Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 26, Number 43, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 18 April 1896 — Page 5

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There will be another committee from the glass manufactures of the gas region in thi.H state and Ohio along this way soon to investigate the facilities for the manufacture of glass. There is no longer any doubt that the big industrial enterprises located in the gas belt are becoming alarmed lest their supply of the natural fuel shall more or less suddenly cease. The glass manufacturers do not want to wait until the supply disappears or diminishes to the degree of leaving them without power. The glass manufacturers work together, as if in a trust, and all will move together when they leave the gas territory. What they want is the cheapest fuel and the best shipping facilities. They do not ask for a bonus nor for subscriptions to their capital stock. If they move it will be only those factories that would best meet the demand for their product, but it is understood that the ones which will be located in the fortunate place would have a pay roll of nearly, if not quits, one hundred thousand dollars a month. A committee was through this territory several months ago, stopping at Brazil and Terre Haute to make inquiry. The fact that a second oommittee is coming is regarded as a good indication that we have a chance to draw the prize.

An agent of a Chicago house which publishes biographical aud historical books here a few days ago, but he decided that Terre Haute had been so recently and so fully canvassed for these "paid notice" publications that it would not be profitable to get out a book at this time. What Terre Haute needs is a history of the town prepared, not so much a notice for every one willing to pay to see his biography or picture in a book, but with accurate historical information, especially as to the early days of the town, of which there is no adequate history in printed form. In a few years it will be practically impossible to get the information much of which necessarily must be obtained from the older residents, very few of whom are now living who were here in the very early days.

The arrest ftf the Linton coal operators and keepers of mine stores for putting in circulation a substitute for Uncle Sam's money is no doubt an intimation that the miners wages controversy which will begin with the assembling of the miners for the convention on the 31st of this mouth, will include the company store question. The "pluck-me" store has not been much of -a factor in the many disputes between the miners and operators of this state. In the Pittsburg aud Ohio fields it has beeu recoguized as so vital to the wages question that in the last agreement on a schedule a differeutal of 10 per cent. waB recognized in the price of mining where there was a company store, that is the miner was to have 10 per cent, more for his work if compelled to deal at the company store, which was an admission on the part of the operators that they fleeced the men out of 10 per ceut. in the prices charged at the story. It was this sort of extortion that gave to the stores owned by operators the name of "pluck-me" stores. The fact that the differential was recognized is to be used, uo doubt, by the Indiana miners as a leverage in securing an advance in the price of mining from 00 to 66 cents a ton. In this state, as said above, the compauy store has not. been put forward by the men as a grievance heretofore. I have asked many of the men and the miners officials at the tinw of former wages controveries if the company store was an imposition in this state and was usually told that there were instances where operators took advantage of the men but that as a rule the men had no complaint. Some years ago a Sullivan county operator undertook to compel his men to sign a contract to deal at his store but a test case going to the Supreme court th$e contract was held to be invalid because was in violation of the federal laws prodding legal tender money. The legislature passed a law against this sort of coercion but there have been few If any cases raised under it- Over in Clay county, in the block coal field, there has been mild complaint all along that the Braxll block

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coal company made it advisable for men to deal at the company store. If a miner did not deal there he found that he was put to work in a part of the mine where digging coal was difficult and not remunerative. It is not unlikely thft in the past year the operators here and there have become more oppressive. They have not been feeling kindly toward the men because they struck on them last Spring and especially because the men gained their point. Then, too, a good deal of the coal mining business is passing into the hands of men who do not live in the state and who do not come into it to see the conditions surrounding their industry and those engaged in it. They are investors as in railroad stock and they want dividends even if the miners have to be driven to work for less than living wages and then robbed of what they do make by the "pluckme" store

I see that a coal operator who lives in the swagger set over in Indianapolis rushes into print to say that the cpal company, one of whose officials is under arrest, does not own a. store at Linton. But he does not say anything about the commission of 10 or 15 per cent, the coal company exacts from the store on the trade of the miners who are given these checks and coupons by the company. As a matter of fact this underhanded manner of profiting off the trade of the miners is, what has occasioned most of the suspicion that there was robbery in the company^ store business. It was argued that the storekeeper surely would not take the 10 or 15 per cent, out of his own profits, but that the miner had to pay that much more for his goods. Some of the coal operators have pursued the more manly course and have dealt fairly with the men. They have said to them, in effect, we have the store and will not charge you more than you would have to pay for the same articles in Terre Haute or any where else and we think that as we give you work you ought to deal at our store, The Indianapolis operator no doubt is one of those who never say anything about profits in coal mining from the sale of powder and oil and in blacksmithing furnished the men. He would tell the dear public that he is selling coal at or below the cost of production, but he would know that it is possible to do this and at the same time make money. I have often wondered why the miners do not make more of the point that they have to pay for the powder they use and tbe oil and for the blacksmithing of their tools, so that if they are getting 60 cents a ton for mining it may only net them 50 cents or less. The operator makes a big profit on powder and oil. He hires the blacksmith by the month and miners have told me of mines where the blacksmith will earn for the operator twice and three times as much as his wages. The Indianapolis man does not make an enviable appearance posing as an "inno cent" because the store is owned by outsiders. The company nevertheless levies tribute on the necessities of its miners by exacting the per cent, on the amount of their trade, and this is done wherever a company does not own the store outright. I imagine this Indianapolis man has that same distorted moral reasoning that is characteristic of men who are continually denouncing the wickedness of city life and praying God to "make men and women better and yet deliberately take advantage of the wickedness to charge extortionate rents for the property used for such purposes. "Colonel Tom

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J. FRED PROBST, 642 WABASH AVE.

wis

Harper who recently re­

turned from Washington says the bill prepared by him and introduced in the senate providing for trial by jury and appeal in cases of contempt of federal courts will become a law. He says that Senator Hill and Senator Thurston of the judiciary committee are advocating its passage and that the only senator on the committee actively aud radically opposing it is Senator Vilas of Wisconsin. The fact that Senator Thurston of Nebraska is counted among its friends is worthy of note. The senator had been the attorney of the Union Pacific company for many years and was looked upon as the particularly objectionable type of corporation man getting a seat in the senate. His part in politics heretofore has generally been considered as being to serve his corporation best. Harper quotes him as paying that he has severed his connection with the company and is no longer its servant but that being a free man and servant of the people, as it were, he will now advocate the law that is in the interest of the employe. Of course this is something in the nature of a confession but until there is proof to the contrary it must be accepted as a frank and sincere statement. Perhaps he explains that he did things as the attorney of the Union Pacific that he would not do as a man who had not been paid fordoing then.

WHS

makiug about the alien

ownership of Indiana mines reminds me of what an Indiana operator said to me. We were discussing the probability of a settlement of the wages question at the forthcoming conference and one of us remarked on the fact, of which mention was made in this column a week or two ago, that there is difficulty in getting the operators to abide by the agreements they enter into. He said the reason was that the mines are

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owned by people at a distance and managed by men who know little or nothing about the coal business but are placed in their positions through other influences. When they find they are not succeeding they resort to almost anything to get out of the hole. The Sullivan Union, commenting on the arrest of the Linton operators and storekeepers, says: "We have got some Chicago concerns in this county that ought to be looked after, some corporations that have come among us to hog all the profit they can and leave as little in the county as possible. Take the big mines in Jackson township. They are bad business investments for Sullivan county beoause they neither buy nor sell anything here, though honest capital is taxed to protect them in their insatiable greed. Let an examination be made into their method of conducting trade and if they have violated the law there should be no discrimination in meeting out punishment. The operators'at Dugger are calling in their checks and when received are refusing to reissue them. There are great quantities out so we understand, and many are held by farmers who accept them for produce. A gentleman who lives in Dugger said Monday that the issuing of these checks to miners in payment of labor made it hard for any body else to do business in the community of their circulation, because they were made redeemable in trade. The miners were almost obliged to buy at the company stores especially if in debt. As they consume most of the produce that the farmers sell to the stores there, the latter in turn have to sell to the company and take the company's price. The system is a vicious one and ought to be broken up. but operators ought to be let off this time with the understanding that future violations will be severely dealt with." The Sullivan Democrat says: "The same system of payments, we understand, prevails at the coal mines in this county—each company running a store where the checks or coupons are received at their face for goods. They will be redeemed in cash at 90 cents on the dollar. Some of the farmers who take them in exchange for produce prefer to submit to the shave of ten per cent, as they can do better with the cash at the Sullivan stores."

Cardinal Gibbons is going to pay a visit to St. Marys of the Woods in May. It will be & great occasion at St* Marys and will do the institution much good by giving it the prestige of the cardinal's sanction. It is understood that the visit is due to the personal friendship of the cardinal with Bishop Chatanl. The bishop's father was a physician in Baltimore and the cardinal Is a Baltimorean. The families were intimate and the friendship of the cardinal and bishop exists as much through their rnrly associations as through their church relations. Bishop Chatard is particularly interested in St. Marys and hopes to see its usefulness and success enhanced by the visit.

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