Report of the Committee on Education and Labor…Private Police Systems Harlan County, KY. Republic Steel Corporation

Reporting from the La Follette Committee on the causes of the Harlan County War.

“In Harlan County, the committee found widespread existence of the company town, with all its attendant evils of company guards and deputies, company stores, scrip money, company houses, company doctors, and even company jails – all under the control of the coal operators.” – pg. 207

This official Congressional report, published by the Government Printing Office in 1939, outlines a portion of the extensive findings of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee Investigating Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, chaired by Wisconsin progressive Robert La Follette, Jr. The La Follette Committee was organized in 1936 to investigate labor rights abuses across America, including strikebreaking, industrial espionage, private police forces, labor union disruption, etc. Several years of work resulted in some startling conclusions, exemplified by this document detailing the employment of private police by the Republic Steel Corporation in Harlan County, Kentucky.

Over 200 pages of text outline testimony from employees (most of whom lived in company towns) and management, each detailing their side of the circumstances that led to significant local unrest known as the Harlan County War. Accompanying reporting by the Senate Committee finds extensive wrongdoing by Republic Steel Corporation, whose operations were protected by local sheriff J.H. Blair and his corrupt deputies. A fold-out map is titled ‘Property of Republic Steel Corp. and Vicinity Canton, Ohio’ and related to an Appendix containing affidavits for the 1935 strike at the Berger Manufacturing Company – yet another example of 1930s corporate greed stifling labor rights.