Letter to the Editor: Oligarchy

The landed gentry are the genesis of oligarchs. Poverty precipitates from oligarchs exploiting “poor white trash” and slaves. That exploitation is abundantly clear in Appalachia.

In the 1870s and 80s charlatans deceived the cash strapped Mountain People from Alabama to Vermont to gain mineral and timber rights in exchange for tax payments. The tricksters convinced the mountaineers they still owned “their land” although all they had was surface rights.

Every deed contained language to the effect, “…right to enter... carry away all coal…without liability for injury or damage to the surface...right to have and use all spaces without charge…” The robber barons swindled the coal from the Clampetts!

My family owned a dairy farm in southwestern Pennsylvania. In 1949, my father raised the Washington County fair champion Holstein heifer.

A gas-well derrick fell, killing his prized cow. Because of the coal company’s deed language, my dad received no compensation. A few years later, the coal company razed our early 1800s log home and strip mined. Our story dominates the regional history, see the PBS series Appalachia.

Appalachia mining is a continual battle of simple, religiously fundamental mountain people against the oligarchs.

Tennessee Ernie Ford’s famous ballad of “16 tons” is a description of life of coal miner families, “… slack in your pants and soaked with sweat, St. Peter don’t you call me because I can’t go… I owe my soul to the company store…” A small step above slavery, it was survival of catastrophic mine explosions and black lung disease.

The presidential election is another coal black chapter in that exploitation. Ryan/McConnell/Trump have rescinded a regulation preventing dumping mine waste in streams although a 2014 spill into the Elk River made water in 9 counties undrinkable.

A new epidemic of black lung has combined with silicosis to render miners’ remaining lives to misery. Cory Robertson’s companies have declared bankruptcy (a Trump trick) leaving miner’s families without health insurance and states full of toxic superfund sites. Wyoming is the new mark. Robertson’s fortune grows as Appalachia remains with broken bodies and ruined environment. Appalachia voted heavily for Trump as the miners sang, “Praise the Lord and breathe the coal dust.” John L. Lewis rolled over in his grave. More to come…

Terry B. Armentrout

The Dalles