
#22 Whose America?, ep. 1: Rough Extraction
The Martyr Made Podcast
The Coal Company Owns All the Houses
The typical coal mining town is not a town in the ordinary sense at all. If the mines should disappear, it too would cease to exist. No one owns his own house. He cannot acquire so much title to property. There is no main street of small, independent businesses owned by different people and making up that mosaic of commercial life. The company owns the store, the pool room, the movie theatre, the school and the church. Miners in west virginia are not paid as workers elsewhere are paid. They do not receive in cash all that they have earned. On their semi monthly pay days, they are given statements showing how much they owe the company and how much the company owes
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