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 CHAPTER LVIII

"POISONED AT THE SOURCE"

I have been privileged to examine a mass of material, some three or four million printed and typewritten words, the evidence collected for the defense of Max Eastman and Art Young, when they were indicted for criminal libel in November, 1913, at the instance of the Associated Press. These three or four million printed and typewritten words enable us to enter the offices of the Associated Press, and to watch its work hour by hour. They enable us to study the process whereby the public opinion of America is "poisoned at the source."

Three hundred miles from our national capital, in the lonely mountains of West Virginia, exists an empire of coal, governed in all respects as Russia was governed in the days of the Tsardom. I take up two printed volumes of testimony given before the investigating committee of the United States Senate, a total of 2,114 closely printed pages; I turn these pages at random, and pick out a few heads that will give you glimpses of how things are managed by the coal barons of West Virginia: "Check weighmen guaranteed by law, but not allowed to the miners." "Men paid in scrip which they could not cash." "Men discharged and put out of their houses, as fast as they talked unionism." "Mail burned by store manager." "Law of West Virginia relieves coal owners from liability for injuries in the mine, no matter how they occur." "Independent store-keeper refused his goods at the express office which was on company grounds." "Men not allowed to approach postoffice on company property." "Provost Marshal imprisoned nine men without trial." "No mine guard has ever been tried for participating in any battle." "Machine-guns and guards turned on peaceful crowd coming from meeting."

In "King Coal" I have portrayed the conditions in Colorado. In West Virginia conditions were in all respects the same, and for the same reason. When the sixteen months' strike in West Virginia had been smashed, the same mine guards, with