usual with immigrants, they often were forced to take the most dangerous and lowest paying kinds of jobs-like mining. Because the owners of the mines were quite wealthy, they also typically owned the towns that would spring up around the mines in which the Irish workers made their homes. It was a commonly unfair existence that reminds one of George Orwell’s “Big Brother” because of the primitive kinds of labor-management legislation in existence at the time and the overwhelming power of the mine owners:
The company owned the houses, the stores and the churches. Since the company owned the store, all residents were expected to do business with that store. It was often their only choice, because credit was extended to the miners with payment deducted from their pay envelope. The company also wrote the rules for the town and enforced those rules with company police-the Coal and Iron Police-who had the right to enter any house at any time and to deal with labor problems in a manner that most
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