Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1897 — LABOR LEADERS MEET. [ARTICLE]

LABOR LEADERS MEET.

Conference in Aid of Miner* la Held m St. .Louis. In a speech at the conference yt labor leaders in St. Louis M. D. Ratchford, president of the United Mine Workers of America, advocated a great sympathetic strike of all branches of organized labor unless Congress met at once and gave the laborers relief and wiped out the laws which empowered the judiciary “to conduct government by injunction.” The forces of labor met at Masonic Temple at 10 o’clock Monday morning. H. W. Steinbiss, secretary of the Trades and Labor Union, occupied the chair. No business was done at this session, a recess being taken until 11 o’clock. About' 200 men composed the convention. At* 11 o’clock Sheridan Webster nominated W. B. Prescott, president of the International Typographical Union, for temporary chairman. His election was unanimously adopted and was greeted with applause. Chairman Prescott then appointed a committee composed of M. D. Ratchford, James O’Connell, Grant Luce, J. R. Sovereign and W. D. Mahon. The Committee on Credentials made its rei>ort immediately upon the assembling of the conference for its afternoon session. It was shown that eighty-eight' delegates, representing the following organizations, were represented: United Mine Workers of America, the Social Democracy, the American Federation of Labor, the Stonemakers International Union, Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators, Brotherhood of Bot-tle-Blowers, Building Trades Council of St. Louis, the Patriots of America, International Brotherhood of Track Foremen, the Single-Tax League of America, Central Labor Council of Cincinnati, the International Typographical Union, the People’s party of Kansas and the Industrial Order of Freedmen. Mr. Ratchford took the floor and went over the miners' strike from its inception to the present day, dwelling particularly upon “government by injunction.” He pleaded for prompt action, and, coming to the point of his argument, advocated a special session of Congress as the best and in fact the only relief. “In ease of a refusal to convene Congress,” said Mr. Ratchford, “it will then be time to consider more extreme measures. 1 am in favor, if the President refuses to call Congress together, of a complete paralysis of business. I believe then in a sympathetic strike.”

Patrick O’Neill of Rich Hill, Mo., who said he represented 1,500 unorganized “picks,” favored a labor revolution. He was a Socialist, he said, and believed in the miners taking things in their own hands if necessary. Mr. Sovereign put himself on record as opposed to Mr. Ratchford’s plan. He believed that the crucial test now confronted organized labor. Mr. Mahon of Detroit said a resolutions committee was useless. The convention should vote on Ratchford’s porposition, and then go home. The power of the nation, he said, was in the courts, and if anybody was to be convened let it be the courts. He was oposed to Mr. Ratchford’s proposition. James M. Carson, president of the Illinois miners, then recited at great length the conditions confronting the miners of his State, and said he believed his men would be beaten in two weeks. Mr. Ratchford took exception to Mr. Carson’s statement that the Illinois miners lad lost their strike. He said the miners were winning their strike, and, furthetmore, his men were not asking this convention for aid. At 5 o’clock the convention adjourned until Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock.