Biography
Debs Moreland was a National Miners Union organizer at the Catron Creek soup kitchen and delegate to Pittsburgh. Arrested at Pansy at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday October15, 1931, he was missing as of the October18 dispatch and search parties were seeking him. An earlier criminal-syndicalism arrest for possessing union leaflets had resulted in weeks of custody and release; no exact duration or disappearance outcome is supplied. He is not identified with Atlanta organizer J. A. Moreland. Source: https://marxists.architexturez.net/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n251-NY-oct-19-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Portelli reports one month confined before Moreland reopened his relief kitchen and was rearrested.
Hevener dates Moreland’s criminal-syndicalism confinement at Pansy from August 24 to September 26, 1931, calling it a month. After reopening the soup kitchen for about two weeks, he was arrested again for banding and confederating, allegedly beaten on Black Mountain, and forced to flee to New York City, where he sought relief funds for the miners. This supplies a later survival account for the disappearance reported in October; no precise second discharge date or completed second custody total is inferred.
John Watts Hevener, A New Deal for Harlan: The Roosevelt Labor Policies in a Kentucky Coal Field, 1931–1939 (Ohio State University PhD dissertation, 1971), printed pages 115, 116 (PDF pages 124, 125). Source 805 SHA256 03766c260a4cf06629fb296358baf9e49448a191f9d290929ecd947963b0e125.
