Who rounded up all these poor people and marched them off to these horrible places? How many thousands of guards, cattle cars, and German shepherds were required to keep the hundreds of thousands of doomed coal workers moving toward their hellish fate?
“One lifelong resident of the town told me that the teachers at Derby [Va] taught the kids the “three r’s: reading, ‘riting, and the road to Richmond
>>Who rounded up all these poor people and marched them off to these horrible places?
They were born there. It was the only regular work a person could find in those valleys. People didn’t have the mobility we enjoy today, and those miners didn’t make enough to save up for a bus ticket to another place.
But, these were all good people who worked hard, loved their children, and fought for this country when called. You may hate labor, but the men who worked those mines were better than any middle manager, stock trader, or CEO in existence today.
Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Sixteen Tons” told the story, and “Big John” supplied another chapter.
Apparently these people could not walk far enough to escape the daily reality that surrounded them from birth. But if you never knew anything else, even owing your soul to the company store doesn’t sound like too bad a bargain.
It apparently was a BIG step up from whatever the Austro-Hungarian Empire had to offer...
well that is what I am gong to say, these blokes could and sometimes did tell the mine to take the job and shove it, it wasn’t like it was a concentration camp, more of the take care of me attitude on display here, take care of me I am too hapless, I want a rich daddy too, y’all, only my dad is a poor liberal