ich
controls the railroad spur, also has control too over the boxcars that
are on the track. Only the company can make requisition for an empty
boxcar. If a miner wants to move he cannot even get space, though he is
willing to pay for it, in a boxcar to have his goods hauled out.

He stays on defeated and discouraged.

If, however, he does quit one coal camp and get out he is unskilled in
other labor and if he should try to evade his store and other
obligations with one coal company, the office employees have a way of
passing on the information to another operation. There are ways of
putting a laborer on the blacklist.

But why should he try to move on? Word comes back to the miner from
other buddies who have tried other camps. "They're all the same. Might
as well stay where you are."

Behind every shack is a dump heap of cans, coal ashes, potato peel,
coffee grounds, and old shoes.

Rarely was the voice of the miner's wife raised in song as she plodded
through her daily drudgery. Now and then the young folks could be heard
singing--but not an ancient ballad. Rather it was a rakish song picked
up from drummers coming through the mining camps who sold their inferior
wares to the commissary manager.

There was a church propped up on the hillside. But meeting usually broke
up with the arrest of some of the young fellows who didn't try hard
enough to suppress a laugh when the camp harlot went to the mourner's
bench, or when some old creature too deaf to hear a word the preacher
said went hobbling toward the front. Sometimes an older miner, who for
the sheer joy of expressing a long-pent-up feeling, shouted "Praise the
Lord!", was dragged out by a deputy sheriff, along with the young
bloods, on a charge of disturbing religious worship.

The limb of the law usually knew who had a few dollars left from the
week's pay. The law knew too that a miner preferred to pay a fine rather
than lie in jail and lose time on the job next day.

There was no pleasant diversion around the coal camp for womenfolk and
children, no happy gatherings such as the play party, a quilting, an
old-time square dance. In their drab surroundings, little wonder men and
women grew old before their time.

That was yesterday. Today there are model mining towns throughout the
coal fields. Holden in West Virginia even has swimming pools and modern
cottages for its miners. A miner can work on the side too--it is not
uncommon to see signs over his cotta