The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-10
THE COAL TROUBLE rs.

THE GOAL TROUBLES.
Contrary to the expectation cherished a few
weeks ago, that the coal troubles would all be
over by the 1st of May or very soon after
that time, the long strike has been length
ened, many collieries remain idle, and, worst
of all, new deeds of violence have been per-
petrated While several causes for these dis
graceful and dangerous manifestations may
be given, one controlling reason, which
grows plainly and painfully apparent, is to be
found in the inability or indispostion of the
authorities to enforce the laws, and to qua
rantee, in the coal regions, to those who are
disposed to labor, the sacred right of pursu-
ing their labors without molestation. The
dominance of mob-law, rufianism, aud
riotous violence keeps the colleries idle to-
day, deadens the hum of peaceful industry,
bankrupts merchants, ruins the owners of
coal mines, embarrasses railway companies,
makes purchasers of coal pay ext ortionate
prices, and threatens to destroy forever many
of the markets for one of the most important
products of the State. Stripped of all dis
guises and extraneous complications, the pro-
longation of the strike and of inaction is due
to the success of the miners league in driv-
ing and frightening away from work starving
men, who, in the absence of such threats,
would at this moment be mining as much
coal as the coal markets require; and the
persistence in such clear act of wrong doing
is largely if not solely due to demagogism
and dereliction of duty on the part
of John w. Guary, Governor of
Pennsylvania. Inasmuch as he received the
votes of some of the miners at the last Guber-
material election, and as he is vain enough to
hope that they will support him hereafter for
the Presidency, he has trihed with their out
break, and so conducted himself in the various
phases of the long continued turmoil that the
miners believe the Governor to be practically
their supporter in the present controversy;
and this belief has emboldened them to per-
sist in a system which is quite as bad
and wicked in its influence upon the coal re-
gions as Ku-kluxism is in its application to the
negroes and Unionists of the South. The
whole State was surprised at the tone of the
Governors proclamation at the time the
troubles reached their climax in Scranton
some weeks ago; and as the disposition mani
tested in that document to deal tenderly with
the rioters has since been followed by similar
indications of executive feeling, it is not at
all surprising that the war against
peaceful industry has been steadily
maintained by the Governors pets. The
whole State and all interests suffer deeply
from this condition of things, and it behooves
all good citizens to seek for a remedy. II the
Governor himself is not dead to all sense of
justice and propriety, even his dull brain
should be impressed with the reflection that
infinitely more votes are to be lost than
gained by tampering with murderous rioters
If he wants to run as candidate
for the Presidency, he should be
made to understand that the
weakest plank he can put into his platform is
the policy of encouraging one set of laborers
to prevent, by threats, blows, and murderous
assaults, another set of laborers from earning
their daily bread; and that no abetter, alder,
and sympathizer of leagued foes of industry
can ever secure the support of any consdera-
BILE body of the citizens of Pennsylvania for
any Office. If the Governor cannot
be inspired, by multitude
of appeals, with true sense of duty, the
Legislature should seriously consider, in an
emergency like that now existing, the pro
priety of impeaching him. 1t is high time
that the sacred right to work on the soil OF
Pennsylvania should be vindicated, and il
the Executive ignorantly or wilfully persists
in interposing obstacles to its vindieation
the constitutional remedy should be invoked
to depose him.