00:00:07MOTLEY: Okay. Um, I'll start off first question. Um, Norman Yarborough stated that the UMWA used Brookside as their main vehicle to create a domino effect with the other mines in this area. Is there any truth in this perspective? If not, can you explain how the UMW of A got involved with Eastover?
00:00:28DEATON: Uh, I might, uh--I might not understand some words you used there, but, uh, as far as the UMW getting involved with Eastover, of course, we had a what we called the Miller regime. Uh, Miller had promised to organize at that time that he run for the presidency. And once he's in there, while he's got to, uh, he's got to live up to organizing in eastern Kentucky and, uh, so with some, I guess, smarter people advising Miller as to how to get started organizing in eastern Kentucky would be to pick a--mines with that's owned by responsible, uh, companies such as a power company like this--
00:01:28MOTLEY: --right.--
00:01:28DEATON: --out of town, that's got a bunch of stockholders, and thing--
00:01:31MOTLEY: --right--
00:01:31DEATON: --this was very this was very important that it be a company like that, now, Eastover fit, just, good into this. Uh, Bernie Aronson was a smartest man, I'd say, that the union ever had up there, and, and I've always said that ever since the first time I ever talked to him. And, uh, what makes me think that I'm right--after he was fired from the UMW for some, uh, unnecessary reasons. Uh, he wound up in the White House as the speechwriter for President Carter. So he was as smart as I thought he was. And, uh, so they decided to hit, uh, Duke Power.
00:02:22MOTLEY: --once they sold out--
00:02:23DEATON: --Harlan County. So, uh, that is, uh---and the big reason for this, and without it, you couldn't do it, is the news media. Uh, without the news media--I would give them most of the credit for winning a contract here at Brookside. Uh, because without them, uh, it would have been just, uh, virtually impossible because this brought on so many interested parties all over it--let's include the stockholders of Duke Power. They get to see this on national TV.--what's going on. They get to, well, hearings. We even had hearings from, uh, Washington here. Uh, we had senators, uh, congressmen here. We had from every--whatever here, uh, to, to get involved in this because it just got serious. And this, this one man that got killed, uh, really--
00:03:27MOTLEY: --Lawrence Jones--?
00:03:29DEATON: --that, uh, that really set it off. Now, if we if we just traded Duke Power down to, uh, let's just say they hit the same mines, but they hit it when one of these, uh, local coal operators owned it, they would have never been no contract at Brookside. Uh, the women--the women played the biggest part in it because if you want to stir up some trouble, why, just start with women, where men will not take too much advantage of them, you know. Uh, men were on the picket line. They wasn't doing no good till the women come in here, because they was running this every day without union. And by the way, I feel pretty good about, uh--I was proud of the contract at Brookside for the simple reason that there's two men that started it. And although I'm at, at the time, I was not a coal miner, which I had been a coal miner for sixteen years. But I was in the grocery store down here, right here where you and, uh, Bill Turnblazer--have you ever heard that name? He, uh, even though he was facing the penitentiary for the murder of, uh, being involved with the murder scheme of Tony Boyle and, and them on, uh, killing Yablonski family, you know. Are you familiar with all that?
00:05:04MOTLEY: Right. Right. So that's the murder you mentioned--?
00:05:07DEATON: --although that that happened--no, that ain't the murder I mentioned a while ago. I was talking about the Lawrence Jones--
00:05:13MOTLEY: --okay, that's what--
00:05:14DEATON: --but the murder that, uh, we're talking about now is, is the one that Bill Turnblazer was involved in and had not never revealed to the FBI what he would do, later. That's why I look back and I wonder how he was so calm. And to begin with, he came here and, uh, and talked to me, uh, to see if, uh, who we were going to support for high sheriff in the county this year. Now, after we discussed that a little bit, he says, "Now he says, I'm here to talk about something else. I want to know how, when, where some ifs and ands, we can organize Brookside." So that is where it started, right here in my store. So from that day on, we, uh, had our little meetings and I asked him to bring to me, uh, a man, preferably from the Miller regime. Because everybody was interested in Miller, because he is promised so much and everything is looking in his favor at that time. So we need somebody from there that nobody don't, uh, know around here. None of the miners. "Bring me a man that they will be confident in. And that'd be preferably somebody that they don't know. And because I've got to disconnect them from you. And the district is as much as I know you. As much as I love you, you, you, you can't be no part of it, you know, the district office here. That's the old UMW." Uh, so he come back later with a man, and I said, "Oh, no, I just soon have one of you fellers, you know, because that's a local man." I said, "That's that wouldn't work." And okay, he come back later with Joe Phipps, uh, which is president now of this district, and, uh, he come back with Joe Phipps. I told him I'd check. I didn't take no chances myself. I called Lynch to see what kind of man he was. He was, uh, considered a great man on the contract, although he was a radical when he first came to Lynch. So, I had promised him that I would give his man that he brings to me fifty names that he can go talk to. And out of that fifty, he can get some help from each one of them as to who he can talk to. And we can get a big vote here, a big checkoff for an election. So that is how the organizing Brookside got started. And, uh, so I'm--I feel real proud. And and later when Bill went to the penitentiary after he went to the FBI and told his part in the Yablonski deal, he went to the penitentiary. But he didn't have to stay too many years, and he stayed in contact with me all the time. We wrote back and forth. He was a great man, but he just happened to be present when Tony Boyle that time--uh, it was after a board meeting they had up there, and he's, uh. I know all them guys. I knowed Yablonski real well, but, uh, Tony got Bill and Albert Pass, which was the secretary of treasurer over here. Uh, he's secretary and Bill was the president, but whatever the secretary said, Bill had to go along with it because he was with--he was too close to Tony.
00:08:49MOTLEY: Now, did he know about the murders? I mean, is that why?
00:08:52DEATON: I'm getting around to that.
00:08:53MOTLEY: Okay. Okay.
00:08:53DEATON: Tony says, "Something's got to be done to Yablonski. Maybe even killed." And I can just see, you know, one of them raising their hand, not Bill. Albert. "Let me do it." So anyway, they wound up getting caught. And I don't believe that Bill had much--very little to do with it from that day on, because I know all the people that went down through, and I was even able to, uh, assume it was in our--I could just about name some names when I heard about the death. Well, and they--especially when they said eastern Kentucky, they had some clues. Well, I knew then that it would be in our people's hands. Okay. And which was dirty. But Bill, I never could see him being that dirty. He's just a different kind of man. But, and, and it proved that he didn't have to stay too long. So they didn't involve him too much. But now, how did he come here knowing all that, and yet be so calm and cool and getting Brookside organized? But that's the way it started. And without the--like I say, without the news media, uh, and they did, you might say they they union used, uh, Brookside for a purpose. They, they were smart enough to do so because it, uh, it meant a whole lot towards organizing other places, I'd say too, because this got so much publicity.
00:10:31MOTLEY: Um, Norman Yarborough said that the safety problems, the medical benefits, everything seemed to be made up. The only reason that the, um, the UMWA was concerned--it was about their own fate. You understand what I'm saying?
00:10:48DEATON: Um-hm.
00:10:48MOTLEY: Like, was it--were there actual grievances? You know what I'm saying? That the workers needed to be concerned about? I mean--
00:10:56DEATON: --absolutely. Uh, Norman Yarborough was run off from, uh, three places. Lynch, Benham and, uh, Yancey. And that's when he came to Brookside. So, uh, he's a good company man. He's, uh, he's a good--he's good in, uh, I don't say a good--I shouldn't say a good company, man. He's, he's what, uh, he's part of what, uh, broke this one up down here. He's part of what--put, uh, Eastover out of business, uh, Duke Power. Uh, I guess they could look back now, you know, and see, well, we hired the wrong people. But anyway, the reason for this, now, when they went to--when Duke Power bought this, they didn't wait on the union, this Southern Labor Union, to come in. They sent for it. They got them up there at the mines and had these guys to sign, you know, sign-check off because nobody has hit them yet, you know, with a they before they had a chance to--UMW, even had a chance to talk to them after Duke Power bought it. Shoot. They got the Southern Labor [Union] in up there. So we had to come up and get a vote, see? And to get that vote, uh, after the vote and after the, uh, they wouldn't recognize UMW, then. That's when it all started.
00:12:28MOTLEY: Why would they want to SLU over the UMW of A.
00:12:31DEATON: It's a company union. A so-called company union, one that--the hell with safety features--the hell with grievances. You haven't got a chance. There's no--well, it's defunct right now. I guess it's, uh--if it still exists, it's very little. I don't know where there's any--even around your end. I don't even know of any now. I only know of one UMW mines in our county. Of course Duke Power, when they were here, that was, uh, Duke Power, along with Brookside--they had a good UMW mines there. And then the one at Lynch is sort of a cloud over the county for any operators that gets any ideas about reducing what all they're paying, and benefits and so forth to the so-called truck mines, we call them. They're littler, smaller operators. But as long as you've got union in the county, that threat is on them and they will not start cutting now--right now. since since Brookside left, the other operators have got rougher. You, you don't start getting paid before you go in the mines. When you go in, you get paid from the time you get in there to where you work. Uh, you get, uh, there's no such thing as, uh, seniority over somebody else on a job or something, you know, uh--safety features--the UMW furnishes their own safety people, see? They're in the mines all the time. The UMW has a safety director that goes--and because you as a coal miner--take me--I worked sixteen years, and I know how, uh, foolish a coal miner can be. He just, uh, you can see a piece of rock a hanging down that you wouldn't have a bit of trouble getting off and pulling--I run a shuttle car in the mines many times. I've just ducked, you know, dodge it rather than get off and pull it. So these people, finally some of them might get hurt. I got hurt myself over--after we come out on strike here. That's my last days here. So I went over there in sixty-four--that's before Duke Power come in here--sixty-four I went over there and I got hurt. And all through negligence, just like this guy that, uh, they didn't even have, uh, real heavy, uh, union, uh, safety directors, then, you know, to watch people like me, uh, the coal miner. So even the fellow--the repairman stopped me and asked me, "Was it the shuttle car?" Okay, they'd worked on them all day. I said, "Everything's fine except the brakes." And I said, "I, I can get I can make out without them because I run one from Brookside here for ten years without brakes." But I needed that brake that day. I got hurt that day because I didn't have that brake. Now that's my last day in the coal mines, just because of that. Well, now, if you've got the union in there, their, uh, their intentions are to make it safe for you. And their intentions are to make you safe for the company. Both sides, as long as you're not getting hurt, it's money to the company, the union and everybody. But you will not have safety, uh, lived up to. I mean, you have the right to shut a mines down under the UMW contract, if it's necessary. You know, if they don't stop and do whatever is necessary to do. So, it's very important to have, uh, those features. There's so many things you get that you wouldn't get now. Yarbrough, he would say, "Sure. Why, we furnish them everything. They made good money. We give them hams on Christmas. We give them a lot of stuff," trying to bribe them, you know, to keep this UMW out. But it--miners are smart.
00:16:28MOTLEY: Was your experience pretty typical of most miners, like, dealing with the everyday problems of worrying about, you know what I'm saying? Just the brakes not working, I mean, is this something that every man in the coal mines had to deal with before the UMWofA came in?
00:16:44DEATON: (coughs) --uh--
00:16:46MOTLEY: --I mean, were--was everybody--
00:16:48DEATON: --we were--
00:16:48MOTLEY: --about safety?
00:16:49DEATON: We were, uh-are you going back to the before the coal mining unions come in here--UMW years ago? Or just the, the one--
00:16:58MOTLEY: --I'm talking about this particular one before 1970--
00:17:01DEATON: --uh, yes. They would have been, uh, uh, uh--everybody's had a chance by then to work--let's just say you were a coal miner in 1968. If you were a coal miner in Harlan County, you don't know nothing else. So you had to go to work in a mine somewhere. There's, there's not any union mines, they just keep drifting out. Uh, you had to go to work somewhere. So you're going without a union or either the Southern [Labor] Union, which is just about without. And, uh, you see then that you don't have those things that you need in the mine. Then you begin to worry, yeah, you're worried. You worry about your future. You're worried about your family now. You're taking care of them now, but you're not taking care of yourself in retirement. You know there'll be no benefits, uh--
00:17:58MOTLEY: --there was nothing there?
00:18:00DEATON: No.
00:18:01MOTLEY: See, he explained it to me--the reason he was against the union is that he said a certain percentage of money went to every man, and every day he worked, a certain percentage went to the day, you know what I'm saying? Like if he missed a day, then he didn't get the certain percentage, you know what I'm saying of his retirement and that if the money went to a large group, that in the end, the man who really worked for his money wouldn't earn it because it would be like somebody within the organization would be corrupt and take the money. You know what I'm saying? And that, and when the worker finished, when he was ready for retirement, he wouldn't, uh, none of his retirement money would really be there. I mean, that's how he explained it to me, and that he felt like the man who worked for his money, earned his money, and that he wanted to see him have that. That's how he explained it to me. I mean, can you comment on that?
00:18:55DEATON: But, uh, he if, if he had UMW, he, he, he thinks that his retirement, the retirement wouldn't be there when they do retire?
00:19:03MOTLEY: He feels like somebody like Tony Boyle--
00:19:05DEATON: --um-hm--
00:19:06MOTLEY: --he's using him as an example of somebody who would just, you know--
00:19:09DEATON: --they have to come up with something. But now you, you see, uh, recently a year or two ago that uh, UMW comes out with the headlines in the paper, uh, uh, how secure the 1950 plan pensioners are secure. The funds are secure. They don't no longer have to cut them--cut--the coal companies don't ever have to put it in the contract to cut it anymore. They've got the money there now. The funds for the ones they got now, including millions they got for the--even the strike fund. Financially, the UMW stays in good shape. Now, the welfare fund--pension fund is, I don't know the late figures on it, but it would be great. Yeah, there's no way it could go--well when Social Security--I'd say it'll stay as long as Social Security does, be a year when Social Security is gone.
00:20:08MOTLEY: Do you understand, though, what I was--the point he was trying to make, to me?
00:20:13DEATON: Just trying to make out like it, uh, it's headed by corrupted--corruptible people that's, uh, interested in their own personal gain--that's what union's made out of. But union is made out of something that goes back to our dads and things. See, my dad, I know how he was, and I know how he had--I never did get to see him in the early days, you know, he just worked all the time to try to keep us enough to live on. They didn't get much, but I remember how the union was, how the National Guard--I remember the machine guns sitting on the hillsides, this one over here and one down where the company is. One over in the graveyard. Machine gun nests like you have in the war. Well, that's a--there's a reason for that. Happy Chandler had them people in there. Happy Chandler's got a bad name with us. (Motley laughs) Uh, poor fella, and he's about dead now. But, uh, people like that, you don't, uh, they never look towards the side of the coal miner, the merchants in our town, the banks, the, the, uh, the big people where the money comes from the coal miner. They never supported UMW. They was always, you know, more company related than to the UMW. Uh, if we went through Harlan with a picket line, the UMW picket line, why, they'd snarl their noses. But now I have always told them that one of these days, the UMW be gone and their business would, too. And it's, it's--all we got now is it's moving out of town, so we ain't got nothing left much in town. It's just shopping centers, you know, foreigners coming in, putting in the stuff. So it's working. Coal--there's no way to organize this county no more because we don't have, uh, we don't really have the coal. The big coal. The big mines. You know, even to Brookside here they they whoever works at Brookside, which they work the Brookside tipple now, hauling coal from somewhere else. But there's there's not enough coal up here in Brookside.
00:22:33MOTLEY: Um--
00:22:34DEATON: --(coughs)--but that union funds will always be financially able. They'll take care of their pensioners.
00:22:45MOTLEY: What kind of medical benefits, at the time, were they offering the strikers?
00:22:50DEATON: Uh--
00:22:51MOTLEY: --I mean, and--for the miners--
00:22:54DEATON: --the UMW?
00:22:55MOTLEY: The SLU?
00:22:58DEATON: SLU had to try to stay close to the UMW on everything. SLU were at Highsplint, which was owned by Duke Power, while UMW had this one. SLU, the company would sign a contract with SLU and pay $5 more on the day, than--it was in their contract to pay $5 more than the UMW here. So that tells you something. They don't have to ask for it. They don't have to negotiate. Let the UMW negotiate. Stay $5 ahead of them. That's to keep the UMW out. See, that's enough to tell you they were willing to pay the dollar to keep the UMW out. Because they don't have to pay no royalties, I guess. Had to pay--supposed to pay a few to the Southern Labor Union as far as the Southern Labor Union having a good hospital card. The hospitals had a hard time getting their money from them. Terrible time when the UMW, you know, is still putting it out like mad. Not true.
00:24:05MOTLEY: Um, (pauses) you've answered a lot of my questions. The more you keep speaking, the more I-- --um, (Deaton coughs) can you, can you go into detail about, um, see, Norman Yarborough told me that, uh, that the UMWA came to negotiate with him over a, a national contract, but they couldn't actually say that. Do you know what he's talking about there? He said that they came to negotiate, and he was explaining it that, you know, he said, here is X, Y and Z and that they wanted X, Y and Z. And he said, I can't give you X, Y, and Z, but I'll give you X and Y. And he said that they basically wanted him to sign a national contract and that that was the bottom line, and that he felt like he had a right to negotiate?
00:25:07DEATON: That sounds--what he's, uh, what he's trying might be trying to say--if the UMW and their national contract is one thing and they--if they see fit to, in some way, which they could have very well in here, they could have had him to sign a national contract, but, uh, leaving a couple of items out. So that that would be called a memorandum of agreement. I'll give you one example. One time in 1959, when this place come on strike here at Brookside, owned by regular operators, uh, the, uh, we was on a strike for some time. We were all on these vouchers, 25 dollars, you know, vouchers a week. That's what we live on, 25 dollars a week. So everybody's really down and out. But now this mines, along with the district officers, the ones that's in the penitentiary now, they come up with an agreement, a memorandum of agreement. Now, this--the reason they did this now is they see they're not going to get no contract at Brookside. What would it be worth to our national union and what would it be worth to the men in this county? To everybody involved, uh, the UMW period? If we go ahead and help this company out on some things that they want, we'll sign a memorandum of agreement that that comes from Washington people, same as anything else, because I made sure it did. I got a letter to prove that.
00:27:03DEATON CONT'D: So it all turned out after the negotiations that me as the local officer and, and some more of us and our district officials, the coal operators, the man that would have been over Yarborough at the time, over all the operators, and saying, we all meet and we sign that contract. All of us, uh, agree on that contract. Then us local people, local officials, has to come to our locals and explain it to our men. So that's how it's done. It's explained as to why that they're signing something. Now., the wages--here was the conditions. They're going to start this mines up again, but they're going to start some new works because they can't go back in the old works that's wore out, you know. So they're going to get some some things they used to work way back yonder where they can get some pretty good production. We want you guys to work for 16 dollars a day. Now, the regular wages was, uh, 24 up to 27, 24 dollars, up to 27. But you get two dollars a hour. After about three weeks, when we clean up one section, we will then start running coal off that section. But we'll put every man, we'll sign a national contract like everybody else under a different name, Kentucky Jellico Coal Company. This had always been Harlan Collieries Coal Company. We'll sign that--when you sign that you get your 24 dollars, you get all the benefits, everything just like you're getting today.
00:28:43DEATON CONT'D: Now, as companies will do, they run this in the ground. Take me as the last in there back. Uh, they didn't even have to call you back according to seniority. But anyway, I was off, uh, about six months. My unemployment went out, and I went to the big man. I said, "Well, I'm ready to go back to work." He told me to come out. So I went up there and I worked for two dollars an hour like everybody else did. I didn't feel like I was any better than they did. Everybody else done it, so I did too. But I noticed they begin to abuse it. They leave everybody for three weeks on that, uh, clean up crews, clean up other section--and then put them over on the new company, Kentucky Jellico, where they'd be under UMW contract. But they start stretching that out to four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, even running coal. You might even be on a section running coal. Now, in my case, they was already running coal. But see, I didn't want to say nothing because here I'm up there driving a shuttle car running coal, producing coal for--UMW coal. But I was getting two dollars an hour because I remember having to come out and raise hell with the bosses, see, they've been used to doing what they want to. So they're getting us out a little bit late. Not hardly late enough to collect 15 minutes. But I had trouble with that. And I went to the supervisor, went to him and told him. I said, "Now I'm up here, scabbing. I know that. I'm making two dollars a hour. You know the conditions, but I call it scabbing. But I want pay for every hour that I work. And you tell these bosses if I'm on that man trip, it better be out on time." So I wasn't radical in no way, I was just--I sort of took care of myself. So, uh, we ironed that out good. But they kept me on there longer than the three weeks, before they put me over there. And they took some of these old men and kept them on there for years, like three years. Because if they--if the man would come to us, and tell us, you know, "We need to get him on that union because he's going to retire and things." See? "And this time's not accounting for him." And, uh, they we'd go and ask him and say, well, you know, they'd tell us, "Well, he's old, he's pretty old." He says, "We just got--we just got him up there just because we're sorry for him. We don't need him. If he don't want to work for that two dollars a hour, we don't need him, no." So that's what we were faced with. That is what companies will do to you. But everything turned out pretty fair. Everything turned out pretty fair other than some abuse.
00:31:35DEATON CONT'D: But I wrote--Tom Kennedy was the president at that time. This is back in the early 60s. I wrote Tom Kennedy and got an answer from Tony Boyle and all I wanted--I give it to them in detail, what took place, who was there, everything about it. And, uh, I got an answer from Tony Boyle and they--he told me that Mr. Jim Ridings, which is president of this district in Middlesboro, would, would be to my house to explain to me the memorandum of agreement that took place with Harlan Collieries Coal Company at Brookside. So that let me know that they knew all about it. So that satisfied me. So, under those conditions, if it had not been for them agreeing to a temporary thing that would eventually wind up in a contract, we'd have not got that contract at Brookside. So everybody got to work again. And everybody, most everybody did anyway. And uh, those guys that they did abuse--so I had a personal hand in getting their pension for them, explaining to the welfare fund that the coal that they were producing was union coal. The company took advantage to them, but I had to explain all of it, but it worked. They got their pensions and everything. Now, what he's trying to say is something similar to that. Like, uh, they might have advised, uh, in fact, Miller has offered to sign. I got, I got that through, uh, Bernie Aronson, I believe that Miller had offered to sign, uh, contract of agreement, different from the national contract. Leaving some, uh, some leaving some things out, uh--
00:33:33MOTLEY: --so he said they wanted, like, a no strike policy--
00:33:36DEATON: --yeah, yeah, yeah, they did want that--
00:33:39MOTLEY: --is that, um--
00:33:40DEATON: --the company wants the no strike--uh, I don't know whether that--I don't know whether they come close to that or not. I don't really remember.
00:33:50MOTLEY: Is that something like, really outrageous to ask, of a contract, to have a no strike policy?
00:33:57DEATON: In the coal mines it is. Uh, nowadays, if you're organizing in order to get along with, uh, and not get fit by your own people, you're organizing and the company force to. I'm, I'm speaking of right now--let's take the schools right now, have got kitchen employees and maintenance people and school bus drivers. It's not under the union. The UMW has got some union affiliations that they're going to try, and they're using that right now in Harlan County to, to get the schools under a contract. Now there's a no strike clause in it. There will be when the contract is out. But these people need to know--these women that work there--they want to know--they don't want to want to go through that there getting out and walking the picket lines and, and carrying signs and all that stuff. They don't want to strike. Women does not--they don't make no money, no way. And if they get into that, well, they're in trouble. All they want is job protection, and not be just run over, you know, or kicked out.
00:35:11MOTLEY: Right,
00:35:11DEATON: Throwed out.
00:35:12MOTLEY: Right.
00:35:12DEATON: Transferred out. Get some union, uh--anyway, I think that'll go. I think.
00:35:20MOTLEY: So you're saying -----(??).
00:35:22DEATON: They won't have to vote on it. They can just get the school board to, uh, recognize them as, uh, a bargain--bargaining agent for the people like that. And, uh, I look for them--that to happen. Since they come in, though, the school KEA teachers union are coming in with--offering them something now. But like I told one of the school board members the other day--said they come, but they come just because this threat is on them. It won't be no good. It won't be as good as what the UMW would like. So, everything that you get from Norman Yarbrough is going to be negative against, you know, the union. He is a union hater. He took Duke Power--he hired, Duke Power, got Norman Yarbrough and our superintendent up here at this mines, all the years that I've been here, his boys, his two boys was the supers at the two mines. It was not nothing for you, if you work down there. If you wanted to borrow something from Duke, from Eastover, you want to borrow their high lift, the big, high lift. Well, just make sure it's got plenty of oil and gas in it. Take it home, if you can run it, you know, if you can't run--okay--take Norman Yarborough's, take Norman Yarbrough's, uh, home over there where he's at now. His lot. He had a goat lot. My brother was a welder. He does all repair work for them at Brookside, under the UMW. He's a welder. I ask him how many days he has worked over there for Norman Yarborough fixing up his goat lot. Where, uh, he had to use a welder. I don't know what kind of a lot it was, but he's getting paid, uh, like a hundred and something dollars a day to fix that goat lot. Now, that hundred and something dollars a day is off the same payroll that they determine the cost of a ton of coal. You know, all the expense on a ton of coal is figured down to what--I mean in the mines is figured down to the cost of a ton of coal. Makes sense. I mean, you've got to get coal down to a reasonable cost. In Duke Power's case, they've got to get it down to--keep it down to where they can mine it cheaper than they can buy it. Okay, they didn't--there's when when Highsplint up here was, uh, ridiculous. This one here was awful. I mean, like, fifty something dollars a ton. Well, public service finally caught on to this. When Duke Power's over there, you know, trying to get raising--power rates raised because of their coal being so high. Well, public service finally caught up with them while they're there showing where they buy this coal from Eastover here, fifty something dollars a ton. When you know you can get it, buy it anywhere on the market for forty. It's costing them fifty something to produce it. So public services off, off--ordered Duke Power, whoever it was up to, the Department of Labor or whatever, ordered Duke Power out of the business. Get out of the business or we'll reduce your rates. Not raise them, but reduce them.
00:39:00MOTLEY: When did they do this? What year was this?
00:39:01DEATON: When Duke Power sold out. Quit. Down here. When they quit here, that was it.
00:39:06MOTLEY: I didn't know about that.
00:39:07DEATON: But see, they're--these--Norman Yarborough in the meantime, has got--I'd like to have his money. He, he's, he sure is well off. Norman, give anybody anything they wanted. If the city of Harlan, his buddies down there wanted to borrow a crane, it cost--no cost at all. They'd furnish the crane. They furnished, uh, Claude and, uh, the Wilson boys that I was telling you about--the two boys that supervised them in--they're in what they call now Kickback Holler. That's what they named that. People around here, that knows, you know, how it went. They call that Kickback Holler. You know, money coming in to them from kickbacks all over.
00:39:52MOTLEY: So they have this little buddy system?
00:39:54DEATON: Yeah. They own, they own, uh, they had ways of stealing from Duke Power. Right after Duke Power closed. Who's in the mining business with a whole lot of Duke Power's equipment? The Wilson boys. They've been in the mining business ever since Duke Power quit. So get--big, fine homes, mansions down here in--below Harlan. Kickback Holler they call it. Honey, that is what destroyed Brookside is the people that they had running it. Norman Yarborough, number one. Now, not only did he destroy the people here. He destroyed the school, and we thought maybe when Duke Power come in here, they're--that's a great asset to the county because, uh, the money that's going to be made here and spent here, all these houses, uh, hundred and sixty-five houses in Brookside and Duke Power tore them down. All the men had to leave there. All the people that lived in those houses had to leave there. Had to leave Brookside--buy them a house--get them a house somewheres else. Now that's the coal camp, see? But they wanted to do away with the houses. They don't want to be in no rent business. They even fixed them up to begin with--
00:41:22MOTLEY: --that's when he--
00:41:23DEATON: --make make it look good.
00:41:23MOTLEY: --he said that they, like, they put all this money into some homes, like $185,000 to like ten or fifteen homes, he said. I don't--do you know what he's talking about?
00:41:36DEATON: I don't know what he's talking about there. Uh, Eastover, uh, gave the Eastbrook--the property down here--
00:41:46DEATON: --that-- --at Black Joe--
00:41:48MOTLEY: --a large--
00:41:48DEATON: --for one dollar. A large piece of property.
00:41:50MOTLEY: Right. He--he told me about that.
00:41:52DEATON: Because I personally got 100,000 dollars for that. For the recreation there, uh, from coal severance tax to begin that. This is a project that started back, uh, years ago, back in seven--early seventies. Uh, I even got Arnold Miller interested in it. I've got a letter to prove that. But it all--the Chamber of Commerce, The Farmers Home, there's so many involved in it that's took this long. And you passed it there, some big new apartments going up. It turned out it was going to be. That's, uh, there'd be at least forty something units there. And then there will be some, some for older people, some apartments will, but there will be some private homes there too. Sold to anybody like you. You buy a lot and build you a home. But this was nothing. This was just a--something that Eastover would have--and Duke Power would have no use for whatsoever. That's just a piece of property that they owned.
00:42:56MOTLEY: And they--okay. Can I explain this to you?
00:42:58DEATON: Um-huh.
00:42:59MOTLEY: He told me that, um--I asked him about being socially responsible for some of the conditions that a company that comes in and takes the resources out of a specific area. Don't you think that, you know, you have some social responsibility to put something back into the community? And he immediately said, "Well, we gave this this piece of land which was worth 500,000 dollars or something," and that, um, and, I mean, that's basically the only thing he listed. And he talked about, you know, how people live in, and shacks and, But they do it basically by their own free will. You know what I'm saying? That they'll have a nice, uh, color TV and a, a car, a nice brand new car, but they still remain to live in shacks. You know, I mean, he--that's basically what he--how he explained the situation to me.
00:43:50DEATON: Then you're going over Harlan County people then, not exactly coal miners. Coal miners., they were used to living in what he's calling shacks, like them shacks that they had down there. Duke Power first went in there, cleaned out, tore down all the toilets and things. They didn't put bathrooms in. They just put new toilets. Like there's a house here and a house back behind--two rows of houses. They even put two toilets together. One for this house back here. So if you're in your toilet, you might hear somebody over in the other toilet. Well, you will hear them if anybody in there, but they just fixed up new toilets to make it look better. But I didn't finish there on that. When Duke Power tore all these houses out to make ponds and stock, uh, coal and stuff in. That did away with a hundred and sixty-five good producing, I call it, because they produce a lot of kids. We had a hundred and sixty-five houses there that you might even say, uh, if they averaged two kids to the family, uh, three hundred and thirty people. Uh, the school closed. We lost our school because we didn't have the children. Lost a school that we had. We had eight grades of school here for all these years, in--ages in Brookside, and we lost that school. See, so I relate that to there's a negative thing now that happened because of Duke Power coming in here. which if some little company had owned it, those people would have been there and we'd still had our school. In fact, I guess the mine still be there.
00:45:36MOTLEY: When they tore down the hundred and sixty-five houses, where did these people go? And isn't there--wasn't there a shortage of housing in the county at that time, or?
00:45:44DEATON: Yeah, they was, and it was actually hard to get a place. There's people that, uh--but then in Harlan County, too, with the coal business going down, you got people leaving all the time too, you know, so it's--
00:45:57MOTLEY: --I thought at this time, wasn't the pay pretty high for a miner like in 1974?
00:46:06DEATON: Yeah, yeah. From seventy-four on. Well, it's been, it's been, uh, considerably higher than, uh, but it's just normal--same as UMW contracts, whatever. I'd have to go back and look and see what it was, but it finally ended up. I think right now it's about 125 dollars a day. So it's, uh, mining pays good. But now they's, uh, let's see up before then, the highest I ever made at Brookside was 4,800 dollars. But that was the wages ----(??)--when I was went to work at Brookside the first time, it was $5.15, a shift. On tipple, I worked down there in for----(??).
00:46:49MOTLEY: That's once you get into the mine, right?
00:46:52DEATON: Yeah.
00:46:52MOTLEY: It doesn't include--
00:46:53DEATON: --yeah, that's--
00:46:55MOTLEY: --how long does it take to get into a mine?
00:46:58DEATON: Into a mine?
00:46:59MOTLEY: Yeah, like, I mean, do you go, like, a half mile?
00:47:02DEATON: Oh, sometimes you go farther, you go, uh, you go much farther. You might even go three miles. It's--that you get into your system that you'll never get out. It will never come out. Once you go to work in the coal mines, you'll stay. I used to work in a--I started out in a truck mine--pony mines, uh, where we, uh, shoot the coal, uh, drill holes, you know, real hard to do.
00:47:31MOTLEY: Isn't that a little dangerous?
00:47:32DEATON: Any of it's dangerous. But you learn to live with that, and you load it. Uh, you shoot it down, you eat that dust, you eat that smoke, you load it with a shovel from down on your knees maybe in water, into a car. You got a pony tied there. You, you untie him and you ride the front of the car and keep you a little something, not to hurt on it--just keep a little switch or something to hit him on the heel. You're riding right behind his heel on the car. I loved that. I got, uh, if the biggest day I ever had was eight dollars. But that was, uh, when my buddy was laid off and I got to do everything myself that day. But we use they made, like, three or four dollars a day. So once I got out of that and got into the, I got me some experience and got into Brookside Mines, see, I had made then. Got to run the shuttle car, and that's a good job.
00:48:28DEATON: --most men--
00:48:29DEATON: --all dangerous. All of them dangerous.
00:48:33MOTLEY: Most men feel the same way about, uh, mining as you do?.
00:48:36DEATON: Yes they do. (coughs) You were not educated. Education is, uh, is great for everybody. But now we didn't--we didn't educate ourselves, so we've got to--we had to like coal mining. It was all it was. Of course, me, I took off different times, I--before I married, before I got in the coal mines I tried a few things. I went in the Army when I was sixteen, but I didn't like it. I come out and then I went back again when I was eighteen, stayed three year in the Air Force and, uh, come out and went to work, uh, I went to work in the furniture store after I come out. And then went to Detroit like everybody does, you know, get a job, in the--
00:49:27MOTLEY: I think I read that somewhere--
00:49:28DEATON: --motor companies, you know, in car factories. That's good--that was good, easy work for everybody. So we did that. A whole lot of us did.
00:49:40MOTLEY: Um, but--
00:49:42DEATON: --but, uh, coal mining here, when we come out on strike, people will say, people will make fun of you striking. And tell what you lose, what you lose if you're out three months on a strike. Figure that up. If you'd have been a working, how much more you'd have had than you would--even though you got a raise, how many years would it take? But that ain't it. It's principle. It's, it's--if you don't if you don't stay on their backs, they're going to be on yours. They're going to be reducing yours all day. So you have to strike in the coal mines.
00:50:22MOTLEY: Has there always been this relationship between the coal miners and the company? That the companies, kind--I mean, are they like the enemy of the coal miners? Do you know what I'm saying?
00:50:31DEATON: I'll give you one example. I always learned to hate the boss, after I go inside. I'd be sitting there talking with him outside. Enjoying the conversation, whatever it might be. But when I go inside that mines, I don't want--I hate that boss, because I know he's one way and I'm another. He's, uh, he's for the company, and, and I ain't never seen many intelligent bosses in the coal mines.
00:51:03MOTLEY: You mean that really care about the welfare--
00:51:05DEATON: --that's right. Well, yeah, and intelligent, period. (Motley laughs) I don't know how to--I don't know, it seem like most of them, you see, is the kind that's crazy. Take a, take my tip, tipple boss. He was, he was ignorant with a torch. He, he'd be fixing something with a torch. And you--he'd have that torch right out in your lap. You know he ain't--he ain't got common sense. They're, they're scared to death of the--because they have no protection they're--companies that--companies don't want you no more. But I can see why bosses are--are crazy. Uh, but, uh, you run into--bosses usually know who they got working. My boss would never say nothing to me because I had sense enough to know, and, and that was one of my biggest worries, is beating the other shift on the number of cars of coal we got. If I was on night shift, it'd break my heart if we couldn't get more coal than the day shift got.
00:52:11MOTLEY: You mean you had to produce a certain--
00:52:13DEATON: --didn't have to. Unh-uh. But I say if you had all, everybody as interested in it, as is myself--the company--if you look at it that way, the more money the company makes, the easier it's going to be to get another contract with them in the future. I always do hope the company does well. You're getting your pay, but give them a day's work. Now, if everybody was like that on a section, the bosses and the men, they'd get along just fine. But you run into bosses that will pick on somebody, and when they pick on somebody, they can destroy them. Just maybe tear something up on purpose, you know, to keep--cause them a lot of trouble. So it's so interesting, man, and I'm. I'm sure you'll enjoy the, uh, the story that you'll learn on coal mining. They, though, it'd take forever, though, to just just go over it all. We used to get. I used to ride with NBC, CBS and them and, and make them take pictures of decent homes because they'd come in here and during one of our strikes and ride with us, you know, and run these picket lines. They wouldn't take no pictures till they got them old houses like Norman Yarborough was talking about, that miners didn't even live in, in some cases, that's the ones that would be showing all over the nation on national news. It wouldn't be showing the, the pretty sceneries and things, you know. So on occasions I got to ride with the NBC or CBS, whatever, have them take some nice pictures (coughs) to remind them of it, um, because they've all been here many times. We got a lot of publicity.
00:54:06MOTLEY: Why do you think they were shooting, just the, the houses that weren't so nice.
00:54:11DEATON: To make it look like a coal miner is a coal miner has always been run down. You know, he's been run down from people. People back in the cities, naturally, they they ain't got sense enough to realize that they use that coal. They need that coal. They should honor the people that dig the coal. They should support the people especially. I mean, the coal miners, especially those--their pay, their wages, uh, but they don't. So they don't want to show big fine houses the coal miners are living in, uh, of course, the coal miners didn't live in big, fine houses, but they're decent, decent looking. If they just--I wouldn't have cared if they showed the house that I lived in at Brookside. I lived in the camp, I, I raised my kids in the camp. We didn't have bath water. We had--we paid $10 a month rent, $5 for electric. We had a, uh--we got plumb modern once. We put a commode seat in our outside toilet. Kids bragged about that at school. Uh, but you learn. You you're raised that way, and you, you're living good. Enjoy it. Bath in a bathtub. Come in from work. All dirty, nasty. Go get a bathtub, and just imagine how hard that is. Heat your water on a teakettle, put it in a bathtub. Poor old daddy. He was always the workingest man in the world in the coal mining business. He lived till he was eighty three. And he was, he was, he was twice the hard working man than any normal person was. He, he gave it every effort. Never one time did he turn down a shift of work or a hours overtime. But he lived, he worked, he lived, he raised us good. And he a good union man and everything, but he died last year.
00:56:22MOTLEY: I ------(??) love that.
00:56:24DEATON: Uh, my kids, I just got one boy. I got one girl. She's, uh, she's teaching school. I, I didn't ever want to--John in the coal mines. And he, uh, he didn't go to college, but I always told them to show me a high school diploma, and I'd let them do as they seen fit, then. They did that. So I didn't push them because I just went one year of high school. But John made an excellent artist. He's a real artist. Well, he's proved it. He's, uh. He's in the syndicate book. He's got a strip syndicated. But it's not no big thing. It ain't paid off yet. But you can't never tell. Garfield did, Peanuts did, and all that. Well, this one's called Tadpoles. He's a great musician. He's got a girlfriend, he's had about five years. Just a darling to him and hers, just--they're together daily. But still, he's not secure enough to get married. He's got furniture that's in that basement's cluttered. That's all his stuff. Got enough to live, but you have to be careful what you get out on. I, I'm proud of him. I'm proud of him, because he didn't have to be a coal miner. Because we ain't got as much to offer in the coal mines now as we did back then. Coal mining used to be beautiful here in Harlan County. Just take Brookside back in the days when I was growing up. Right down there where you crossed the bridge. That railroad track would be lined with coal miners sitting down, talking to each other about the day's work, you know, what all they've done. Just oodlings of them. They all lived here. Ages and Brookside--sit there in front of the store, you know. Company stores always had anything you wanted. Just trains, one after another, and buses. They used to be a bus every fifteen minutes going up through here when we had coal. Now everybody's got cars and we got no buses.
00:58:44MOTLEY: Is the coal just gone? You know what I'm saying?
00:58:47DEATON: Coal is still around, but they're just a gouging it out. They just a gouging it out. And some places are even still paying pretty good. And they've stripped it out. They've ----(??), they've augered it out. The coal production in Harlan County is just as much, I guess, today as it was back then, but it's coming from all sources. Just destroying the land, period. We used to have a good drinking water in the county. Nobody has good drinking water now because the mountains don't have streams running like you used to. Used to the mountains never quits running--little streams coming out of the mountains. You don't never see a stream now. Except the day it rains. Used to--they run the year round. So we had real good drinking water. But, uh, the strippers and the coal mines, the loggers and all have destroyed the mountains in our part of the state. But now we've lived here all of our life. And, you know, it's hard to just quit and leave. We just have to give up a few things, like it's, it's hard to go hunting, squirrel hunting or whatever in the mountains now. Can't do that. Our kids can't do that like we used to do. Did you, uh, like the movie that you seen on the strike that we had here? Did you see it?
01:00:19MOTLEY: Yeah, I've seen it a couple of times.
01:00:21DEATON: Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:22MOTLEY: What did you, what did you think of that as a accurate portrayal of--from the miners situation or, or, or from the entire strike?
01:00:31DEATON: It, it was so close to a hundred percent accurate. First of all, when Barbara come here--Barbara Kopple--she's, uh, she'd sit there in the store. I'd give anything because I'm always an outgoing person. Anyway, I'm publicized all over the world. And far as during that strike, during on--in newspapers, magazines, whatever, it'd take you a week to look through it, uh, what I've got. But Barbara always wanted to interview me on the camera, and I just keep putting her off. But I never did have that much confidence. I was not impressed with her and her crew. Uh, I see them every day. They sit right there on the floors. We always had a gang--that was a good union headquarters. I'm so glad I had that store when this all came up, because it furnished them a place to, uh, discuss unionism in my store. Well, Barbara had sat there and drank them old RCs and, and eat them moon pies and cakes and things, you know, just, just like the, the crumb of the street. I mean, just, uh, they dressed nasty, uh, sloppy. And I just never was too highly impressed with her. But now she really got involved. She was there. Oh, I just loved to hear her talk and things, you know, and she's even a very nice person. But her calmness, she was so calm in her--well, you've seen the movie, you can tell that no matter how much danger there is, why, there's no there's no nervousness in her voice. Uh, she covered that thing good. And then she come up with that--what she did--uh, she win, a--
01:02:31MOTLEY: --Academy Award--
01:02:32DEATON: --Academy Award there for the documentary of the year. That was great. And it deserved it. And she deserved it. And, uh, I didn't fail to tell her. So I sent her a little book after that one time, and I complimented her, and I got a note back--she's already starting on another one on something else. She was great.
01:02:53MOTLEY: But, uh--
01:02:54DEATON: --but that, that guy--she was--she could face that guy, Basil Collins, you know, man, she didn't care. She wasn't afraid of Basil.
01:03:06MOTLEY: That's interesting, because, um, talking to Ann Lewis, she married, uh, Jerry Johnson.
01:03:12DEATON: Johnson.
01:03:13MOTLEY: And, um, she she said that, um, you know, Basil--in the film--If you didn't, if you didn't know Basil, he came across as, you know, the evil, evil character. And, um, she said that, you know, Jerry had told her that, uh, when he was growing up, Basil was the one that always gave the kids who were really poor, food and clothing and, and, you know and she, she, she gave another side to him, which--
01:03:42DEATON: Basil's daddy was a coal operator himself. He was, uh, Russ Collins, I believe, is his name, uh, anyway, them was strictly company men. But let me tell you something, Basil Collins, uh, he was raised to be what he was. He never give no poor nothing. No. Them kind of people didn't. uh, But I'm not one to say too much about Basil now, when I lived down there, of course, he got a warrant for me once up there. He didn't even, he didn't even know me enough to--he, he, he accused me of something I wouldn't--I wasn't there, I--he, he got a warrant for me for threatening to kill him--
01:04:30MOTLEY: -----(??)
01:04:32DEATON: --on, the picket line up there. Well, at the time, that was at Highsplint. At the time, I was on the picket line up at, uh, Holmes's Mill. And I know who it was that threatened to kill him, but he got the warrant for me. He thought it was me. He, he, uh, he described me. He described the person that threatened to kill him on that picket line, you know, and somebody said, "Well, that's Junior Deaton." So he got to pick--that warrant for me. So, uh, when they I found out he had the warrant, and I tried to give up down there because I know if I go up there, they wanting to--the high sheriff would like to escort me through here. You know, this is back in the, uh, picket lines back before then, you know. But anyway, uh, that's sixty-four, I guess, anyway, that, uh, they wouldn't give me--they said I'd have to find out who had the warrant, you know, get the warrant, so--before he could make bond. Well, I got the judge in to give the field worker, uh, the right to sign my bond up there, so we could go up there. I wanted to go up there, so we went up there, and here comes that sheriff. He seen us was coming. And before he could say anything, I said, "Bay(??), where have you been? I've been looking everywhere for you." He's, "Well, I've you, too." So he says, "I'm going to have to take you in." I said, "Well, that's what I'm looking for you for." I said, "We got it all fixed up with the judge. He's, uh, -----(??) here signing the bond, so I'll. I'll get to stay on the job up here." So he.--oh it broke his heart because he didn't get to take me in. But Basil, he ended up dropping them charges and then he--I lived down there and he'd come by. He's working his mouth, you know, and I just went like that, (demonstrates something visually to Motley) waving the son of a bitch at him. So we'd do that right on through the strike. After the strike, if I met him. I spoke to him. He spoke to me. We even talked a time or two in the barber shop. But then when we come out on another strike, we're back to--he's one way, I'm another. He represents company. I represent you, and there's one thing that I didn't--I respected him for. I happen to know that he was in the Bataan Death March. You know, that was for all of us. He went through hell there. You would think that he went through enough to he would even go beyond his raising and get on the good side of people. But he didn't do that. But I still, I still didn't say nothing bad about Basil Collins. Just because he is that a way. Understand?
01:07:18MOTLEY: Yeah. I understand. Did, um, when Barbara Kopple and--was, was filming here--what--was she, like, an integral part of the strike, she and her film crew, or were they did they kind of separate themselves from the strikers?
01:07:37DEATON: No buddy. Lived right with them. Stayed--
01:07:40MOTLEY: --through the whole thing?--
01:07:41DEATON: --right through. Yes, sir. Didn't move from nothing. Uh, in fact, they was with, uh--they lived over here in a hotel with, uh--with some of the organizers. I, uh--forget their names now, but they, they, uh, they were, they just didn't impress me too much. It just looked like a radical group of some kind, you know, from somewhere else. Like I did run into quite a few of them. I used to--I have talked to so many people you wouldn't believe, because they'd come to the store, you know, naturally, because that's--like I say, that's the headquarters.
01:08:19MOTLEY: Right.
01:08:20DEATON: So they're there for information. And I would accuse those people, in most cases, of being communist people. Uh, they would just look like something socialist to me. And that's all I wanted out of them. And if you accuse somebody of being communist, they will gladly go along with the fact--you know, like And when they deny communism, oh, they're probably just socialist. Yeah, well, that's what I wanted to know. If they was with the socialist people, you know, party. And you'd be surprised how many they were. They have been run out of here, some of them were pretty radical. They was about to kill a couple of them once. They couldn't hardly get out of here fast enough. But we run into a whole, uh--anytime there's a strike, they's vultures from all over the country coming. But, but it helps in some cases. They's even Denmark people here that wrote a book about it and sent me the book, but I couldn't read it. I don't know why they crazy enough to send me a book in Danish. But, uh, but that, uh, that movie is accurate.
01:09:37MOTLEY: If you, if you could include anything in the film, was there anything when you saw it that you thought this wasn't how it was, or I'd like to include other aspects?
01:09:48DEATON: I'd have to brush up on that movie that--Barbara, when Barbara bought that movie back before she--before it was available anywhere, she brought it up to the center up there and had us to come up. You know, we gathered up there and while, while, uh, she showed that movie, while--she's talking about it, you know, so it was, uh--that's the way I got to see that movie. And I have never--I don't believe--never since then--I'm going to get that movie and look at it.
01:10:17MOTLEY: They've got it in video.
01:10:18DEATON: Yeah, it's plentiful now, but it's a good movie to have. In fact, I guess I ought to get it and record it. That, uh, I don't remember seeing any fiction--any set up situations in that movie at all. Then women were just as strong, and you won't believe you, you won't believe Sudie Crusenberry. You ought to get to talk to her some.
01:10:47MOTLEY: I want to. I want to get in touch with her.
01:10:49DEATON: If you can stand to smell them. They're the nasty type people. And they live by the schoolhouse over here. But she is strong union, buddy. Yeah, you tell her that I sent you over there. And right above her lives Louis Stacy. He's the one that was on the--I don't know how he is now. He's religious now, and I don't know how he is about talking, but maybe so.
01:11:18MOTLEY: Did you think, um, you, so you didn't think the role of the women in the film because they play a large role in the film? You didn't think that was over dramatized?
01:11:28DEATON: No, buddy. Under dramatized if anything,
01:11:30MOTLEY: Under? Really?
01:11:31DEATON: Shh--I'm wanting to believe that them women is what got this thing started down here, buddy, because, uh, without the women and the news media there'd have never been no contract, they've been scabbing there yet because they was, they was working every day. They was working every day in the pickets down there. But see, men are gonna have their hands tied. Billy G. Williams, the sheriff, he, uh, little as they might know, and little is you might depict out of that movie--something that's not there, uh, he is certainly on the union side. Billy G. Williams. I sat there and listened to him one time, telling his deputies on the scanner here to sleep late in the morning. Real late. Now he's calling them, he is calling them one at a time there. And I heard him on the scanner, because I asked him about it later. So he--if the coal companies pushed him, you know, to get him on the scene. Now, there was something taking place, which was that Highsplint deal. The next day, he was telling his men to sleep late, see? Deputies. So he didn't want to get involved. Now, Billy G didn't want to get involved in none of this, huh?
01:12:53DEATON: --was he?--
01:12:54DEATON: --old feller died just recently. He's dead now, but now he was a good man, a good sheriff.
01:13:02MOTLEY: Was he one of the only people that, like the company, didn't control? Like, I know, Hogg, I've read things. That Hogg was pretty much controlled--
01:13:11DEATON: Yeah. Hogg is a coal operators, man. He's one of em, but, uh--
01:13:15MOTLEY: --I mean, was that, was he an exception? This one Sheriff?
01:13:19DEATON: Oh, by all means, a great exception. Now the one prior to him back in the Bob Hall days, when my when I was working in the union strikes and things, we had guns looking at us, you know, up on the picket lines. There, they're, there before we get there with the rifles. (pauses) I got a bad name during the strikes. Uh, in the sixty-four strike, I guess, uh, I, I don't know why, but I'm kind of glad in a way that it happened. Everything--it was blowed up. Dynamite. So it was always me they accused me of-- (phone rings)
01:14:09MOTLEY: Do you need to answer the phone?
01:14:10DEATON: Uh--(phone rings) [recording paused] [recording resumes]We had a lot of dynamiting going on here then. Uh, I lived in that house down there at Brookside in the camp house. And, uh, one Sunday there's somebody calling me. I thought it was a woman and I was drinking some beer anyway. And she's--what, what started all that--I run the picket line.
01:14:43MOTLEY: This is in sixty-four.
01:14:45DEATON: Yeah, I was a running the picket line. You know, I was in charge of the picket line. It's up to me because the judge, and then the law keeps us really under control. We're only allowed so many pickets there. Well, on Saturday, we didn't have a picket line, and, uh, just five days a week. Well, I just couldn't bear the thought of them old scabs going in there without somebody looking at them. So I backed on--I backed up the hill there where I live and fixing to pull out on the highway. I was going over there and build me a fire, you know, and drink a little coffee and just wait on them. But I seen a car coming around the curve, the lights, you know, and I just waited and turned my lights out and waited till he passed me. And then I pulled in behind--it was three of them in a truck. Well, I shouldn't have done this, but when we got over to the--across the bridge and they--the picket line is around up here, but they, they pull in that lane there between the superintendent's house and the store. But, I know they're going to pull in there and I just shoot right around there like I'm going to block them, you know. So they went up to the other lane and went in and I hollered, "We'll get you later, you son of a bitches. I'm not kidding you." I'm like that--that's the reason I say, I should have done this. But the next day, which is Sunday, they somebody called me. "Oh, Bravo, huh? Oh," just, you know, bragging on me, you know, said, "We're going to take care of you." Well, I didn't really. It didn't scare me. I did give it a thought. I talked to real vulgar to whoever it was. If it was a woman that called me. And that night my wife was gone then, to the rag store they go--that was a regular place to go to buy second hand clothes. So when she come home, I was telling her about it and I said, I, I guess I ought to just sit out there in my car and wait for her. And I decided not to--(phone rings)--see who--
01:17:00MOTLEY: --okay. [recording paused]
01:17:02DEATON: [recording resumes] (coughs) I wanted to go out there and get in my car, and just, uh, in case, you know, it might not be--
01:17:11MOTLEY: --watch the--
01:17:12DEATON: --okay--in case it might not be--no lie, I just wanted to, to get in the car and wait on her. But I didn't do that. I was even to pull my car in the yard and do that, but I just left it outside out in--next to the fence. Buddy, at night, sure enough, we were sitting there watching TV. I mean, like sitting on the couch here watching TV. And the bullets started coming. Here come a car by there. And the bullets started to coming. And they coming--and you wouldn't believe how it sounds when they're shooting in your house. It turned out that one of them had come through that wall and hit that wall there and ricocheted over here and fell right in front of us. Well, my kids is in the other room. That's the first thing you think of, you know, and time we got--made, sure everybody's all right. It turned out that there's five shots come in there, uh, but it turned out later I felt real good when I examined everything. They were really shooting at the car. And the car when they--they shot the light--the windows out of the car all right, the windshield. But there's some of them hit the, uh--them that come in the house. They were hitting the banners and the picket line bench. We had to carry them over to the house every night. Uh, we found a couple of bullets in them, but them that come in the house, ricocheted and come in there. Because if somebody comes along and shoots right directly at your house, they are murderers. They are, you know, just crazy people. So that--I felt good about that then. But we never did catch them. We never did. Never did. We looked all night for them and got another threat on Christmas Eve night. And we sent our men--the fellow next door--we sent our families off. We didn't get to stay home at night on Christmas Eve night. That was bad. But if they would have come at night, we'd knowed who it was. Because they would have been dead. We was waiting on them.
01:19:22MOTLEY: Wasn't that, wasn't that pretty typical in 1973, 74 of, um--didn't that happen to a lot of families? Because I know in the film--
01:19:33MOTLEY: --yeah--
01:19:33MOTLEY: --that's -----(??)--
01:19:34DEATON: Yeah. (pauses) Yeah, it's nothing unusual in, uh, in any coal strike to have things of that nature.
01:19:44MOTLEY: Can you explain to me the, uh, murderer of Lawrence Jones? Because I've heard two--
01:19:50DEATON: --no, no, don't know much about that.
01:19:52MOTLEY: You don't know much about it?
01:19:53DEATON: (pauses) No, I don't know much about that. Just what I've read and I don't--I've forgotten about it. There was a lot of things done in the strikes towards--that union men is guilty of, but I always thought they got the wrong--(sounds of people not part of the interview talking as they walk through room)
01:20:18DEATON CONT'D: --they'd always get the wrong people. For instance, there's, uh--(door closes)--telephone poles. The best way to do some damage to a coal mine is to take the power away from them. Well, I wouldn't have thought about nothing like that, but they had three big utility poles with the wires leading--going to the mine. Three of them dynamited. Just like if you were sitting here, and you, you could step out in the yard there and you could have seen them went up. But they accused me of that. Asked me about it in court, and I had a good alibi, but, I know who done that. And to give you some idea, he's a fellow that couldn't even read and write, but he's he's sharp on things like that. He parked up at Verda about a mile and a half. He went through the mountains yonder, and he come back over here, and he wired, took his time and wired dynamite on all those poles and went--had a fuse, you know, on each one. When he lights them, one will go off and later one will go off here later. He sat, over there, see and watched them go off over on the other side of the holler. But what he didn't think about was the airplane. They sent an airplane, buddy, when that happened, you know, they called airport and got an airplane over there to hunt--see who's in the mountains, see? But he, he seen that airplane circling and he got down. He had an old army overcoat on. He laid right beside of a log. He said he looked just like another log. So they never did know who--many incidents happened like that. They had a guard down near at Brookside. The boss's car got blowed up down there. I got accused of that. It's all on, er, uh--they would all file suit against the union to when they were damaged like that. But actually, what happened, I know who done that. They used to have a guard there at all times, but this night they didn't have one for some reason. It's raining. And this fellow here that I know of, he put that rifle on his shoulder, a big raincoat, and walked that track a couple of times, you know, like he's a guard. Come by and wired that car up and blows it. Just laughed about it. They's some people that's brave the--although I was accused of so many things the reason I say I am not guilty--I thank God I had enough sense to know that nothing is important enough for you to go to the penitentiary over--under this. I mean, when you can do something nonviolent, uh, let somebody else do the violence. If there's anything you won't usually care if there's violence. I don't. I didn't pay much mind, but I would never be a part of it. I would never--if I went to jail, it'd be, uh, it'd be, it'd be because they didn't get the right party, because I, I would not get involved. I might do things, legal things, but nothing. Nothing to hurt somebody. (pauses) I'm going to have to leave in about three or four minutes.
01:23:54MOTLEY: Okay, okay. Um, well you've answered, more than--
01:23:58DEATON: --answered a whole lot?
01:24:01MOTLEY: Oh, yeah, um--
01:24:02DEATON: --I give you some pretty good ind--coal industry-- (pauses)
01:24:14MOTLEY: Well, this is, this is great. I think we can, we can--
01:24:18DEATON: --one thing I want to, I want, uh, I want noted. Not only have I experienced living under union conditions and non union conditions when I was growing up. I have always got to play a part in the union from a safety committeeman to a financial secretary--(unrelated voices of people walking through room)--to attending union conventions where you get to know the big people, you know?
01:24:52MOTLEY: Right.
01:24:52DEATON: You know how it functions,
01:24:54MOTLEY: Right.
01:24:55DEATON: The welfare fund. I was excellent on preparing pension papers for old pensioners. I had them coming from other locals because I took time to help them. Because it's hard. It's complicated to get old time pensioners work record together. So that was--I had the opportunity to help a lot of people, and I know a lot about union--in the coal miners, in the coal miners union. I know how it functions. I know the people in it and what they were. There's corruption in all unions, but now it, is, is--take the Yablonski killing. That was the dirtiest thing in the world. But I lay that on a man that that goes back to the Bible, where the Bible speaks of your second childhood. He's--I think he's on his way back. You know anybody with common sense, uh, if they took a notion to kill somebody, they'd get the mafia or somebody that's responsible for that kind of work, and not get their own force, you know, because it was too easy to solve, Uh, but outside of that, there's the greatest man. John L Lewis raised that man.
01:26:12MOTLEY: Tony Boyle?
01:26:14DEATON: He raised him? Yeah. Raised him right there in that office. Tony Boyle when John L Lewis was there. Tony Boyle was right there with him all the time. So he was, uh, he was a great man. Tony Boyle was a great man. But now this one thing, that's the only thing that he ever done that I would--and I didn't personally, at one time, I didn't like Yablonski. But now, since I see what they was trying to do, well Yablonski might have had some good intentions towards this coal mining union because Miller turned out no good. Church no good. Uh, we just ain't had no good, uh, up till I don't know how I ain't, I ain't summed this one up good yet, but things are going a little smoother.
01:27:01MOTLEY: You have to go.
01:27:03DEATON: Yeah, yeah, I have to go.
01:27:05MOTLEY: Okay. Well, um, can I ask you-- [recording stops]
