Word: reede
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...self-made man who started out shovelling coal himself, Reed has little patience for "failures." If a man works hard and spends his money wisely, Reed maintains, he will make something of himself. He suggested that about 90 per cent of the unemployed men in the county were "unemployable"--men who couldn't act responsibly or were too unskilled to work. "The poor," Reed feels, "would be poor anywhere...
Possessing only an eighth-grade education and wide experience as a laborer, Howell does not realize the complexities of the problem he is attempting to solve: B. F. Reed, the chief coal operator, "should be run out of the county;" the solution of the thirties a strong union, "would solve all this, and that's the truth." He refuses to admit that lack of demand for coal must result in fewer jobs and lower wages...
Perhaps the most hated man in Floyd County is B.F. Reed, the largest operator. To the discontented miners Reed symbolizes the wealth and arrogance of the operators, the fat cat who starves babies. But Reed is not an orge; like Howell and his followers, he is a man held prisoner by circumstances and by his own views. And Reed firmly believes that he is doing all he can to alleviate an intolerable situation...
When the UMW produced its 1950 wage contract, Reed decided he could not meet its terms. Closing his rail mines, he leased his land to truck operators, thinking this would be the best way to produce the maximum amount of coal and jobs. The truck mines, he explains, while not able to pay union wages, "do provide a living for men who otherwise would not have a job." In fact, he is certain that a man shovelling coal in a truck mine is earning better wages than unskilled or semi-skilled workers in other industries...
Manhattan is full of blues in the night. Toots Shor, contemplating the thinned-out ranks at his bar, says ruefully: ''We're getting re-educated for drinking at home." Proprietor Billy Reed...