Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1902 — BOARO RESUMES STRIKE HEARINGS [ARTICLE]

BOARO RESUMES STRIKE HEARINGS

Mine Workers Paint Gloomy Pictures of Daily Toil and Scant Pay. UNABLE TO SUPPORT FAMILY —— ... . .. Mrs. Mary Boland Bays Her Husband’s Earnings Are Insufficient to Keep Children in Good Health—Little Ones Must Work for Bread.

Scranton, Pa., special: The anthracite coal companies and their employes having failed to come to an agreement during the recess of the strike commission, the hearing of the miners’ side of the case was resumed and unless something is done by the lawyers on both sides to curtail its proceedings they will run into next year. There is a revival of the talk of a settlement “out of court” Nothing definite has been done, but, as one prominent attorney expressed it, “there is something in the air.” Six witnesses were on the stand. They were "President Mitchell, two photographers, two practical miners, one of them a Hungarian, and the wife of a German .miner. Mr. Mitchell was on' the stand for a short time only, mid was called to show that a 20 per cent increase in wages did not mean < a corresponding increase in the price per ton of coal. The increase, be Said, would mean about 10 cents on the tom * r The photographers produced about a half hundred photographs they had taken of the homes of mine workers in the Hazleton region, which territory was under investigation. Miner’s Sad Trite. W. H. Deterry, a miner for Coxe Brothers, said company men are paid an average of $7.20 a week. The company, he paid the laborer when he worked for the company 90 cents to $1.20 a day, but compelled the miner to pay the same laborer when employed by the miner $1.62 to $1.94 a day. He said a black list exists at the Coxe mines, and that he was on it for nine months because he refused to work a breast that netted him only $3 a week. Mike Middlick, also a Coxe miner, said he earned about $250 last year. He had made less than $3 for two weeks, and $lB was the largest sum for that length of time. He said he had been “docked” as much as eight cars in two weeks. Mrs. Mary Boland, whose husband is employed by the Coxe company, and who lives at Derringer, said the money earned by her husband was not sufficient to keep her family of seven children in good health. The older children were compelled to make their own living.

Must Limit Testimony. One of the said it was principally a question of wages, and they wanted these facts as quickly as they can get them. ' Chairman Gray said that both sides would have to come to some agreement regarding this character of testimony or the commission will be. obliged to take the matter in its own hands und prescribe some rule to facilitate the work of the investigation. On the outside agreement proposition Chairman Gray announced that the commission still “entertained hope that efforts to agree would continue, and the commission would gladly lend its good offices to that end.”