People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1894 — MINERS DISPLEASED. [ARTICLE]

MINERS DISPLEASED.

The Result of the Columbus Conference Don’t Suit Them. In Many Districts They Reject the Terms Agreed Upon, and Refuse to Resume Work, Demanding a Higher Rate of Pay. REPUDIATED. Columbus, 0., June 13.—1 tis doubtful if the alleged settlement of the coal miners’ strike is carried out in the Hocking valley. Advices from Nelsonville, Straitsville, Gloucester, Longstreth. Buchtel, Corning, Carbon Hill and other points are to the effect that the strikers refuse absolutely to return to work at lhe 60-cent rate. A mass conventidn held at Gloucester voiced the general sentiment in the passage of a resolution pledging 8,000 miners in the district comprising the counties of Athens, Perry. Hocking and Muskingum to stand firmly for a 70-cent rate and no compromise whatever. The members of the national executive board held a meeting here Tuesday and prepared a circular letter to be sent to the miners in Ohio, western Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois. The letter is quite voluminous, and enters into the history of the compromise and the reasons therefor. The board calls attention first to the fact that at the Cleveland convention the miners decided to hold no more conventions, but to leave the future policy of the strike and the matter of the compromise wholly in the hands of the board and the district president. An account of the meeting of the executive board and district presidents in this city last week, at which time it was agreed to effect a settlement on the basis of a compromise, is given. The board then recites the advantages which the miners have gained through the agreement adopted by the joint conference. In the first place, they have succeeded in doing away with the ironclad agreements which have previously existed in the Illinois and Pittsburgh districts, and which have been a great detriment to the interests of the miners and the organization in those fields. They have also remedied a crying evil in certain sections in Ohio growing out of the truck-store system. At these places scrip has been the only circulating medium among the miners and they have thus been prevented from paying dues and becoming members of any organization. Under the agreement it is provided that at such places the balances due to miners at the end of every two weeks shall be paid in cash instead of scrip. '1 he board also calls attention to the fact that the miners have violated the injunction of the national officers not to destroy or molest property, but on the contrary have resorted to acts of lawlessness which have resulted- in calling out the national guard in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The seriousness of the situation alone, they say, was justification for a settlement on any reasonable basis of advantage to the miners. At this time the result of the attitude of the miners cannot be predicted. President Mcßride talked freely about the situation. He said while the settlement was not all he could wish, it was the best the miners could hope for under the circumstances. They were still the victors of the contest. “The miners were starving, industries were paralyzed and thousands of fellow workmen were being daily thrown out of employment by reason of the coal famine, while the interference with property rights, which, wherever done, was blamed on miners, was losing public sympathy for us.” He thought the settlement would be at once ratified all over the district. (Springfield, 111., June 13. —State President Crawford said he had received no official information as to the announced agreement, but if the report as published is correct the Springfield and southern Illinois miners will not accept it. The only communication President Crawford received from national headquarters was instructions to call a convention of the miners of districts 4, 5 and 0, and he immediately issued a call for the convention to meet in this city Saturday. Streator, 111., June 13.—The Columbus settlement is a disappointment o the miners here, it being a cut below last year s prices of 7% cents a ton in summer and 10 cents a ton in the winter months. A leading operator gives it as his opinion that men will stay out until it is too late to make contracts, and that the entire northern Illinois coal fields will be idle all summer at least. Danville, 111., June 13.—President Dietson, of the United Mine Workersof the Danville field, says: “Onr demands were made at East St. Louis and have not been accepted. Until they are we will stay out. Terre Haute, Ind., June 13. —The Indiana bituminous coal miners are determined not to go to work at the 60 cents compromise. They use strong terms when they speak of the action of their official representatives in the conference. The operators do not expect all the men to return to work next Monday, but believe they will all be at work a week or ten days later, especially after they receive the statement which John Mcßride will send to them.