The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-08-10
COAL MINERS--THELR STRIKES
AND LAIVLESSNESS- GA USES or
THE SAME.

COLUMBUS, July 20, 1876.
Editors Cleveland Plain Dealer!
In noticing the strike of the Cape
Breton miners, and the lawless acts of
the strikers, in yesterdays Herald, you
ask what is there about coal mining
that makes lawless outrage and at
tempted murder almost always follow a
disagreement on point of wages ?" This
is most important query, demanding
the earnest investigation of the moralist,
the statesman, the journalist and the
public l venture to offer few sugges.
tions on the subject, the result of twenty
five years experit nee as a practical miner
in the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky
and Arkansas.
We have already $4,000 coal miners in
Ohio and before the close of the present
century this number shall haveincreased
to 5O,OOO Not single year rolls around
that does not witness some great strike
in some one or other of the various coal
fields of the State accompanied with
more or less outrage against persons and
property. Something is wrong which
makes such state of affairs possible.
The general public has no patience
and seldom any sympathy with miners
in their wages disputes with their en-
ployes, and regard as consumate folly the
policy which seeks redress for grievan-
ces real or imaginary, through strikes.
The mine owners blame the leaders and
agitators at the mines for causing the
trouble, and the public have accepted
this view as the facts in the case. But
this is more apparent than real. Men
would not continue to strike year after
year, in the face Of repeated losses and |
disasters, denying themselves and their
children the comforts and necessaries of
life, and consuming the fruits of previous
earnings, for no other reason than be-
cause leaders and agtators tell them to
do so. All men profit by experience,
and even children cease playing with
edged tools when they find they cut both
ways. The peculiar surroundings of the
mines are at the foundation of many a
long and disastrous strike. A plant de-
prived of the light of day, though care
fully nourished with all the other ele-
merts of growth and life, is never as Wig.
orous as one which basks in Gods sun
light. So it is with man; deprivation of
solar light, the awful gloom Of the mine,
and the noxious airs which lurk there,
have their influence on both the body
and mind of the miner.
Constant labor in badly aired mine
breaks down the constitution and clouds
the intellect. The lungs become Clogged
up from inhaling coal dust, and from
breathing the noxious airs of the mine
the body and limbs become stiff and
sore, and the mind loses the power of
vigorous thought. After six years of con-
slant labor in badly ventilated mine
that is mine where man with good
constitution may from habit be able to
work every day-the lungs begin to
change to blush color. After seven
teen years they are black, and after
twenty years they are densely black, not
a vistage of natural color remaining. The
miner dies at thirty-fye years of age of
coal miners consumption. In mine
where the circulation is constantly re
newed, and a pure current made to
sweep the face Of the workings where
the people are employed, little or no in
Jury to health results from underground
coal mining, but the blighting influence
of want of solar light remains. Six to
eight hours immersion in coal mine is
as long as nature can stand, as mines are
generally operated, without injury to the
constitution and vigor of the mind.
When business men, literary men, and
in short, men of every profession, who {
have means, over-tax their minds and
undermine their health by too close ap- s
plication to study and duty, they seek &
rest and recuperation by few weeks or {
months travel in the country, or they i
take trip TO Europe, etc., and in this
course they are encouraged and advised I
by their physicians. Human nature is Y
the same in the miners cottage as in the t
mansion of the rich and great; and, I
hence, when the miner becomes worked e
down in exhausting subterraneous re- Y
gions to which there is no parallel on S
earth, nature demands rest and reCuper- Il
alton, and the miner finds it in strike. /,
The lives of miners are prolonged many s
years by reason of their numerous Il
strikes. That the better policy would 7
be for the miner, when he finds his h
health and his physical energies going n
away, to change his occupation, or seek d
by resting singly, not in q
from his work all will admit, but /,
men whose intellects have become cloud +,
ed, whose tempers have become soured h
and whose bones have become stiff and n