Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1886-12-01
An Outrageous Decision.

In 1881 the Pennsylvania legisla
ture passed a law prohibiting the
store-order systematic "truck stores"
or "pluck-me stores" as they arc
variously known by the miners
Miners, unlike almost all other work.
men, are required to furnish their own
tools and to buy their own oil, powder,
and lamps. Taking advantage of this
custom the mine operator, as soon as
his mine is opened, establishes store
for the sale of these articles, in con-
nection with everything else which
the miner and his family require of
the necessaries of life. At this store
every miner employed is required to
purchase not only the supplies used
in his work, but his groceries, clothing,
etc, for himself and family. That
the prices in such stores are exorbitant
and the quality of the articles fur
nished inferior, it is hardly necessary
to say. But the miners dealing with
the company store is compulsory-a
condition of his employment. If he
refuses he is discharged, and not
infrequently "blacklisted'-that is,
his name and personal description are
furnished every other operator in the
district, and often throughout hun
dred, of miles, so that he is shut out of
employment.
If the miner has some ready money
on beginning work-a rare thing, in the
nature of the casc-hc must spend it
at the store, and when payday comes
around he receives a certain per cent,
if not the entire amount, Of his earn
ings in "store orders" Usually how
ever, he begins his work and his
Indebtedness to the store simultan-
eously and, though death may relieve
him of the former, the "pluck-me"
method of bookkeeping never relaxes
its grasp on him for debt. A more
damnable method of slavery never
existed in the south, and if "Molly
Maguireism" or any other form of
savagery could have justification or
palliation it would be found in this.
The act prohibiting these stores
had hardly been signed before it was
assailed on the ground of unconstitu-
tionality, and it has been, to great
extent, q dead-letter from the date of
its passage. A dispatch in Yesterdays
Daily News announces that the
supreme court of Pennsylvania has
now formally declared it to be uncon-
stitutional and void, on the ground
that it prevents persons from making
their own contracts. The language of
the learned judge in delivering the
opinion of the court is remarkable in
the history of American Jurisprudence.
Justice Gordon says:
The act is an infringement alike of
the right of employer and employee,
and it is an insulting attempt to put
the laborer under legislative tutelage,
which is not only degrading to his
manhood but subsersive of his rights
as a citizen of the United States.
The laborer- citizen of the United
States should be grateful for such
solicitude for his rights, for such
jealous care against the degradation
of his manhood. But we suspect that
decision will make him only the more
determined in his efforts to take q
hand in law-making on bis own ac-
count. A similar condition of affairs
exists in the mines of this State, not
withstanding repeated attempts to
secure legislative relief. The State
platform of the united labor conven-
ton demands "the payment of wages
weekly in lawful money and the
abolition of the truck system" Such
an issue is of greater practical inn
portance to n large number Of in
dividuals than all else in the platform.
News.