xt7tqj77t92f https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7tqj77t92f/data/mets.xml Blue-Tail Fly, Inc., 1969-   newspapers 2008ua008_1_11 English Lexington, Ky. : Blue-Tail Fly, Inc., 1969- : Lexington, Kentucky. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Blue-Tail Fly Blue-Tail Fly, No. 11 text Blue-Tail Fly, No. 11  2010 true xt7tqj77t92f section xt7tqj77t92f 



 
The Hurricane Creek Massacre, page 5 Tom Bethell
photographs: four students from San Francisco State, pages 10-11
The Cowboy Steve Taylor Show, page 12 Guy Mendes
Captain Kentucky in poems and pictures, page 15 James Baker Hall
A surveillance report on said Captain, page 17 Percy P. Cassidy
music:  Dylan and his New Morning, page 18 Irving Washington
btf poor-mouth plea for money, page 20 Virgil Sturgil
cover:   photo by Eric Kronengold
The blue-tail fly is published monthly (when funds allow) by blue-tail fly, inc.,  P.O. Box 7304, Lexington, Kentucky 40506
Peabody goes West
"From the beginning the indigenous North Americans told the invading white man the Euro-american way of life was dangerous to all land and life on Earth. They were not heard-they were massacred. Now, all that they have warned us of has come to pass: the waters we drink are poisoned, the air we breath is poisoned, the food we eat is poisoned, our agricultural lands are dead and dying, the people in our cities have gone insane and the whole of the cycle of life is being destroyed by the way we live.. ."
"Committee for Traditional Indian Land &Life
PAGE, Arizona (LNS)-Peabody Coal Co., already responsible for devastation in Appalachia, is now going to strip-mine 100 square miles of sacred Indian land on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in northwestern Arizona. Peabody, wholly owned by the Kennecott Copper Company, will make over $775,000,000 while feeding the low-grade, dirty coal into one of the largest power complexes in the country.
Some of the coal ripped from Black Mesa will be sent 80 miles by rail to the Navajo Power Generating Station near Page, Arizona. The rest will be crushed, mixed with precious desert water and pushed 272 miles through an 18 inch pipeline to the Mojave Power Generating Station near Bullhead City, Nevada. These two plants are part of a grid called W.E.S.T. (Western Energy Supply and Transmission Associates), which officially involves 23 major state, municipal and federal power companies and agencies.
The complex sprawls over California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and it includes the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Salt
River Project of Arizona, Southern California Edison, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Arizona Public Service Company. Other corporations involved in the project are Southern Pacific, Shell, Westinghouse and General Electric.
The conglomerate is in the process of creating a wasteland out of the Southwest, under the guise of the "Four Corners Development Project." The spread of devastation will be wide. The once-lush Imperial (Calif.) and Mexical (Mex.) Valleys could easily be rendered completely unproductive. An area extending from Southern California to the Rocky Mountains will be as smoggy as the Los Angeles Basin in a few years.
The government and Peabody claim that they got their property rights fair and square though an agreement signed with the Indian Tribal Council. The Council, set up in 193S, is made up of Indian men who are considered "progressive" enough for the white Bureau of Indian Affairs which appoints them.)
One month after the Peabody Coal Company was granted a 'drilling and exploration permit' by the Navajo and Hopi Tribal Councils, the Secretary of the Interior recommended enactment of legislation to sanction building of the Glen Canyon Dam. Construction of the dam and the formation of Lake Powell, which were actually early steps in the Four Corners Development, were begun only after, voters, taxpayers and consumers had been convinced the lake was "recreational." (There were already plans to build one large power station and one monstrously large power station almost on the shores across the lake from each other"plants that would pump vast tonnages of smog-producing chemicals and poisons into the air around the lake and that would dump pollutants, chemicals and hot and salinized water into the lake.)
Two years before the Navajo Tribal
blue-tail fly
number eleven
people: Guy Mendes, Darrell Rice, David Holwerk, Sue Anne Salmon, Julie Mendes, Irving Washington, Chuck the Trucker, Skip Taylor, Don Pratt, Jonathan Greene, Tony Urie, Rick Bell, Gretchen Brown, Dick "Dirk" Klausner, Gene Meatyard, John Polk, Harold Sherman, Diana Ryan, Harold Gage and that inseparable pair, Virgil Sturgil and King Creole. Invaluable As-sistance by The Venerable Bede and Colleen Bean,  the Dream Machine.
Council voted to permit the Salt River Project to build the Navajo station at Page, the turbine-generators ($100,000,000 worth) had already been ordered from General Electric. Waters from the Navajo Dam on the San Juan River, originally alloted to the "Navajo Irrigation Project" have been cut, and are now being alloted to large power stations in northwestern New Mexico.
During 1966, an estimate was made by federal government workers of the extent of damage done to fish and wildlife habitats by strip-mining. There had been 12,890 miles of streams damaged. Of our lakes and resevoirs, 145,000 acres had suffered damage from strip miner's digging. And wildlife habitats had been destroyed"more than V/i million acres. At least 39 states had miles of ruined streams and acres of ravaged land to add to the total.
When the Department of the Interior "warned" Peabody about the "dangers" of strip-mining, Peabody agreed to: exercise "diligence" in the mining operations; to carry on development and operations "in a workmanlike manner and to the fullest possible extent" and to surrender and return the premises on termination of the lease in as good condition as received "except for ordinary wear, tear and depletion incidental to mining operations and unavoidable accidents."
A represenative of the Peabody Coal Company has stated that the operation piping the coal from Black Mesa to Bullhead City "won't take much water." Another representative has even tried to claim the strip-mine line operation will improve the water table. Actually it requires a considerable amount of water to push six to ten tons of coal per minute through a 272 mile pipeline. Between 3,000,000 and 7,500,000 gallons of water will be pumped each day from beneath Black Mesa, not including water for on site-operations.
The water being removed is fossil
water, deposited eons ago when the Southwest was much wetter. It will not reaccumulate unless nature readjusts climatic conditions hi the region. Its reaccumulation now would depend directly upon the scant rainfall of the area"currently 6-15 inches a year.
Corn cultivation is the prime source of livelihood and food to the Hopi. If the natural equilibrium of the underground water is upset, the water from the crops supporting water table will be depleted, destroying the delicate balance of the arid desert environment. Hopi corn, as many desert-adapted plants, is short-rooted; a drop of only a few inches in the water table would be enough to end its cultivation.
When completed and fully operative, the five units of the two power stations receiving coal from Black Mesa will receive, consume, and convert over 38,000 tons of coal per day into smog and power.
It is well known that coal-burning power plants are dangerous sources of air pollution. Under current standards and projected plans, these power plants will daily emit more ash particulate matter than is released in Los Angeles and New York combined. (Southern Californians refused to permit the construction of similar plants in their cities because of the air pollution they would cause.)
The one plant now in operation near Farmington, New Mexico, is daily spewing forth hundreds of tons of fly ash and invisible poisonous gasses. Aerial tracking of the visible pollution shows that this single plant, not yet in full operation, daily soils the air, water, land and people over an area of 100,000 square miles. What will happen when this plant is joined by an identical plant, San Juan, and by those proposed in Utah, and the ones at Page and Mojave?
"/ only wish they could take into their hearts and souk what we see in the evening in our Hopi land; the mountains
2/number eleven


 
in
the
I
near daily rash erial lows full I land ,000 this San and
\their the itains
and valleys of the Great Spirit, the sky, the setting sun, the stars, the moon and all of our brothers and sisters who inhabit this beautiful world with us; the animals, the birds, the plants, the trees, the stones."
Great oaks from little acorns
By Scott Kaufer
The Oakwood High School Gorilla
Los Angeles, Calif. (CPSQ: Do you think that a lot of the people who were killed in My Lai were Vietcong?
F. EDWARD HEBERT (Chairman, House Armed Services Committee; was chairman of the House Subcommittee that investigated My Lai): There's no doubt about it.
Q: There also is no doubt, though, isn't there, that a lot of people who were killed there were not Vietcong, couldn't possibly have been?
HEBERT: What were they doing in that village, for 25 years a Vietcong stronghold?
Q: Well, I'm talking about the women and children, though.
HEBERT: What were they doing there?
Q: Well, they were living there.
HEBERT: That place had been cleaned out several times, and they went back to the Vietcong.
Q: Right, I mean there's no question that some of those who were killed at My Lai could not possibly have been Vietcong; they were little children, they were 1 year, 2 years old...
HEBERT: They were just growing up to be big Vietcong. Those little children throw grenades...
Q: Yeah, but there were some children there who were 1 year old and 2 years old...
-HEBERT: That's going into testimony which we didn't take. All we said was that Vietnamese in civilian clothes were killed, wantonly killed, unnecessarily killed. That's what we said.
Q: Those two things seem to be in conflict. On the one hand your report saying that they were unnecessarily killed, and on the other hand you're saying now that they just would have grown up to be big Vietcong.
HEBERT:   I   can't   resolve that
either___I've said they're little Vietcong
who'll grow up to be big Vietcong.
Q.   So   why   was   their killing unnecessary?
HEBERT: You can kill, in an atrocity, unnecessarily, even the enemy. Just because you kill them doesn't mean you can slaughter the enemy.
Q: So then your real objection to the event at My Lai was not that it happened, but how it happened.
HEBERT: How it happened.
Q: The way in which they were killed, not that they were killed?
HEBERT: That's correct. I think that would be fa':.
People's Party
As an outgrowth of the Alternative America Conference held at UK last month, plans are being made to form a People's Party in Kentucky. A statewide convention for the party is to be held in either Louisville or Lexington the first weekend in April. Watch for further details.
Following is a 10-point "Statement of Principles for a People's Party of Kentucky" drawn up by a group consisting mainly of activist professors:
1. The people as a whole shall have democratic control over the government and other institutions that affect then lives. These shall include the means of communication, the courts and the educational system at all levels.
2. The people shall assert control over the land and the industries that produce the goods needed for a decent standard of living for all people. This shall include the power to end the destruction of our human and natural resources.
3. Control shall include the power to remove those elected to public office and replace them with men and women who will abide by the decisions of the people.
4. Control shall include the power to decide issues by vote of the people, instead of decisions being made by one or a handful of men.
5. Labor and farm unions shall be free of limits on their right to organize and bargain collectively. All laws limiting their freedom, including so-called right-to-work laws, shall be repealed. Every person shall be guaranteed a job or adequate income.
6. Every person and every family shall have the minimum income needed to insure enough food, housing, clothing, education, medical care and cultural and recreational facilities. This shall be theirs as a matter of right, by the fact that they are  human  beings.  As of 1971 the
Acapulco Gold®
SAN FRANCISCO (CPS)"Marijuana is now as American as Spiro Agnew's daughter"or so say forward-thinking executives of U.S. tobacco firms who have been covertly eying the underground market in "grass," officially valued at better than a billion dollars a year.
The real figure, say Western entrepreneurs, is nearer three times that sum, and now that the possibilities of legal manufacture are being discussed in the boardrooms, bootleg suppliers are organizing to safeguard their interests.
Long before New Years Day, when the government shut down a S250 million advertising industry by banning cigarette
minimum need is $5,500 a year for a family of four.
7. All students shall be paid from the public treasury while they are in school. They shall receive enough to take care of all their needs, including books, tuition, food, housing, clothing, and cultural and recreational activities.
8. Every person shall be free of limits on her of his right to speak and organize, to belong to any organization one chooses and to exercise all other rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
9. War shall be abolished as a means of settling disputes and the money used to build homes, hospitals, day-care centers, museums, libraries, schools, cultural and recreational facilities and all other buildings needed by the people. The military draft shall be ended and never again imposed on the people of this nation.
10. None of the rights set forth above shall be denied to a person because of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, economic condition or political belief. There shall be affirmative action to end racial injustice in all forms and totally remove its effects from our society.
commercials on television, the tobacco men had been busy on contingency planning"one firm is allegedly running a furtive sale test scheme in Hawaii. At the start the big manufacturers would market their joints at about 25 cents each, well undercurrent black market prices.
Business sources predict the end of the marijuana ban will follow the close of the Nixon era, for the soundly all-American reason that the swollen costs of the "new prohibition" exceed any good it may do. Enforcement costs in California alone are running at $32 million a year and courts are clogged with untried cases. Already 23 states including Kentucky have eased penalties, with more to follow.
Former U.S. Attorney, John Kaplan, a Stanford University law professor, and an authority on the subject, said last January that marijuana "could and should" be legalized. He inclines to a government monopoly which would rule out advertising. Packets of the weed, graded by strength and heavily taxed, might be sold in government-licensed shops. Mr. Kaplan believes this open system would discourage use, particularly by teen-agers. Revenue would help to step up control of "hard'* drugs.
But the underground does not mean to yield its rich, quasi-sacred grass market to the big-money men. "It's the economic basis of the counter-culture," says Blair Newmen, a prominent San Francisco pot
advocate. "We have to keep it out of the hands of the tobacco tycoons."
Believing legislation will come "within three years," Newman and his friends have formed a "philanthropic," nonprofit organization called Amorphia, to stake their claim.
. More confident still is a San Francisco consortium of pot dealers known collectively as Felix the Cat. "Marijuana is legal," they say in publicity for their bold new venture"a packaged, filter-tipped brand of pot cigarettes named Grassmasters.
One "Mr. Felix" spokesman n for the group told a radio station interviewer that 320 dealers in the Bay area are handling his first consignment of 5,000 cartons. A packet of 18 joints now sells at S7.50, but he hopes to pass on savings to the smoker as the business grows. By early spring they plan to have an automated rolling factory in Mexico and two more, underground, in San Francisco and Berkeley, with distribution centers from coast to coast.
Wouldn't the police object? "Oh, sure. But the government just isn't willing to push this thing. It's like the last days of prohibition when beer trucks drove openly around. I hope to have some trucks painted with our Felix symbol soon."
How was business?
"We turn about a ton of grass a month in the San Francisco area. That's worth $250,000."
Mr. Felix claims to have a bail fund reserve of $125,000 and is prepared for two supreme court appeals in the next couple of years. "Then we'll be out in the clear."
J. Edgar Hoover as Clark Kent
By Ron Dorf man
From the Chicago Journalism Review
CHICAGO (LNS)-Two reporters showed up at a recent peace demonstration in De Kalb, Illinois, home of Northern Illinois University, claiming they worked for WJJO-TV, "the cable TV station in Lawrenceville."
Local reporters were a little curious about the pair, since Lawrenceville is 250 miles south of De Kalb, and the peace demonstration hardly seemed worth the long-distance effort by a tiny TV station. When they checked, they learned that there is no station whose call letters are WJJO-TV-except in the files of the IBI, the Illinois Bureau of Investigation.
The incident was only the latest example of a current trend.
* In Wichita, during a visit by Vice President Agnew in October, press -credentials were issued to at least one and probably four local cops who took pictures of persons engaged in a spoof of the V.P.'s speechmaking outside an auditorium. One of the policemen was exposed by local reporters.
* A Detroit policeman posed as a photographer for the Grand Rapids Press to observe the action at the General Motors' stockholders' meeting. He was exposed by a reporter for the paper.
* in Washington recently a reporter received a tip that U.S. Army Intelligence had purchased equipment for its agents to use while posing as a television crew. The Pentagon issued a denial.
* Policemen and FBI agents posing as newsmen became so numerous in Washington a few months ago that more than two dozen Washington Star reporters issued a statement saying they would expose, on the spot, any agent they found using such cover.
The press corps itself is not immune from being spied on. Former correspondents report that a year ago. the CIA suggested to the privately-owned servicemen's newspaper, Overseas Weekly. that its problems in getting PX distribution could be overcome if the paper would take two agents ("highly qualified men") on its Saigon staff. The paper refused.
Shortly after, two reporters exposed two Saigon correspondents for the "American University Press." as intelligence agents; the two had never been on the payroll of American University, and their press credentials were revoked.
blue-tail fly/3


 
GacfififlQ-gs
But not all journalists are complaining. Some news organizations nave decided that part of their calling is to supply material to police agencies. The Sacramento (CaL) local of the American Newspaper Guild has protested the practice of the local newspapers of sending, unsolicited and routinely, staff photographers' pictures of demonstrations and other activities to the FBI. Russell Pigott, news director of radio station WLBK in De Kalb, covers the news with a camara"so he can provide law enforcement agencies with the pictures that can't be shown on the radio.
What is the rationale for such surveillance activities? On a very practical level, as Mitchell Ware (director of the Illinois Bureau of Investigation, IBI) puts it, it can provide hard evidence for prosecution. "The Supreme Court has said that you can use pictures to identify suspects; it's a corroborative technique like marked money or fluorescent powder. In situations like mass demonstrations on campus, it's useful to have pictures of any criminal behavior that takes place because you may not be able otherwise to identify the one kid with long hair and a beard and blue jeans out of hundreds of kids who look like that."
Ware was quick to assure that he had nothing against long hair and beards, and to point out that half his agents wore long hair and beards.
Abortion warnings
NEW YORK (LNS)-There are only four safe abortion methods:
1) D. and C. (dilation and curettage), the gentle scraping of the uterine lining, is used in aborting women who are less than 3 months pregnant.
2) Vacum aspiration, also used in early pregnancies, involves the insertion of a vacum tube into the cervix and the withdrawal of fetal and placental tissue by suctioning.
3) Hysterotomy   is   a miniature, caesarean section"the fetus is removed from the uterus by incision. The woman is anesthisized during the operation and is usually hospitalized for a week.
4) Salting out is the newest method and is most often used in aborting women between 14 and 22 weeks pregnant. Saline solution is injected into the uterus, replacing the amniotic fluid which protects the fetus. The displacement of
the amniotic fluid induces labor and a woman will usually miscarry within 25 hours.
NEVER USE THE FOLLOWING METHODS. THEY ARE EXTREMEL Y PAINFUL AND CAN LEAD TO PERMANENT DISABILITY, INFECTION OR DEATH.
ORAL MEANS
* Ergot compounds. Overdoses can cause fatal kidney damage.
* Quinine Sulphate. It can cause deformities in fetus or death to mother.
¢Estrogen is useless.
"Castor oil is useless.
Nothing that is swallowed can cause abortion without also causing death or severe disability to the mother.
SOLIDS INSERTED INTO UTERUS
Do not put these solids into your uterus. They may burst your womb and bladder     or     cause    infection or hemmorhaging that might kill you. Knitting needles Coat hangers Slippery Elm Bark Chopsticks Ballpoint pen Catheter tubes Gauze (packing) Artists paintbrushes Curtain rods Telephone wire
FL UIDSINSER TED INTO UTER US
Do not put the following fluids into your uterus.  They can severly burn uterine   tissues,   cause hemorrhaging, shock or death. Soap suds
Potassium Permanganate
Lysol
Alcohol
Lye
Pine Oil
AIR PUMPED INTO UTERUS
The uterus will collapse from the air bubbles created in the blood stream. Death comes suddenly and violently.
INJECTIONS INTO JUTEJUNE W4LL Ergot and Pitochf are'- poisons'. Any^
injection is fatal.
Sodium  Pentothal"any  overdose is
fatal
OTHER MEANS
Vacuum cleaner, which is connected to uterus"not to be confused with vacuum aspiration"is fatal almost immediately. It will extract the uterus
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from the pelvic cavity.
Physical exertion such as lifting heavy objects, running, etc., is useless.
Falling down stairs severly injures the mother, and rarely brings about an abortion.
Notices
' Lexington Women's Liberation is offering free pregnancy tests, birth control information and abortion counseling. Call 252-9358 T-W-Th 2-5 & 6-9, F 2-5 and Sat. 9 a.m.-2 p.m. In Louisville call 425-9640, 895-8806 or 635-6244. For more information about the Louisville Problem Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling Project, call, or write (PPACP). P.O. Box 94, Louisville 40201.
Volunteers are needed for the cooperative Day Care Center. Line up, sign up and join up (or just get more information) at 252-9358.
TRACES is a new coffeehouse in Lexington. No charge to get in nor out nor to listen and rap. Friday and Saturday nights, 9 to 1, third floor of the Canterbury House.
The Medical Committee on Human Rights at UK has several things going now with more to come soon. It's still offering thorough exams for men with upcoming draft physicals every Thursday after 7 p.m. in the Third-Floor Clinic of the Med Center. Street Medicine Classes streesing first-aid skills are conducted Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Room 319 of the Classroom Building. The class is a late addition to the Free U. MCHR also advises that people suffering drug freakouts should call 233-5000 and ask for Student Health then make an appointment with a psychiatrist.. Especially^,useful during, the day hut also at night on'an emergency basis. The point of this procedure is that you can obtain help without fear of having the police notified, as will happen if you just go to the Emergency Room. See if you can remember that should the occasion demand.
The Grovesner Street Zoo is a clearing center for the student radical community. If you riee'd to know something or have information you want others to know, call the Zoo at 255-9425 or 255-9426.
- A special subscription is now available to students to FTA, a GI newspaper at Fort Knox. If interested in the paper, or you just want to find out what we are all about, write to us at P.O. Box 336, Louisville 40201.
If you would like to help the fly stay out of trouble with Uncles Sam, Louie and E, Lawson and are willing and able to straighten out our backlog of tax forms for $50, call 255-3596. Do it now.
A place called "Things" has opened up right near the corner of High and Limestone (105 High) and will be selling art and craft work on consignment. If you have something you make that you might want to market friendly-like, stop in and talk to James Cooper, the fellow who runs the place.
The Peoples' Food Collective in Lexington should begin operating soon. Annual fees are only $3.30 per member-unit (any group of people turning in their orders together), and application forms are available in the Student Government office. The more people who sign and pay up right away, the sooner we eat.
Thqse thinking of starting a high school newspaper or other alternative media may be interested in an illustrated "Tool Kit*' recently published by the Southern News Media Project. The "Tool Kit" includes information on technical matters, Movement resources in this area and other helpful hints. You can get a copy by sending a quarter to: Southern Media Project, Box 3125 University Station, Charlottesville, Va. 22903.
Late flash
While in the final stages putting this issue together, we received word that the People1 s Party , mentioned earlier in these columns, has setitsfounding convention for April 2 to 4 in Louisville at the Sacred Heart School, 1621 W. Broadway. Registration begins at3^ p.m. on . Friday. Housing will be available. Everyone is invited.
CHANGES
THINGS FOR HE AND SHE
151 S. LIME
4/number eleven


 
THE HURRICANE CREEK MASSACRE
MASSACRE, n. 1. The killing of a
considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the usages of civilized people.  2. Murder, especially of a helpless person.
'-'iiWebster' s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition
Coal and -Leslie County
Leslie County, Kentucky, is one of the four or five poorest counties in the United States.   More than three-fourths of the county's expenses are paid by federal and state agencies; the county pays less than 10 per cent of its school budget.   Most Leslie County adults never got beyond the sixth grade, and more Leslie Countians are on welfare than working.   Average annual family income is less than $3, 000, and housing surveys show that only one house in ten is fit for habitation by national standards, National standards are a luxury in Leslie County.
The county has only one industry of importance: coal. Timbering was once important, too, but the great trees have long since been cut and the best topsoil has long since washed away, leaving only scrubby second growth to cover the hills.   Coal is the only remaining resource, and mining is the only available work, except for a scattering of service jobs.
The county is in the middle of Appalachia, but at the edge of the recoverable coal reserves.   The coal is high-quality but diffic%it to mine because it lies in narrow seams, sometimes less than three feet thick.   To work in seams like.that, a man must lie on his side and travel in a crawl.   Mechanization came late to Leslie County mines because of the difficulty of developing heavy-duty,
battery-operated, rubber-tired machines less than three feet high. Most of the mines in the county are primitive operations in which the work is still largely done by hand.
Partly because of the narrow coalbeds, Leslie County traditionally has been last to feel the benefits of a boom and first to feel the effects of recession.   There is a second reason:   Decades back, coal prospectors working for Henry Ford bought up more than two-thirds of the county's reserves.   The idea was that they would be held in reserve until Ford needed them to make steel for his cars.   Both the coal and the county were kept in reserve --a private colony, a little feudal fiefdom -- until the great day when the call would come from Detroit. It never came.   The company bought coal from other, more convenient sources, and the colony was left undeveloped. Until the 1930's there were no paved roads, and still today there-is no railroad line into or out of the county --which means that the cost of mining is increased by having to truck the coal over the county's miserable roads to railroad loading points in neighboring counties. Along with a few other baronial operations, Ford Motor Company still holds onto its coal -- exactly how much, no one knows, because the county tax assessor has no system for determining holdings, and accepts whatever figures Ford happens to give him.   He does not believe they are accurate, but once when he tried to increase the assessment, Ford went to court and beat him.   Meanwhile Ford leases its coal to small truck-mine operators. Federal figures indicate that Leslie County produces about 1.8 million tons of coal per year, worth about $6.5 million. Ford pays the county about $1, 700 per year in taxes. . .
Once, when coal was king, it was possible to make a decent living in Leslie County (although the hourly wages there for miners always seemed to run about a dollar be-
blue-tail fly/5
by Tom Bethell


 
hind the neighboring counties, where the United Mine Workers succeeded in organizing the mines in the late 1930's).   But after 1947, when national production surpassed 600 million tons, the industry declined as other fuels made inroads and as the largest of the coal companies began to concentrate their power.   The Eastern Kentucky coal industry as a whole was composed of smaller companies; for the past 25 years they have fought a losing battle to compete for markets against corporate giants like Consolidation Coal, which produces more coal per year than all the companies of Eastern Kentucky combined.   The recession which hit the country in 1958 never left the Kentucky coalfields; it is still there today.
Faced with a skidding economy and a baronial landlord, Leslie Countians did the only thing they could do. They left.   From 1950 to 1960, the county lost more than 30 per cent of its population.   During the past decade the population loss has slacked and, finally, held about steady at 10, 000.   From time to time it fluctuates wildly; in 1970 the population increased by several hundred, as Leslie Countians who had left to work in Dayton or Cincinnati or Detroit were laid off at Frigidaire and National Cash Register and Ford -- and came home.
Some of them went on welfare.   Some got jobs driving the 60-ton coal trucks that move the coal to Manchester, in Clay County, where the Finley brothers live. Others went underground to work.   The past couple of years have been booming for the coal industry:  the electric utilities are gobbling coal as fast as it can be produced, and national production for 1970 ended at 590 million tons, the best year ever since 1947.   Leslie County was the last to feel the boom, but the boom came, and some of the men who couldn't find work in the cities could find it at home.
If they were young, like Lee Mitchell, they couldn't remember a time when so much coal had be