The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1877-10-06
The Scranton Miners.

THE more see of the miners on Sun
days and week days, at home and on the
streets, the more | am convinced that
nine out of ten of them are law abiding
men, orderly, industrious and valuable
class of citizens. They have no desire
for the destruction of property or that
calamity should be brought upon the rich
They suffer from low wages, and strike
as a remedy. Their right to strike is
conceded, but it is right the exercise of
which can profit them nothing. They
make great mistake, but it is through a
false view of things. Among so large a
population there are, of course, hard
cases, natural idlers, tramps and vaga-
bonds, who take advantage of the gen
eral commotion, or rather stagnation, and
forage upon the farmers at night, and
howl and yell in the vicinity of where
mine pumps are working; but while they
are doing this the miners proper are in
bed and not responsible, only so far as
the blame for the strike in the first place
may rest upon them. Every flock has
black sheep, and when you survey the
size of the flock in the coal regions you
will not wonder so much that there
should be an occasional trespass or local
tumult. Whisky drinking has not in
creased, but diminished, that being one
of the good effects of the hard times. l
was talking with a whisky drummer last
night, and he complained of dull bust
ness in his line, consumption having
fallen off in the coal regions one third.
l have been about the city every day,
over the hills at the coal shafts and
among the miners, and have not yet seen
an intoxicated man in Luzerne County.
Save the attempt to wreck train the
other day near Carbonate no case of pro-
nounced lawlessness has come to my
knowledge. There are complaints of dep
relations on fruit and potatoes dug Gun
beknownst to the owners" but even this
branch of moonlight industry is not car.
ried to an alarming excess. Upon the
very borders of the miners village | saw
garden filled with ripe plums and
peaches hanging to the very edge of the
fence. The New York reporters who
roam through here like an army of gen
teel tramps, and perhaps appropriate
some of the fruit they pronounce to be
missing, should contemplate this thing.
The condition of affairs here-the
deadlock between labor and capitals
public misfortune upon which no
thoughtful man can look without feel.
ing of sadness. To treat it in sensa-
tional style, as if it were gigantic po-
lice court trial, is to do great wrong.
Lawlessness there is misery there is,
wickedness there is-but it does not
compare with the reports that have been
sent from this region. The truth is bad
enough; let US add no colorings, not even
for the pleasures of being sensational and
spicy. The reporters who hear that
Farmer AS hen-roost has been robbed in
the Silly hours of the night, and forth
with telegraph up and down the earth
that "farmers are being robbed con.
stantly" and dare not go out of their
houses at night" do a wrong. The con-
dition of affairs in this country is not as
satisfactory as a lover of his fellow man
could desire, but it is not as bad as
printed. There is more good here than
evil, more men who want to do right than
who want to do wrong.
l speak of to-day. God only knows
what the future has in store, when tear
full wives and starving children shall
cause the miner to forget his obligations
to society. If the strike should end to-
day it would only allay, not end the
trouble. It's deeper than can be reached
by strikes or cured by cessation of
strikes. 1t is an overstocked labor mar
ket, so largely overstocked that if all the
mines and works should start up to-day
they could not employ at full time more