When folks in the scarred hills around Hazard, Ky., complain about hard times, they know what they are talking about.
Of Perry County's 36.000 people, 14,000 exist on dole. For many of the area's children, the only opportunity for a square meal is a public school hot lunch—if they have the shoes to get to school. The most fortunate adults work for a third of their old wages in "dog holes"—dangerous coal mines dug by anybody who can scrape up enough cash to finance a pit.
Hazard's hopeless people, in the tradition of the...
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