The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-04-21
STREtTCR,

It is known that Cor several weeks past the
coal miners at Sireator, Braidwnod, La Sale,
and so far Us we know, throughout the state,
have stopped work on account of reduction
OF wages by the coal companies. Fer the
last year the wages agreed upon were 50 cts.
per ton in summer anG 90 cts. in winter The
reduction nov attempted is ~ cts. on these
ratcs-that j., to 10 cts. for summer and 80
cts. for winter. The miners simply say they
are unwilling to work for such wages, and
certainly no one can dispute their right to say
so. Tue miners further contend, that by
stopping work for few months, the present
glut of the coal market will be overcome,
and the runous prices which the coal com
panies make The excuse for reducing wages,
will no longer prevail.
The coal companies, however, are Of dit
ferent opinion, and in the absence of the
regular miners, are attempting to fill their
shafts with all the tramps and idlers they
can pick up anywhere, Every day since the
strike, or rather since the miners ceased
work, CUr they maintain that it is not q
strike more or less Of this class Of men have
been picked up and put into the shafts, and
the regular miners rs they have met them,
naturally persuaded the irregulars to quit
work, in most cases succeeding. Last
Tuesday carload of sixty.iive "irregulars"
arrived at Srearor and were dumped at Shaft
Noe Half Of them, claiming that they had
been promised a different kind OF work, re.
fused to enter the shaft then and there; and
in the evening about /, 800 miners, headed by
band of music, marched up 10 the SHAFT,
with the evident purpose of persuading the
other half to leave, in which they were parl.-
ally successful.
Meantime the coal companies, either hon
estly alarmed or pretending to be, have i'm.
ported LOT OF Pinkcrton's cops and peelers
from Chicago, and armlng them with pistols
and blunderbusses, have placed part of them
as guards around the shafts, allowing neither
ingresS or egress without u pass.
As the coal companies seem by the demon.
stration on Tuesday evening to have been
still more alarmed, they sent despatch to
Sheriff Stevens on Wednesday to come out,
and as the sheriff ought always TO have at
hand posse at leas. Of one, we concluded to
accompany him. 1t is almost needless to say
that the people Of Streator, who appear gen
orally to sympathlse with the miners, were
(or affected to be- greatly amused at the idea
that the sheriff should be sent for under the
notion that there was danger of row. The
mass OF the miners, they say, are among their
most peaceablc aDd respectable citizens
Many of them own property in Streater, have
their families and homes there, and would be
the last to engage in any proceedings that
would so fatally affect the interests of the
town as riot and destruction or injury of
any OF the coal shafts. The only danger of
any disturbance, they maintain, arises from
the presence of these foreign cops and peelers,
one Of whom might carelessly discharge his
boss pistol or blunderbuss, in which case
alone there would be real real danger that an
miner might shoot back.
Aside from that, after taking q pretty gen.
cral circuit Of StreatOr on Wednesday, and
talking with all kinds or people, it looked to
US as ii the coal companies were either I'M
necessarily alarmed or putting on needless
airs for some unexplained purpose. It's fair
to presume that they know what they are
about, in which case, however, we confess
ourselves unable readily to fathoA their mo
tivcs.