The lot of the miner,
At best, is quite hard;
We work for good money,
Get paid with a card;
We scarcely can live,
And not a cent more,
Since we’re paid off in checks
On the company store.
The coal operators
Are growing apace,
They are making their millions
By grinding our face;
Unto their high prices
The people pay toll,
While they pay fifty cents
For mining their coal.
They keep cutting our wages,
Time after time;
Where we once had a dollar,
We now have a dime;
While our souls are near famished,
And our bodies are sore,
We are paid off in checks,
On the company store.
We sign then a contract,
As agreed between men;
Though it holds us like slaves,
It never holds them;
And when they’ve exhausted
The old contract score,
They capped the climax
With the company store.
But while I am anxious
Our case to make plain,
Sore cramped are my fingers
Uncertain my pen,
My paper’s exhausted
I cannot write more,
For paper comes high
At the company store.
At best, is quite hard;
We work for good money,
Get paid with a card;
We scarcely can live,
And not a cent more,
Since we’re paid off in checks
On the company store.
The coal operators
Are growing apace,
They are making their millions
By grinding our face;
Unto their high prices
The people pay toll,
While they pay fifty cents
For mining their coal.
They keep cutting our wages,
Time after time;
Where we once had a dollar,
We now have a dime;
While our souls are near famished,
And our bodies are sore,
We are paid off in checks,
On the company store.
We sign then a contract,
As agreed between men;
Though it holds us like slaves,
It never holds them;
And when they’ve exhausted
The old contract score,
They capped the climax
With the company store.
But while I am anxious
Our case to make plain,
Sore cramped are my fingers
Uncertain my pen,
My paper’s exhausted
I cannot write more,
For paper comes high
At the company store.
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