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Possibly a fourth of the local's miners would go back to work if no pickets appeared and if they were guaranteed some protection. But they are certain that "stranger" pickets, who cannot be readily identified and thus prosecuted, will show up and that protection cannot be provided. "Local people won't picket here," predicted Leonard Stewart, 31, who would like to go back to work. "People won't fight the people they live with." Toward the expected "strangers," however, the miners feel fear. "
"I'll go to work, but if pickets are there, I'll go home," said Claude Profitt, 47. Said Ken Hager: "I drive a long ways every day before daylight. How is the National Guard gonna protect a miner on these West Virginia roads?"
So even in Oceana, a relatively conservative union town, compliance with Taft-Hartley is not likely, and violence from outsiders is feared. But there is no sense of outrage or personal enmity. Said Mary Bailey, wife of a miner whose family has dipped deeply into its savings to keep food on the table: "I sure would like the men to go back to work, but you don't always get what you want in this world."