Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1906 — AN IMPENDING CRISIS. [ARTICLE]

AN IMPENDING CRISIS.

Part New Constabulary Will Piny In Pennsylvania Strikes. There are indications of a long and bitter strike in the anthracite coal regions and financiers with vast interests in the coal roads privately declare that the anthracite mine workers will be doing well if they have any work to do for three months after March 15. It is partiAlarly significant that retail coal dealers supplying the anthracite field have been for* months past urging their patrons to lay in a year’s supply of coal and that every storage yard in the region is taxed to its utmost capacity with domestic sizes of anthracite. In such—a—strike- the new State conatabulary will take a part. The law creating the State constabulary provides for four troops, each consisting of one captain, one lieutenant, five sergeants and fifty privates. Every private will be a soldier who has seen actual service in the field. The law calling out this mobile force of armed men was enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature at its last session and while it is possible that one or two companies of the National Guard, recruited right in the heart of the anthracite field, might waver in a finish fight at the mines the picked men of the constabulary will follow the code of the regular army and will perform their work as they face it. ~ There was no excuse for organizing this force of: sharpshooters except the impending strike in the anthracite region which will call out 155.000 men. Under the Jaw the constabulary has authority similar to that of a sheriff who, in Pennsylvania, is a law unto himself in all matters coming under his personal observation. This new armed force can go anywhere in the State, just as -the judges may, and once there may act with or without the consent of the sheriff.