Case of Mary-Helen

One day last week a southeastern Kentucky farmer named O. E. Taylor stood up in the Federal court room at London and addressed the judge. Farmer Taylor said that back in 1929 he worked for General Motors, hurt his right arm. The arm still aches at times, and when it aches Mr. Taylor hates corporations. Therefore, he did not feel that he should sit as a juror in the case about to be tried. In the same jury box briefly occupied by Mr. Taylor, Factory Employe Ralph Mays was asked about his wife, said "She's a Payne from Goose Creek." He was dismissed when it was found that he could hardly read, could write only his name. Talesman John B. Nicholson related that on the way to court he met a cousin, was informed: "John L. Lewis is some kind of Bolshevik." Talesman Owen Hensley knew that his brother Lige used to work in the coal mines, was surprised to hear that Lige is now with United Mine Workers of America in Harlan, reluctantly stepped from the box on that account.

Thus did smart, swart Assistant U. S. Attorney General Brien McMahon and his corps of helping lawyers and investigators from Washington learn something last week about the dignity and ignorance of Kentucky's rural poor. The lesson was equally onerous for young Mr. McMahon and for defense counsel, who included former Federal Judge Charles I. Dawson of Louisville and Alabama Utilities Attorney Forney Johnston. Thanks to a remarkable prevalence of sickness among talesmen's womenfolk, and the paucity of southeastern Kentuckians who were not in some fashion dependent upon the soft coal industry, the lawyers questioned and discarded over 250 talesmen before they could agree upon a jury.

The case of U. S. v. Mary-Helen Coal Co., et al., fully deserved the intervention of able Mr. McMahon and distinguished Mr. Johnston. For at issue was the repute of Harlan County's coal barons and deputized thugs, whose propensities for murder, assault, and general repression of miners' tendency to join John L. Lewis' U.M.W. was disclosed last year by the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee (TIME, May 3, 1937). At issue also was the question whether a Federal statute enacted just after the Civil War to protect Negroes from Ku Kluxers could be invoked to reenforce the National Labor Relations Act with criminal penalties. The act of 1870 makes conspiracy to violate any constitutionally guaranteed right an offense punishable by fines up to $5,000, imprisonment up to ten years. Inasmuch as the Wagner Act is a civil law entailing no such penalties for denial of the right to join a union, success in the Harlan case would give the NLRB a telling threat against many a potent, non-union industrialist.

Last summer U. S. prosecutors and a staff of G-Men checked up the La Follette revelations, persuaded a Federal grand jury at Frankfort to indict a formidable list which last week was reduced by death, illness, and nolle prosequi to the following: the Harlan County Coal Operators Association; 20 coal companies, 22 executives; 22 former or present Harlan County peace officers, including Sheriff (now ex-Sheriff) Theodore Middleton, who had told Senator La Follette "a lot of violence has been committed by my deputies." Last week Mr. Middleton and his co-defendants jammed a good portion of the tiny, oval courtroom. With lawyers, underlings, and visiting newspapermen, they took up so much space that hundreds of languorously curious country folk could not get inside.

Defense Attorney Dawson complained of cramp. He asked Judge Ford to transfer the trial to a larger courtroom at Lexington, where the defendants would not have to squat behind the jury box. Agitated, Mr. Dawson pointed out that the jurors could not view his clients, among whom were such prominent Harlan citizens as Coal Operators Robert W. Creech, Elmer Hall, Bryan Whitfield. At this time, Mr. Dawson did not mention that his clients also included such characters as ex-Deputy Frank White, who, at the La Follette hearings, was accused of trying to murder ex-Deputy (and codefendant) Hugh Taylor, who has been accused of killing a citizen named Robert Moore. "My clients," said Lawyer Dawson, "include gentlemen of substance and breeding." Judge Ford decided to stay where he was, get on with hearing 250 Government witnesses.

This week Mr. McMahon seemed to be getting on remarkably well. Clover Splint Coal Company withdrew its plea of not guilty and entered a plea of nolo contendere (admitting no guilt but declining to make a defense).

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