Abstract

Gun-Rule in Kentucky

On May 5, 1931 a band of deputies swooped down on the striking mining community in Kentucky. Pistol shots flashed across the highway and three of the attacking coal-guard crew lay dead by the side of the road. The circumstances of the shooting have led many to wonder whether the raiders met their death at the hands of their own brethren. A special grand jury was promptly impanelled and judge D.C. Jones of the Circuit Court was in-charge. Within the next few days, twenty men were picked up in various parts of the county, charged with the murder, and held without band. Gill Green, a colored preacher and labor organizer, finds himself in jail, held without bond, although the murder which he is supposed to have committed took place while he was talking to the sheriff in the latter's private office.