Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1906 — GREAT COAL STRIKE THREATENED. [ARTICLE]

GREAT COAL STRIKE THREATENED.

What threatens to be the greatest contest between employers and employees ever experienced in the United States, is now quite certain to result on April Jst of this year when it is planned by the bituminous coal miners to stop work and to withdraw 600,000 miners fr.m the coal fields of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. A conference between the mine operators and the miners at Indianapolis came to an abrupt close Friday at Indianapolis when the vote was taken on the operator’s proposition to continue the present scale of wages and hours of labor. A dramatic scene almost resulting in riot followed the vote, all operators voting in its favor and all nine representatives except the president of the western Pennsylvania miners voting against it. The strike is expected to include other fieldß and as the contract between the owners and miners of hard coal expires on April Ist, it expected the difficulty will spread to them also. From present indications the contest will be long and hard fought and will result in intense suffering, not only to the miners whose families will be deprived by but will extendi, to the users of coal the country over. It is much to be hoped though highly improbable that some settlement may yet be arrived at to avert the horrors that will otherwise result.