Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

John Whitlock Interview

Becky Bailey: This is Becky Bailey for the Matewan Development Center June 14, 1990. I'm in the district seventeen office, of the UMWA and I'm talking to Mr. John Whitlock. Mr. Whitlock can you give me uh...whole name, and when and where you were born?

John Whitlock: John Whitlock borne at Shelby, Kentucky nineteen and twenty.

B: Okay. Okay.

JW: In Pike County.

B: In Pike County. Okay. What were your parents' names?

JW: Lewis Whitlock, and uh...Gladys Slone Whitlock.

B: And where were they from?

JW: They was from Kentucky, Carter County Kentucky.

B: What had..brought them to um...Shelby County?

JW: They came up in there to coal mine.

B: Okay. In what year would this had been?

JW: Um-that would of about nineteen and nineteen, when they came up in there just before the big strike.

B: Had your father been a coal miner before?

JW: No, he worked in a steel mill. He worked for Armaco Steel.

B: And what did he do in that mill do you know?

JW: No, I don't.

B: Okay. How many children did your parents have?

JW: Seven.

B: Did a company doctor deliver you all or was there a mid-wife or uh?

JW: It was a company doctor.

B: Okay. Did your father fight in World War I or any of his relatives?

JW: No, I don't know...no I don't know, not as I know of.

B: Okay. How about the flue [sic] epidemic that followed the war?

JW: Uh...the flue epidemic killed two of my brothers but they was young at that time, I hadn't see I hadn't been borne then.

B: Uh...huh. Did your did your parents ever talk about that or uh... how many people where they lived were sick or anything?

JW: Yeah, I heard them talk about it, they said it killed oh, hundreds of people over in that country there.

B: Uh-huh. What time of year did it hit over there? Did they ever say?

JW: No, I never did hear them say.

B: Okay. What company did your father go to work to, when he came to Shelby?

JW: I don't remember the name of the company, he didn't work too much, they come on a strike, during that big strike you see, and then they didn't work no more when the strike was over, they was he was one of the organizers, tryin' to get the union in.

B: How did he become a organizer do you know?

JW: Well, the...they wanted a union they wanted slave labor, just like no wages, slave labor, no health benefits no nothing or else the men got tired of it, started tryin' to organize a union.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Did anybody for the outside, from the national union, did they come and help them or uh?

JW: Yeah, they would come in, but really you see they wanted established they was no money involved, more than what they could bum groceries or whatever to feed the men that was on strike with you you see. The men the organizers then they didn't even draw payday, they'd haul in food for them and stuff, you take an organizer now makes about thirty-five thousand a year and they done the job for nothin' in just in order to get a union so they could make a livin'.

B: Now were there company houses over there or did I mean was there a tent colony during the strike like there was over here?

JW: Well No, there wouldn't company house they was a small operation over there they wouldn't company house but he come over in this country in nineteen and twenty. Yeah, I know he told me about a Baldwin-Felts coming in here settin' out people, see he was here durin' that killin' my dad was.

B: Did he see anything, or was he just over here in that area?

JW: Well, he...he saw a whole lot, but he'd never tell it 'til after 'til after about he talked about some that got in trouble but he never say anything about it until after they died. Yeah. These Baldwin-Felts come in here and set people's furniture out and poured there food out on the ground and then a lot of people wants to let on like them Felts agents was framed and all this the people killed 'em and uh...what they done was just protecting their selves. They come in here settin' 'em out bruise them around the men just wouldn't put up with it.

B: When your father came over here did he come by himself or did he bring your family with him?

JW: We moved over here, we moved to Sprigg, down below here.

B: Okay, Okay. Um...When this was going on where did he, did you move into a house or a company house or a tent colony or....?

JW: We had...we had our private owned house.

B: Private owned house, okay.

JW: Yeah, there's a bunch of old people that lived in tents, some in North Matewan here some where the golf course is now, down this side of Sprigg. They, companies would come in and set out, put 'em out, they would just have to put tents anywhere they could get.

B: Okay. What did your parents tell you about life during the big strike?

JW: Well, the only thing that ever, I knew about it was rough, you had a hard way to go, of course, we lost that strike they even sent the National Guard, the Army, and everything else in here to block them. Plus um...the hired guards the companies had Thugs, yeah.

B: So when did the, did the strike end really was there a definite end to it or uh...?

JW: Well, uh it never did plum, it never did die down, but it come back it started back in nineteen, last part of nineteen and thirty-three it started coming' back in. That was when Roosevelt was elected, he gave us a right to organize, see when, then we didn't have a right to even organize. That was under Hoover administration. (sneezes)

B: What did your father ever say about presidents like Hoover, what did... did he ever say anything about Hoover?

JW: Well, he never said no more what everybody said, it was a depression, and everybody was well, there's a lot of days a person, you didn't get nothin' to eat there's, you work for nothin' that's what the corporation want that's what these coal company's want, they like to see it get back like that.

B: What was it like for you growing up during the Depression, 'cause you would of been thirteen in 1933, right?

JW: Why yeah, I went with my dad when the union came in the last time, and they'd have to hold union meetin' when they were organizing and uh... on side of the hill in pawpaw patches, bushes anywhere they could gather for a union meetin'.

B: What would of happened if somebody would of found them say a guard would of found them what would of happened?

JW: Well, they done got strong then, they done had a right, you see Roosevelt done gave 'em a right to organize and there wanted to much the law could do. Yeah.

B: But before it became legal would the men meet did they have union meetin's before?

JW: Oh, yeah they'd still meet sneak around and meet and everything, yeah..yeah. I know we lived there at Aflex down here when uh...the union come back in the last time, they give they cut, there company houses there they'd cut peoples' lights off 'cause they wantin' to join the union and the men was join' the union, threatin', settin 'em out and everything, but they never did set them out they threatened it, Bill Leckie was uh...general manager there, I class Morgan Massey as another Bill Leckie.

B: What do you remember about Bill Leckie?

JW: He was a union buster is the only thing I know about him, he hated the union. They got him organized, but they uh...had a time.

B: Why did he hate the union so much, I mean was it just because?

JW: Well, when you work in the mines for nothin' and you... you under a union contract you got to pay 'em a little, when can you worked and slaved him twelve, fourteen hours a day for nothin' you'd hate the union too.

B: Did these people that hated the union did they ever accuse the union of being Communist, that you remember?

JW: Well, uh...they accused us of being everything, (Laughs) yeah.

B: I was just, I was asking that because in the history books, you know, they say that back then they tried to turn the rest of the country against unions by saying they were Communist and I was wondering?

JW: If there's any Communist at 'tall its in the corporations its not in the union.

B: Why do you say that?

JW: Huh?

B: Why do you say that?

JW: Well It's...it's the way they run it now it worse than the Mafia, you gotta do, do what the company says or they get shed of you. Yeah, there's more Communist in the company that in there was in the union, anytime a man can't work a shift's work an go home why uh...the boss tell you to stay back and work ten hours, twelve hours, or whatever why he's tellin' you something again your constitution rights and if you worked there you done what they said, at a union you can work eight hours and go home.

B: Well I had one lady that I interviewed, she said her father worked this was back in the twenties, that where her father worked, man was assigned a certain load for that day and if he didn't get it in a shift's work that he stayed and worked through and sometime she said her father worked two straight shifts, trying to get his load because he had so many tons, he had to get done.

JW: Well, back then, back then you see, they loaded by hand, with a shovel and a car and the boss would tell you, when you go in you bring that cut of coal or you bring your tools, you bring, clean your place up or you bring your tools out because you didn't have no more job. There wouldn't no eight hours or nine hours or whatever time it took to clean your cut up, why that's how long you'd had to stay. And that's what these companies would like to see again. We never had no problems in this country's here until Massey moved in here, everybody got along good, and uh...worked under union contracts, these...these other companies I...I liked workin' in these places they didn't have any problem with the union, why should Massey hate the union so?

B: Maybe, because they're from Virginia, is that where they're from?

JW: Yeah, they have a right to work law state, but that's...still don't give 'em a right to come to West Virginia and take over.

B: When did Massey come to this area?

JW: Ummm...he come in uh...in uh...and uh...early sixties I believe it was. The union has been goin' down hill ever since he came in here, and it's up to us to straighten it up. It ain't over, this is nothin' like over. They'll be struck again in '91 and uh...the people is learning a lot now that they didn't know then, he's...he's schooled a lot of people, just by what he's tryin' to do here. But now, you take these bankers and politicians and ninety percent of 'em that's kind of people they want in here, people like Massey. If I could donate them a hundred thousand a year, Jim Bonn up here donates 'em about a hundred thousand why uh...I'd think a whole lot of 'em too.

B: Uh...just so I'll have it on tape, when did you go to work?

JW: I went to Red Jacket coal company up here at Red Jacket, in nineteen, first part of nineteen and thirty-eight.

B: Did you finish school before you went to work?

JW: No, I had to quit in the eighth grade and get a job myself.

B: And why was that?

JW: Huh?

B: Why was that?

JW: My dad become disabled and I had to come to work.

B: Now, did he get any kind of help or any pension or anything like that? Or did they just lay him off? JW: Well, you see he hardly got his twenty year in before he quit, you see, and uh...then compensation was out of the question. He got hurt on Pond Creek one time over here at Huddy Coal Company and instead of taking him to the hospital, that was before the union came in, they brought him home where we lived in Belfry Holler, dumped him out on the porch like he would an animal. And that's what made a union believer out of me, the way the men was done, I growed up learning all the way what...what's goin' on what's happening, when the people holler it's a good coal company, they're lying to ya, they's no good coal company, they out for that almighty dollar that you could work, slave and give 'em.

B: What had happened to your father was what kind of accident was it?

JW: Slate fall, back injury.

B: Alright. I know a little bit from what my grandfather told me but so I'll have it on tape, what happens when the slate falls, does that mean that somebody didn't shore the roof up there right or uh...?

JW: Yeah, um-hum then there wouldn't no such thing as a thing as safety, under union we've got safety committees you see of our own people, and if you see something dangerous in the mines you report it to the safety committees' they'll come and investigate it and have it fixed before you have to go under it, but then back then, the boss told you go under it, you go under it or you go home you and got no more job, that's the way it was.

B: At that time, was the men themselves .....still responsible for putting up the timbers or did they have a crew to come in and do it?

JW: Well You done what the boss said if the boss gave you time to put a timber and you put it up and if you didn't you went under it or you went home. Just slavery, what it was.

B: What was your first job after you quit school?

JW: Uh- well I just done little old odd jobs and uh...construction work, help building house or two, you know, just carryin' lumber, and stuff like that.

B: Where you wantin' until you were old enough, to get in the mines?

JW: When I 'come eighteen, I went in the mines yeah.

B: What was your first job in the mines?

JW: Shootin' coal.

B: Okay. Would you describe that for me?

JW: Well, you used powder and uh...used a cable and electric caps, yeah, see there's a machine that cuts the coal and drill it them you come by and shoot it.

B: And did the other... did the miners, then come in and...and...?

JW: When I went in see that was in thirty-eight they just bringing the joys, you know the loading machines, joys and uh...we had them when I went in the mines, just more less bringing 'em then. The loadin' machine come in a loadin' it then.

B: Okay. So by that time what did a man do in the mines, say other than your job, which was shooting coal. What other kind of jobs were there in a mines?

JW: Well, they had what you call, a joy man, a track man, timber man, they worked about, worked the coal about what they call, each section they worked about thirteen men, which they use about four five men now. Of course, they, you know, got more modern equipment and machinery now than they did then.

B: Okay, now were they still running the company store and all that when you were..?

JW: Yeah, they had scrip, I don't know whether you've ever saw any or not, uh...they had scrip at the company I worked for at Red Jacket.

B: Okay. Were you all still getting paid in scrip after the union came in or?

JW: No, we got paid in money, but durin' between paydays, you tradin' at the company store you could even trade your scrip here in Matewan I think for about ten or fifteen cut on your scrip you see, and uh...used it instead of credit, you see, you take your scrip card and go draw you some script whatever you needed, spend it at the company store. Still, on pay day you'd draw your money.

B: When did they start building the miner's hospitals and stuff like that?

JW: Umm...I don't know I think they sold in fifty-six, I don't know when the exact year they was put in, they was put in the forties, early forties.

B: Where was the closest one to here?

JW: Williamson, South Williamson.

B: South Williamson.

JW: That's what they call the Appalachian Regional Hospital, now. That was a miner's hospital then. They built ten of 'em.

B: Now could a miner go there for anything, any health care?

JW: Uh-huh, yeah as long as you was employed. (coughs)

B: Did you have to pay or uh...?

JW: No, your hospitalization, does. See they paid uh...there was a royalty they paid on ever ton of coal, went into a fund that took care all the health care for miners.

B: Uh-huh. Why was the hospital sold do you know?

JW: No, I don't not exactly, sure don't.

B: Do you know who made the decision to sell 'em?

JW: Well, John L. Lewis sold them yeah, yeah. They was sold, they got in the red some way or another, how come him to sell them. I think what happened was the whole lot was the doctor's faults, they got to overcharging we didn't have people back then auditing the books. You would go down there for a skint fingernail and they would charge whatever they wanted to charge you and nobody was checkin' on it. They just breakin' the fund, what they were doin'. We got people that's lookin' out for that, we got people auditing the books, if they overcharge why we don't pay it.

B: What did you think of John L. Lewis?

JW: Well, John L. Lewis was the greatest thing that ever happened to 'em coal miners. But he didn't do it by hisself, it took the men to do it, you can't in uh...national, the president in a national can't run a union by himself, the men is the union, only thing that John L. Lewis or Rich Trumka or anybody else can do more or less negotiate contracts. It's up to us to hold this union together.

B: Uh-huh. Okay now, when you first went to work did blacks and whites work in the same sections together or within the mines?

JW: Oh yeah, yeah.

B: So they were, the mines were integrated?

JW: Oh, yeah everybody got along good. Well its been a peaceful community all the way through until Massey Coal Company came in here and broke and wouldn't sign contract and started bringing scabs in here out of Virginia, Tennessee, far away as Florida, he brought them from all states taking these men's jobs that's what tore the country up.

JW: They all the time a praising Massey, they let come make these big speeches at these Rotary clubs and Chamber of Commerce clubs, main speaker and all that, if I had my way about it he wouldn't come to Mingo County. Because, he ain't here for the Benefit of the workin' people. Of course he brain washed a few of 'em, he'd fix around a school house, hard top around the school house or something', but he brain washed a bunch of people that weren't for the benefit of the man here workin'.

B: Now, tell me on tape what do you think of the men that were brought in for scabs wha....what do you...do you think about a man that scabs?

JW: Well, a man that will take a man's job and scab, he's lower he's a scum, he's lower than the snakes that crawl, they don't maxim nothin' worse than a scab.

B: What's, what's the danger in a man being' a scab?

JW: Well there ain't too much danger right now there could be danger if...when the men wake up, I know when I was workin' there was plenty danger, if we even suspicioned a scab being' in town he left town right away. A lot of people look at it the wrong side of it, well, he's got to work a make a livin' but this man he took his job away from, they say don't hurt that scab, but he took your job he hurt you and your family so why not hurt him, if it takes hurtin' 'em, to get him out of here, I say lay it to him. That's what I think about it, and they all pretty well know how I feel about it any how.

B: What did you think of the 48 hours people that came in and talk to you, what did...did you watch their special?

JW: Yeah, yeah I was on that show.

B: What...what did you think about how they told the story or what was going on?

JW: They done a good job, I think yeah, they done a good job. In Virginia and here too. They done exactly, they put on exactly what was said...Yeah, they done a good job.

B: You don't they misrepresented anything you said?

JW: No, no I don't.

B: Okay.

B: Some of the men we've talked to has said that workin' at Red Jacket was different once Island Creek took over. Did you work after that?

JW: I worked for both companies, yeah. Why no, a lot of guys thought they didn't like Island Creek, I just as soon work Island Creek than Red Jacket, they wanted you to do a day's work, they's a lot of guys that didn't want to put out and do a day's work. They got by with Red Jacket easier than Island Creek, they believed in eight hours work of course, a if you good man and good miner, and a good union, good union will give you eight hours of work. They don't need a boss.

B: Did the uh...I guess some of the men said that Island Creek didn't take care of the community as well as Red Jacket did.

JW: Well, I didn't see no difference.

B: Okay. In the early years at Red Jacket was there a uh...company school up there or did all the kids come down to Matewan and go to school?

JW: No, there was a Red Jacket school up there, yeah there still a school up there, course it's all non union now, you see uh...Massey Coal Company got it all leased out up in there and Jim Bonn from out of Virginia in here and just about brought all his crews with him, you see. Sixty-five percent of your men working at Red Jacket ain't even out of Mingo County, they came out of Virginia.

B: Now from talking with you this morning it seems like that you're up on the national union news, how does it make you feel when, coal company executives say, that the people down in West Virginia don't know the reality of the rest of the country's doin', how does it make you feel, do you think they're wrong, do you think you know what's going on around the rest of the country and around the world?

JW: Well, I get the news, same as they do, I don't want they know that I don't know, I do get the news.

B: What do you think when they say that the union is short sighted, the union's only thinking about getting paid more tomorrow?

JW: Money ain't what the union is all about, and uh...that's....the money that's what they're thinking' about, we're short sighted for not holding 'em to it more stronger than what we are, money it ain't in the deal anymore, we ain't asking for money, we asking for better health care, better safety, we ain't had nothin' but problems, since this rough Republican party been in D.C., Reagan started all this union fussin' when he fired them air controllers and got away with it, if the whole United States at that time would of just dropped what they were doin' nobody turned a wheel, Reagan would of put them back to work, that would....they would of been more strike problems, but since he got away with firing those air controllers that gave the's other corporations, the signal we can do it too.

B: Do you believe that the future of union is to have one big union and one union strikes that...that all other workin' people should strike do you think that would help?

JW: No, no I don't but in that case when it was federal like when Reagan, when he done that I believed in it then. But I don't believe in car manufactors havin' to strike with miners, there's no way we could do that. And something' else that Trumpka made a mistake on was this selective strike, you can't strike one little mines here and not strike the rest of 'em see always before Trumpka, when it...come a time to international contract everybody come off the job and we always got a contract, but this selective strike won't work in a coal field, it'll work in a car factory, you got the big three there you see, you can strike Chrysler, and these...Chrysler's afraid GM and Ford is going to take their businesses so they'll right away and sign a contract in order to get back to work but, coal is all black you see and you can't just strike just one coal field.

B: Has he changed his strategy on that, do you think has he learned his lesson, so to speak?

JW: Well, they havin' another convention in seventeen and they done a lot of...rev... uh...in September, they's a lot of revolution goin' in for a lot of stuff to be changed, I don't know whether we get it changed or not but if we don't and somebody run agin' him we'll change him. (they both laugh)

B: Now the union has had some trouble through the years with its presidents. What do you remember say about Tony Boyle?

JW: Well, Tony Boyle was fair, what I mean he done a pretty good job at gettin' contracts, he done the wrong thing when he hired killers to go over there and kill Jock Yablonski in Pen... Pennsylvania. That was wrong, they if you do wrong, regardless what you doin', if you doin' I say you should be punished for it.

B: People say that at that time the upper level of the union had become corrupt and was taking advantage of the men in the union do you think that was true?

JW: Well, I...to some extent, yeah, yeah. I believe about the honest man we had for president, of course he was like myself he wouldn't all that smart and he was a sick man too, was Arnold Miller, he was as honest president of the mine workers that's been. But he...he just wouldn't able to handle the job.

B: When was he president to you remember?

JW: Mmmm...it was in the early seventies, then we had one...Sam Church, after that and uh... Rich Trumpka.

B: To be in the...the union to say have a office in the union like an elected office do you have to been a coal miner? Was Trumpka a coal miner?

JW: uh...huh

JW: Um-mum. You're suppose to have uh...five year course I don't whether, they're been any got by it or not.

B: Okay now, I figured from what you said that you are against Ronald Reagan, do you think that Democratic party is better to unions, let's say than the Republican party now?

JW: Well, it's been proved all history has proved it's self Republican party has been for national they've never been for labor from Hoover on up, I guess you've heard of Hoover?

B: Uh-huh, yes sir. I won't tell you what my grandfather called Hoover, not on tape anyway.

JW: Hey, I saw whole families of people in boxcars, they wouldn't even arrest 'em and put them in jail, they would have to feed them, there was whole families, they didn't care they did...they didn't have no home, they anyway they got off was fine with them, 'cause they didn't have anything anyhow.

B: Now, we've been told stories that people would get on trains, they were like hobos, now did they, did they get off trains, did they work, or did they beg for money, or did they steal?

JW: They would work if they could find any, ninety percent of the people then all would work they's, you got less people now, more people won't work than you had then, then they just couldn't find jobs, they would bum a nickel, dime, or some meal or whatever that was fine, but ninety percent of the people would work, but there wouldn't no jobs.

B: Now I know to make money, my grandfather made moonshine during the depression, did many men did many coal miners around here do that?

JW: Yeah, there were some yeah, yeah. And I don't blame them for that, that's the only way to make a livin' if you can't make a livin' one way by workin' you got to make it someway, I believe in makin' it anyway than takin' a man's job and that's called scabbin'.

B: Now, I heard a Republican candidate speak the other night and uh...she said in her speech that John L. Lewis was a Republican all his life, do you believe that?

JW: Well, not necessarily, I know uh... he fell out see he was for Roosevelt, whether he was a Republican or not, Roosevelt was the man that gave him a right to organized, if it hadn't been for Roosevelt, they wouldn't of been a John L. Lewis or...or organize labor now, he did support Wil...Wilkinson, Governor of New York, again Truman, him and Truman fell out he just he didn't like Truman personally. But still, you see, we didn't pay no attention to him the miners didn't because they had that spat that was no sign we went along with 'em...I believe in if you think international is doin' the wrong thing don't go along with 'em, 'cause we are the union.

B: Uh-huh. So really you think there is a lot of power from the bottom up in the union that if the men wanted to something'..?

JW: That's where the power is. International's got no power, only what we give 'em.

B: Okay, now when you say international does...is that really in uh...from uh...do you all have connections with miner's around the world or do you all..?

JW: Oh, yeah, yeah.

B: What kind of places is...is it coal miners around the world?

JW: Well, Yeah! that two-thirds of the country's got coal yeah, yeah.

B: I heard on the news the other night that union membership in this country is at a all time low, why do you think that is ?

JW: Well, I don't know hardly why that is. If we've got...we've got another generation of people, we've got a generation of people that this big money and union has been handed to 'em and they never had fight for it and when it come to showdown, like what happen to Massey here they backed off. You lose ground when you do that.

B: Do you think things would change if hit it rock bottom, I mean?

JW: Oh yeah, oh yeah, once they got a dose of what I've been through they...they'd wake up. Yeah.

B: Do many of the younger people do they listen when you tell them what it use to be like?

JW: (coughing) A whole lot of 'em, yeah. But there's a lot of 'em you see, been brained washed by the corporations, yeah.

B: All they think about is money.

JW: Yeah, they think about that extra dollar it ain't that dollar, that...that we after, it's better benefits, hospitalization, better health care, there's a lot of things besides money that help the people.

B: Have you heard much about the tourism that people want to bring in here to show people what it used to be like in the West Virginia coal fields, do you think that would go over, I mean do you think that would sell, like you know, you've heard about the exhibition mines and stuff and how people like to go through them, do you think people would come to Matewan to hear a story about what happen when people we're tryin' to unionize?

JW: I don't think that will ever happen, don't believe it will go over to good for one thing they got no way in here, what are they goin' to do fly 'em in here in helicopters? They got no roads to travel on. And it would cost to much money to build highways in here and they'll never have none when there truckin' this coal, see back when I was coal minin' you had a coal tipple about every mines, we had three tipples in Red Jacket holler and a shifter would pull coal out from under the tipple every day and put in empties they wouldn't they didn't truck coal in like they do now.

B: Uh-huh. I know my mother said that the roads now are worse than when she was a child in the forties and fifties down here?

JW: Why yeah! yeah, they're worse now than ever and we'll never have none as long as these sixty, sixty-five ton trucks run over 'em.

B: Now people that has never been down here say, they don't really don't run trucks with overloads do they, but they do don't they?

JW: Why, ever truck that goes by is overloaded.

B: How can you tell?

JW: Huh?

B: How can you tell?

JW: Well, you got to build the road for the size of the truck and this one over here was built for heavy equipment, you can, you can tell the one out there goin' down the road when it's tore up there's something overloaded that's been on it ain't they? (Both laugh).

B: That's what I've learned from being down here but I never knew why, when I first come down here.

JW: Well, you know good and well your car didn't tear it up.

(laughing)

B: Now, I 've been told they tried to pass the law where the coal has to be covered on the back of the trucks that was to keep...

JW: That is the law in West Virginia but it's not in Kentucky.

B: But I've heard that actually gave them more space to load up coal, they actually said well if we got to put that over well we can load on a few more...on it.

JW: No, no. We got a weight law what cover you got on there still a weight law.

B: Yeah, How many...how many...

JW: We get the state police, you know the weigh men in here to...weighing trucks a lot of times they'd come in these trucks, truckers will get on their radio and tell all the rest of 'em the weigh men's down here and they'll park them trucks and you can see them parked for miles, back wait 'til the weigh men leaves and they'll go dump.

B: Can't the police pick it up on the radio, that their doin' that?

JW: Yeah, but what can they do about it they can't go somewhere off the road and weigh them and them parked. There's, there's a way to beat that rap, if the weigh men would wake up see you can measure a ton of coal, you take a four by four box fill it full and you got a ton of coal, and go measure their bed, and how high it's piled up on it and they wouldn't need the scales, they can do that on the side of the road. But, there's nothin' never said because of their paying' off, you see. When your paying' the town, why they ain't worried about the people that lives here. Their worried about gettin' through and Massey, Morgan Massey don't care if they haul that coal down to that tipple with blood on it as long as the coal's goin'.

B: Where does the coal from this area go, do you know?

JW: Well, it goes different places, they ship it to everywhere. See this is low sulfur coal in this country here and they buy it anywhere.

B: How much coal is left in this area?

JW: Oh, there's a whole lot of coal left but there's a lot of coal that hasn't been tipped, acres, thousand of acres.

B: Because, because I've heard one ask 'em and there's only twenty years of coal left in this area.

JW: Well, I say at the rate they're goin' and they way they're goin' putting in the mines they won't be over that, because they puttin' new ones in everyday.

B: What do you think that's goin' to happen, when...when the coal runs out?

JW: Well I don't know what will happen I don't imagine I'll be around anyhow. (laughing)

B: Well, can you think of anything else you'd like to say 'cause that's really other than just questions about you that's all that I can think of to ask.

JW: No, I don't reckon.

B: Okay. So I'll just ask some general questions. Are you married...?

JW: Yeah

B: Did you have children?

JW: No, I don't have any kids, we got a adopted kid one of one of my wife's brother's kids we raised it, took it when it was nine months old, and she's twenty three now.

B: Okay, When did you get married?

JW: Mmmm...4 uh...'54, 1954, well I went single a long time before I married. (both laughing)

B: Don't blame you, I am too. Uh...did you serve in World War II or did they...keep you here?

JW: No, uh...I was turned down, I was turned down, I had a ear problem, I had some kind of chronic ear drum.

B: Uh-huh. Had that happen because you worked in the mines or uh...or was it something?

JW: A whole lot of it yeah, and I was deferred by Red Jacket Coal Company, there at the last and then again I was deferred by the coal company, see then if you run machinery and stuff like that your principle men, you get deferred, yeah.

B: Okay. Alright umm...let's see. What do you remember about going to school, where did you go to school when you were little?

JW: I went to Belfry on Pond Creek, and then we went come to Sprigg I went there a while, that's where I quit at down at Sprigg, I finished the eighth grade and quit. And we move up here on the Kentucky side of Matewan here I just, I worked on a farm here what they called Hatfield Bottom back then, that was all farm land, the Sheriff of Mingo County runned that and I worked for him on the farm tryin' made a dollar a day and two meals. (laughing)

B: Was that Greenway?

JW: Greenway Hatfield that's the man it was. I knew him personally.

B: What did you think of him?

JW: Greenway was a good man, a lot of people didn't like Greenway but I really like him, he told me all about this Glen Alum bank robbery and everything and I'd sit and talk to him for hours, down there, you know, eat down there we'd take about an hour and he'd come up from Williamson.

B: What did he tell you about that?

JW: He told me the way, the way he said it he said it was a bunch of Hunkies he said what it was, runned it, (laughing) old Greenway was country kind of feller any how. And he said he took his Deputy Sheriffs' and he went up there and you know these hand cars you pump up and down on the railroad that the way they went in to Glenn Alum, they were searching for the bank robbers' and found them and cornered them up in the woods there. And he said them hunkies were jumping up just coming' daylight and jump up on a log and crow like a rooster, and just start shootin'. (laughing) The law killed all of 'em but too, there was two of 'em that got away. And Greenway mentioned one of the names to me, course he's dead now the one that was supposed to been the old guy that used to live in the little old place here right through the underpass here he, he called him Rock, he's the, Greenway said he...he always will believe that he was one of the bank robbers 'cause he never worked a day after that, and always had money, 'course you know he couldn't prove it even if he was High Sheriff I'm sure he couldn't prove it was him. But he always thought that.

B: Mmmm. Let me ask you about some of the other people you remember from in town. Do you remember John and Mary Brown?

JW: Um-mum, yeah.

B: What did...what do you remember about them?

JW: Well uh... John Brown was a dry cleaner, he had a dry cleaner over here across the railroad here and they had a place out here had a little old club out here, where the old bus terminal use to be out there, yeah they was good people old John and Mary, both, I liked both of 'em now.

B: How about Aunt Carrie? Did you ever hear about Aunt Carrie?

JW: Uh-huh. Yeah, in fact, I've been there place several times, she kinda bootlegged down there down where the city hall is now down there.

B: People say that uh...anybody could go in that place because, whether they were powerful or not because powerful once you walked out she didn't know who, she wouldn't said who came into her place or not. Was she really like that?

JW: Why no, I thought she knowed everybody, what I mean, do...

B: I mean she wouldn't admit to knowing anybody she'd...

JW: No, un-uh, no she didn't talk no, fer as tellin' anything on anybody didn't talk none no.

B: What did her place look like? Nobody has ever described, you know what her place looked like.

JW: Just an ordinary you know like a house you live in, about a five or six room house had a couple rooms upstairs. Just or...ordinary building, right next to the river out there.

B: Okay, what about Frank Allara?

JW: I know Frank, I never was that much acquainted with him, you know, I know him but not that much acquainted with him, I never did hear nothin' bad about Frank, I heard everything good about him.

B: Did you all come down here to the theater much?

JW: Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, everybody around here went to show.

B: Okay, let's see. Okay. What, most of what Mingo County before this union problems came up again with Massey most people talked about Mingo County and the political corruption, did, did you ever, I mean did people ever try to buy your votes or anything like that when it come election?

JW: Well no, they just knowed who they where buyin' off of and all that they, they know you don't go for that, they didn't challenge you.

B: Uh-huh. Okay.

JW: I'll tell ya if a man tried to buy my vote, even if I was going to vote for him he just lost it when he tried to buy it. I don't believe in that, that's why the country is in the shape it is today it's been bought and sold.

B: Uh-huh. Would you say it was big business that...?

JW: Big business is what corrupted this country, yeah. I know we went to Charleston lobbying over there when they was tryin' to get this right to work law through and in West Virginia here, bunch of us union guys go over there and lobby, I saw, saw certain coal operators over there with there black bags talking to delegates and senators around tryin' to buy the right to work law. But, we had a good senator to it, fought 'em Truman Chafin was one of 'em one of the men that fought the right to work law tooth and toenail. I'd say they might of had it if it hadn't been for him.

B: Uh-huh. You think he'd...he'd...?

JW: Well you take our...our political ring right here in Matewan your big shots in Matewan and Chamber of Commerce and all them, hates Truman Chafin today, they hate anything that was for wor...workin' people.

B: What do you think there's been a lot, a lot of talk that the wealthy people in this country are getting wealthier and your average person, the workin' class is gettin' poorer. What do you think is the right amount of money or the, the right way of livin' for a workin' man, what do you think a workin' man is entitled too?

JW: Well, I tell ya, when they get this union busted, it will be worse than what it is now, that's why...your corporation are getting richer, these non-union mines a lot of 'em is workin' their men for seven and eight dollars and hour. When the union scales they make fifteen, sixteen dollars an hour, and it's easier, Island Creek Coal Company, and Zebulon Coal Company a lot of 'em union mines that's workin' because the can pay a union scale, how come Massey well Massey is paying' close to the union scale but uh...they don't want is the men's benefits. But, these people that's workin' seven eight dollars and hour, it's gettin' worse if they can bust this union, it won't just be them it will be all the companies doin' the same thing the...the country be any worse it will be another Hoover administration is what it will be.

B: Uh. What do you think of George Bush?

JW: I don't think no more of him than I do Reagan, and that ain't sayin' much. On a national level anybody in the whole country can show me on a national level where the Republican president that's been for the laboring class of people, if they can prove that to me I'll agree with 'em, but they can't show me that. Since, I've been big enough to remember and Hoover was the first I remember there never been a Republican president for labor, they fought labor from all the way, every time there been one.

B: Now, we've already gone through Roosevelt and Truman what did you think of Dwight Eisenhower?

JW: Well, we got down to three days a week when he was president, he was a good general but he wasn't no president.

B: How about John F. Kennedy?

JW: John F. would of been the best, he would of been another Roosevelt if he hadn't got killed.

B: Okay. What about Lyndon Johnson?

JW: Well, I wouldn't crazy about him of course he was better than some we had since, but I wouldn't crazy about him.

B: Okay. Should I even ask about Richard Nixon, what did you think about Richard Nixon?

JW: I think Richard Nixon's first term there wouldn't nothin' at 'tall wrong with him, he didn't fight labor, I'll tell ya...Richard Nixon wouldn't all that bad to be a Republican what I mean he didn't fight us that much, like a lot of 'em I don't know why he didn't but he didn't fight labor all that hard, but he just got caught with his problem, he's done, they all done the same stu...stuff he's done he's just one...one of the unlucky ones that caught.

B: uh...huh. Okay. How about Jimmy Carter? (Train in background)

JW: Jimmy Carter, I guess was the honestest president was ever...ever ma...ever been. But he didn't...Congress and Senate didn't go along with him he didn't have no help, that was his problem.

B: He was just a basic good man?

JW: Yes sir, he was honest, yeah.

B: Well, thank you for talkin' with me this morning.

JW: Well, your welcome.

Matewan Oral History Project Collection