pass this bill...
...If a Nazi has diabetes he must not use insulin, because of the research work of a Jew, Minkowsky...
...There Were slogans, meetings, speeches, quotas—with the liquidation of all individual or group efforts and ambitions...
...They bribed him...
...The federal government cannot and should not attempt to regulate wages of all wage earners throughout the United States...
...All that the secretary, George Ward, could tell about him was that he hasn't seen him in months but that, nevertheless, the Association will pay his salary...
...The government is always in the" way...
...The judge, in at least one case, called up a coal mine oner to ask advice regarding what should be done with a certain union miner who had been arrested without the service of a warrant The mine owner told the judge to set him free, which shows lew really kindly intentioned the mine operators are...
...He can't make a move "j|der his own power...
...VttHeton JEted hi kicking me...
...It was at the bottom of its depression...
...pERHAPS some American industrialists might accept this subordinate status with relief...
...No honest employer need have any fear of the provisions of the bill nor can any employer contend that the wages provided in this bill are more than necessary for the bare cost of living...
...RELIEF COSTS RAISED BY DISHONEST EMPLOYERS •TPHE object of the law is to establish a living * wage for those workers exploited by chiselling employers in the sweated industries of the country...
...Look at German production...
...State and local governments for relief and work relief...
...Sheriff Middleton, one of the defendants in this trial, is a former World War army officers, who was turned down for appointment in the Regular Army on the grounds of "lack of veracity...
...j_Bst the unfolding of the Four-Year Plan holds ominous warn-Much more than a fourth of the national effort goes into ?&****Ctive channels, for in addition to the huge sums taken in J*fm of taxes the government constantly makes forced loans, means pulling inf'the national belt, using less for food, housing...
...Deputy sheriffs were all around, but not one could tell the Grand Jury where the shots came from...
...GENTLEMEN...
...The plan will not work...
...A man by the name of Thug Johnson told the genaie Committee about Merle...
...cold figures prove that in the long run she cannot live wttbssl large imports...
...At the Senate inquiry, Musick told his story, and it included the story of a group of miners walking to another town to hear an address by former Governor Morrell of Kentucky...
...This...
...of the anatomist, Henle...
...s THESE pillars of Harlan cannot be connected with tha actual murders, kidnappings, brutal assaults and gas attacks which have terrorized the county for years...
...Nazis with convulsions must put up with them, because it was a Jew, Oscar Liebreich, who thought of choral-hydrate...
...Take the matter of taxes...
...There will never ¦e » strike...
...The greatest German industrialists subsidized Hitler...
...The story was told on the witness stand in Harlan under oath...
...Senator LaFollette: "What did you understand that position to tor-Mr...
...Labor organizations and the public generally objected to the creation of a Board to administer the law...
...nor will he be treated for Typhus, or he will have to benefit by the work and discoveries of the Jews, Widal and Weill...
...We were ordered to turn back, and a band of these officers began overtaking the men...
...Since.the early part of the century, it has been apparent in such metropolitan centers as New York and Chicago that much' of the gang crime was due to the winking of patrician eyes at the underworld, but never, until the leading citizens of Harlan County, Kentucky, were indicted and charged with conspiracy to break the National Labor Relations Law, have the forces of taw and order dared to make- a criminal issue of such conspiracies...
...Industry is humming...
...In 1936 one-quarter of the entire "¦Ikeed income went1 directly to the government...
...If you can forget that Jttie matter of human values, their accomplishments will fill you "with aw...
...A great number of employers have endorsed it and all of those who will benefit by its>rovi-sions are praying for our continued support...
...Steel, chemicals, food, industrial substitutes (ersatz) •J'wt be produced...
...They began to kick them and knock them down...
...He can't extend his plant, go into a new but, issue bonds, raise or lower prices, make wage agreements, ¦fcke profits—without permission from the appropriate Nazi j****- He must give thanks if he is left alive...
...When the Secretary issues an order finding that a particular industry affects interstate commerce, every employer in the industry who is engaged in interstate commerce is required during the first year from the effective date of the ' order to pay each employee 26 cents an hour and work him not more than 44 hours a week, the ¦ second year 30 cents an hour for a 42-hour week, the third year 35 cents an hour for a 40-heur week, and the fourth and each succeeding year 40 cents an hour for a 40-hour week...
...It has now a stable government with an increasing income...
...V»«E$FOR •ooo tors...
...He, hr turn, would give them a break...
...For the first time in crime'records, leading citizens of a community are charged forthrightly with conspiring with thugs and gunmen to break the law...
...The German administrative bu-amus were always the best...
...If American capitalists wHl take a square look at him, they will never subsidize a Fascist adventurer...
...He can never be a Rockefeller or **0Hl But he is the "leader" of his enterprise...
...Nor shall they if the great group of fair-minded Americans join with us in Congress who are waging the battle for the rights and protection of the underprivileged...
...Nasism has regimented one of the greatest industrial nations in the worli-Men with political and military ambitions have clamped on it* impossible economic plan...
...of the neurologists, Mendl, Oppenheim, Kronecher and Benedickt...
...The New York Times index shows stertan production at 76.4^ of the 1923-25 average...
...One of the mine owners, named Lawson, was an old school-Bate of Unthank, and yet he didn't honestly know, except by ktarsay, that Unthank was actually in the employ of the Asso-dstion...
...They must do likewise wit their psychic ailments, because Freud, the father of psycho-analysis is also a Jew...
...This should be clearly understood...
...The Four-Year Plan aims at autarchy...
...Johnson: "I understood he was chief over the thugs...
...The record of the Senate Investigation into the Suppression of Civil Liberties, however, shows that they are morally responsible...
...but now, at least, they must prove themselves guiltless of all intent to profit by the crimes that were committed for their benefit...
...By Congresswoman MARY T. NORTON Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Labor THROUGH the untimely death of the late Honorable William Connery of Massachusetts, I became Chairman of the Committee on Labor...
...No, the army would not have him...
...But in the midst of these activities the German capitalist is '**"tfct in a vise comparable with that which grips the working-"¦•fc...
...In accepting the chairmanship, to which I was elected by the Ways and Means Committee of the House, I fully realized that I was assuming a great responsibility...
...aaERLE MIDDLETON, of the heavy boots, is a second cousin Wn 0f Sheriff Middleton and enjoys the lucrative concession of iirating the bus lines for the miners...
...It was recommitted to the Labor Committee...
...Industrialists Finally Face Jail for Bloody-Union Suppression By BRYCE OLIVER WKVD's Labor New* Commentator IN a tiny Kentucky courtroom—London, Ky.—there opened this *" week a criminal trial that is unique in the history of this country...
...This bill permitted differentials and was objected to becauseTof them and also because it gave too much power to the administrator and the Wage and Hour boards...
...Added to this I am in daily receipt of letters from people in every part of the country telling me of conditions under which they are working that are so terrible they are almost unbelievable...
...Coal, iron, chemicals, labor power are being used...
...Government cannot indefinitely provide what is in effect a subsidy for such employees—a subsidy made necessary by the inability of the groat majority of such employers to maintain fair labor standards in the face of wage cuts by chiselling competitors...
...It is a sad life...
...The President has sent several messages to z-> Congress asking for a wage and hour bill which >-will establish the principle of minimum wages...
...These include the eoa*rftutions to the Winter Relief and to the export subsidy— very large...
...Their stocks and bonds are put through the wringer...
...Musick and his wife escaped the fusilade, but one night, as they were away from home, gunmen in a motor car passed the Musick home slowly, firing with an automatic rifle, and Musick's young son, nineteen years old, was killed as he sat at the fireplace...
...This all happened during the special session called by the President on November 15, 1937...
...The report of the Army Inspector, who handled Middle-ton's application, stated that Middleton's testimony at the trial of a soldier accused of selling rations to the French thoroughly discredited him...
...The payment of oppressive wages is not only detrimental to interstate commerce and to the health and well-being of employee* but also casts a direct burden for the support of such employees upon government...
...German mines may gtand the strshV but German farms and forests will fail...
...Sometimes there is a vague mention of wage scales and of agreements by certain of the companies with the United Mine Workers of America—but never a word about arms, munitions, killings, or a man by the name of Ben Unthank, a so-called field man for the Association who received thousands of dollars in expenses...
...If a Nazi suspects that he has gonorrhea, he must not seek to establish the fact, because he will be using the method of a Jew, Neissner...
...No, they knew nothing of Ben Unthank...
...The little Napoleons have forced expert) so industrialists to play a slavishly subordinate part in an exsj*US* that has no present and no future...
...He must not even take steps to find out whether he has syphilis, because the Wasserman reaction which is used for that purpose is also the discovery of a Jew...
...then, is our problem...
...It-cannot in silence see the-channels of commerce used to spread suffering and destitution...
...Private initiative ¦¦Paralyzed The boom is exclusively due to government spending...
...But the German capitalists don't love him...
...It is safe to assume then that our government" should not permit our great interstate industries to become engulfed...
...Let American business leaders survey the scene...
...What it has accomplished is a miracle...
...Today's Frankenstein Industrialists Hit By Nazism They Built BUSINESSMEN CONTROLLED BY FASCIST BUREAUS—HAVE NO POWER OVER PLANTS— FORCED TO TAY HIGH TAXES AND MAKE "LOAMS" TO HITLER GOVERNMENT...
...Commodities are being produced...
...We met every day for many weeks and during that time had before us every type of bill...
...If American businessmen think Fascism fat a good iostwuttnn are plenty of chances for them to make investments in it...
...I was overtaken by Merle Middlewn, another of the deputy sheriffs, and Mr...
...The second year he would receive $665.20 a year, the third year his annual age would be $728 a year and the fourth and each succeeding year $832 p*r year...
...Thug Johnson: "He said Ben Unthank was chief thug now...
...Now her labor goes into military reiaP> armaments, munitions—whyn she can't trade for anything...
...The President realizing prob- . ably more than anyone else the necessity for such a law, has urged us to pass, one...
...It never seemed un-American to them that the welfare workers, teachers and physicians, who owed their jobs to the mine owners, should, quite naturally, do their best to discourage miners from joining a union and might report the miners who aid join...
...For five years they have functioned nregiment business, industry, and labor...
...DEPUTIZING DEATH— TO UNION MINERS IJOW Ben Unthank, the mystery field man of the Harlan County * * Coal Operators' Association, happened to be a deputy sheriff as well, is one of the fascinating stories of the background of this trial in London, Ky...
...But this future will ***J' come...
...matter of soil, the amount of soil and its productivity, i** 9**n requires the addition of great areas of arable land drainage and fertilization...
...OH, LET HIM f, JUDOS...
...I could not go any further...
...Germany is naturally poor...
...However, the Harlan County Grand Jury did recommend to Sheriff Middleton that Merle and another relative, Logan Middle-tea, were not suitable to serve as officers of the law...
...ALL of this means something very simple...
...Middleton has been in-jjgfad several times on crimes right up to murder, but never convicted...
...The government has every motive for keeping busi-going...
...The report, be says, waa made to the court, and never reached him...
...WHO PAID THEM?— WHAT FOR...
...AS HE SAT BY THE FIREPLACE /"^NE night in October, 1935, during one of the periodic drives to force union'iwen out of the county, three men, said to be deputy sheriffs, took s union miner, Howard Williams, out of bed in his home at Cosplint, put him across the Virginia line and warned him never to come back...
...The labor . organizations, all of them, have endorsed our bHl...
...Events since that July day in 1937 have fully justified my expectations...
...The "private" '•Pitalist has become a minor functionary...
...It is your fight, your responsibility and the solution of it must come, not from the Congress of the .United States, entirely, but from the hearts and heads of the great masg of honest, fair-minded Americans who believe in playing the the game fairly, from the honest employers of labor whose industries have been destroyed by unfair competition and dishonest labor practices: and from employees who believe they too have a responsibility to the employers who are willing to provide a fair day's pay for a fair day's work...
...of lung specialist Frawnkel...
...This legislation we have devised may have a few faults—only time can show us those—but we do hope we shall at least be able to help that group of two millions of workers who are looking to us for assistance...
...This is entirely possible, in the opinion of those who know Harlan County...
...We know that during the last few years unprecedended demands have been made upon Federal...
Vol. 21 • May 1938 • No. 21
