Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1902 — BOTH SIDES ARE FIRM [ARTICLE]

BOTH SIDES ARE FIRM

NEW ELEMENT ADDED TO ANTHRACITE COAL WAR. Btrike of the Bituminous Miners in the Virginias Adds New Complications—Situation as It Now Stands— Still Working for Peace. This Is the sixth week of the great coal strike in the anthracite districts of Pennsylvania, and a solution of the difficulty, which is daily affecting a larger number of people, apparently is as far off as ever. Already the strike has cost the mine owners, miners, business men of the anthracite region and the public generally the vast sum of $24,000,000. The operators still remain unmoved and unbending. The strikers remain hopeful and determined. The public suffers, with the prospects growing greater each day that their sufferings will become more intense and more disastrous. The magnates have over half a billion dollars invested In their mines, and yet many of these mines are being flooded and ruined because, while willing to pay the wages of 4,000 coal and iron police, to protect the non-union men they are assembling iu the coal regions, the operators will not grant the increase asked by the miners. Hence the negotiations brought about by the National Civic Federation were broken off and the country is forced to witness a struggle, the end of which may mean ruin to many industries and to millions of people. . The situation now may be briefly summed up: Every mine of any consequence in the-coal regions is tied up. Many of them are being allowed to fill with water and men cannot be obtained to pump them. At others clerks, bosses and nonunion men are trying to run the pumps and over these a force of 4.000 iron and coal police are keeping guard. The Pennsylvania law makes easy the formation of this private army. By it mine owners go to the big cities, hire bums, ex-con-victs, discharged policemen, drunken sailors, the riffraff of the streets and the lodging houses, and bring them to their mines. The operators put badges on them, place weapons in their hands, an! thus the “coal and iron police” are created. The fight now seems to be a waiting one, victory to belong to the side which can hold out the longest. On the face of it, it would seem as though under such circumstances the strikers would lose. But appearances sometimes deceive. The strikers are united, firm and determined. They can live on little. They have the sympathy of the business inter-, ests throughout the anthracite region. They will have the material aid, when asked for, if organized labor everywhere. Fully 48,000 of them have left the coal fields since the strike began and have found work in other occupations, thus enabling the union leaders to better care for those who remain.

On the other hand the cessation of work means a loss to the coal carrying and coal mining roads of $10,000,000 a month. This is a considerable item even in an age like this, when men talk in millions. Perhaps the roads after an-i other month may come to consider this. The miners Beem determined to remain out until they win. For the union it is not now a mere fight for 5 per cent; it is a fight for the future and a fight for their existence. Stubborn as are the operators, the miners are equally resolute. With their own resources they feel confident that they can remain out four months. Meantime a new element has entered the situation—the soft coal strike in the two Virginias, where nearly 20,000 men are idle because of the refusal of the bituminous operators to grant an increase in wages. If this strike succeeds; if President Mitchell and the other leaders in the United Mine Workers’ Union succeed in cutting off the supply of soft coal to the eastern markets, thereby forcing the shutting down of mills and factories and railroads, they feel confident that enough influence will be brought to bear upon the operators to compel them to make such concessions as will end both strikes. The two Virginias mice 4,000,000 tons of coal monthly, and this, with the output of the soft coal regions of this State, supplies most of the eastern trade. By cutting this off, the industries of the East would be paralyzed. But such a pressure would be brought to bear upon the operators that a settlement could not long be deferred. Ail hopes for a settlement of the trouble have not, however, been abandoned. Under instructions from President Roosevelt an investigation into the whole matter is being conducted by Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor. It should, however, be stated that Mr. Wright is not clothed with the jurisdiction of an arbitrator, nor can Mr, Roosevelt take any official action. The President, however, can informally seek relief from the present situation and he Is now employing every resource in his power. Meantime President Mitchell holds in abeyance the call for a national convention of all coal miners, in which the question of a national strike is to come up.