Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 258, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1919 — PEACE EFFORTS FAIL; MINES CLOSE NOV. 1. [ARTICLE]

PEACE EFFORTS FAIL; MINES CLOSE NOV. 1.

Washington, Oct 24.—The last government effort to avert the coal I strike--set- for NdVeirfber 1, failed utterly tonight, and half a million ; miners will quit work on the very I eve of winter, with the nation’s bins running dangerously low. , Even an appeal from President Wilson, sick in bed at the white house was not enough to bring peace to a conference that was torn and on the breaking point half a—dozen times during the day. Charge* and counter-charges flew thick and fast as the group of operators and miners filed out of the meeting, which began somewhat hopefully four days ago. While the operators announced that they had accepted the president’s offer to wipe the slate clean and negotiate a new wage agreement, the miners charged that the operators had -bolted without' the consent of Secretary of Labor Wilson, the storm center of an* extraordinary fight to save the country untold distress and suffering. Surrounded by a score of miners, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, hurried out of the hall and halted long enough to announce that the strike order stood and that the miners would walk out after a full day’s work on the closing day of the present month. The final breaking up of the conference, Lewis said, meant that official notice of the failure would be sent forthwith to the unions everywhere to order the men out of the mines at the appointed hour. The president’s appeal was made through Secretary Wilson after the latter had exhausted everypos*ible effort and had pleaded until his throat ached. It pointed out what a strike meant and urged the two sides to get together, negotiate their differences, resorting to arbitration only in the event that negotiations failed. The important point in the proposal, however, was that the mines be kept open and that the miners remain at work. The miners and operators had left the conference room and . Secretary Wilson, the tears springing to his eyes, was gathering up his papers, when he announced that his efforts and the president’s efforts had fallen down and that the conference had adjourned for good. He briefly explained the status, but refused to be drawn into charges of bad faith.