Biography
W. M. Garland was Aunt Molly Jackson's brother, jailed at Pineville with seven other miners on a criminal-syndicalism charge after demanding a checkweighman, held under $6,000 bond during the 1931–32 Kentucky coal war.
Aunt Molly Jackson’s first-person January 1932 account states that her brother W. M. Garland and seven other miners were jailed in Pineville, Bell County, Kentucky on criminal-syndicalism charges after demanding a checkweighman. She explicitly reports six days during which no bond was allowed, followed by $6,000 bonds. Garland and five others posted bond. The six days describe the no-bond period, not a proven exact total; no admission or release day is supplied.
The February 7 dispatch names Bill Garland with Charlie Peters, Rich Wolf and Henry Williams in the relief-supply robbery trial at Pineville. Bill may be a familiar form of W. M. Garland’s name, but this issue does not explicitly connect the initials or earlier checkweighman case. It is retained as an unresolved same-surname lead; no new robbery case or custody dates are assigned to W. M. Garland without a firmer identity bridge.
The June 30 Middlesboro report names Bill Garland among eight NMU miners arrested Saturday, June 25, at Arjay for allegedly violating a federal injunction against entering company property. The paper says their real activity was Communist election work and denies they entered company property. Trial the following week was prospective. This is distinct from the earlier syndicalism detention.
