MINERS REFUSED AID; "TOO MANY LIKE YOU," SAY RED CROSS AGENTS
Miners Refused Aid; "Too Many Like You," Say Red Cross Agents rTTHE latest correspondent to return from tbe far-flung front of industrial warfare, which extends from tbe Panhandle regions of West...
...Miss Paxton came upon workers for the Pennsylvania and Ohio relief committee doling out .food to tbe strikers...
...At Harmerville the mine barracks are built to a swamp, filled wtfb refuse, no other land being available...
...They cannot take on tbe added responsibility of caring for the sick...
...What she saw confirms to evexy (aspect the report of the Senatorial Investigation committee as to acute suffering among the thousands of striking miners an d their families...
...All over the fields'tbe children of tbe miners we p<^H"g over slag-heaps of fuel to keep warm the flimsy barracks...
...There tbe relief station is arranged cafeteria fashion...
...In Cambria County there are several instances of doctors refusing to attend the children of striking miners, with the -result that the union organiser is ¦ sending his sick ward into Pittsburgh tor treatment...
...They carry paper bags, baskets, floursacks, anything which will take away tbe sorely needed food...
...Long tows of women and children wait patiently to tbe cold before tbe miners' hall...
...Across the river from Ahrenfeld, at one of -tbe htarmet points of the Alleghanies, where a miners' camp clings to the side of the dark mountain...
...Miss Paxton documented her charges in regard to the failure of conventional relief agencies by giving detailed cases where social and charitable workers bad refused aid...
...This is to last for a week...
...Mine officials inform me that district and country nurses, sent to investigate conditions in the barrack and tent colonies of the evicted miners, simply make the most cursory investigation, and report that all is going well...
...A private physician at 1 PJanty-Glo refused to attend the wife of x miner unless the striker paid in cash, uid the child was bom without any 1 nedlcal attention...
...The entire situation is one of unrelieved tragedy for these workers who are standing fast for decent American wages...
...Miss Paxton stresses one outstanding phase of the situation, scarcely touched upon in the report of the Investigating Senators—the almost universal breakdown of all the customary agencies for relief of suffering set up by state, county, and community...
...If it were not for tne relief that Is being sent Into the state from outside agencies, there would literally be starvation in many of the camps which I visited," said Miss Paxton...
...Time and again I have heard the story of miners going to these company doctors in cases of confinement or extreme illness and being told to go back to work in the mines...
...At Portage, Pennsylvania, for example, the Red Cross workers tell the miners applying for relief that there are "too many thousands like you, and ¦ there is plenty of work at the mines...
...There is a great body of evidence, however, which shows that with any sort of relief in the shape of adequate medical attention, food, and clothing, these courageous men and women may win in the uneven struggle against such powerful forces as the banking, railroad, and other interests which are combined against them...
...In some instances there' is a lapse in this relief for several weeks, and in all cases the money sent in by the union for the purchase of food is inadequate for the maintenance of any normal standard of living...
...It was at Renton that Miss Paxton saw men, women and children with coal-scuttles to band, evarmtog Mke flies over a wagon-load of coal which had been sent in for relief...
...Too Many Like You," Say Red Cross Agents rTTHE latest correspondent to return from tbe far-flung front of industrial warfare, which extends from tbe Panhandle regions of West Virginia across tbe Alleghanies of Pennsylvania to Ohio's Hocking Valley, where tbe strike of miners against millionaires still continues, is Miss Susanna Pax ton, secretary of tbe Emergency Committee for Strikers' Relief, at 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City...
...So far as possible, -shipments are made by truck to communities within easy reach of Pittsburgh...
...Miss Pax ton visited miners' homes, watched tbe formation of picket lines, inspected the distribution of relief, and obtained a close-up picture of the whole* situation in coal fields during her recent visit...
...Funds for this must somehow be raised from among those liberal-minded Americans who are concerned with the welfare of future generations of American workers...
...As an applicant enters, she gives her name, and receives a sup endorsed by tbe local union's relief committee saying bow much food she Is entitled to...
...But to Ohio and more distant points, shipments must be made by rail...
...She comes back with first-hand evidence of the refusal of Red Cross agents to do anything to help the Innocent victims of this bitter industrial war, of the denial of medical aid to sick and dying members of strikers' families, and for the pitiful dependence of these people upon help from the outside...
...And all this is expensive business, requiring a steady flow of money from outside tbe mine fields...
...As a consequence of lack of nourishing food and warm clothing, there Is a great amount of sickness In the camps, a vast need for medical attendance, which cannot be supplied, or will not be supplied, by local authorities...
...All the resources of tbe relief workers must of necessity be devoted to the distribution of food and clothing...
...In many of the camps the only registered physician is in the employ of the local coal company...
...In this camp they have not tasted meat for more than two months...
...She saw the victims of police brutality, beard then-stories from their own lips, watched the long lines of hungry women and children in front of every relief station, looked through troubled eyes at the to-sanitary conditions under which tbe evicted families were forced to live...
...If there are more than two in the family, the relief consists of seven pounds of flour or potatoes, a can of beans, a can of condensed milk, a cabbage or a squash...
...In the long run, suffering and hunger may drive them back to wor kunder non-union conditions, such as prevail south of the Ohio River, where wages In the majority of cases are less than one-half the union scale, where the workers, many of them convicts and negroes imported from the South, are kept under artnfd guard, and where, in general, feudalism flourishes...
...Such relief as the union can afford is In many instances not enough to keep body and soul together...
...Red Cross agents are informing the strikers who come to them for relief, and many of whom have contributed to various Red Cross drives in their community, that there is plenty of work at the mines...
...If, after repeated calls, the company doctor finally consents to treat a striking miner, he invariably takes it upon himself to urge the miner to return to work on a non-union basis, These doctors seem to be more Interested in propaganda than in their patients...
...Donations of money or warm clothes sent to the Emergency Committee for Strikers' Relief, 156 Fifth Avenue, Ne„w York City, will be immediately forwarded to responsible workers in the field...
...Again, other physicians than the company doctors refuse to treat cases unless there is cash in hand, and there is very little cash in the coal fields these days...
...And here seven hundred men and their families are struggling for existence, with ne lunulug water In tbe camp, in a shanty, with tbe children running ftd m» fxpslet A local physician at Ren ton was called five times, accord-tog .to Miss Paxton's informant, and flatly refused to attend tbe ease of a sick child until he was paid in cash...
...Tbe food has been brought to this remote spot by truck from Pittsburgh, where, at the crowded offices of the headquarters of the Pennsylvania and Ohio relief committees, the nmntaju of the local unions have made known their needs...
Vol. 7 • March 1928 • No. 14
