The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-02
A Graphic Review of the Situation.

neltner money nor credit
A Graphic Review of the Situation.
Pittsburg Special to Chicago News
1t is no local question that small army OF
deputy sheriffs and policemen, with the militia
in reserve, have been two weeks discussing with
mob of laborers up in the Connellsville coke
region. forty or fifty miles from here. Whether
couple of thousand workingmen shall buy their
brogans and bacon at company stores at the old
rate of wages, or get 10 per cent. more and buy
where they please, seems matter of narrow
consequence but when tits taken into account that
this streak of black country, forty miles by per-
haps three in extent, makes two thirds of ali the
coke used in the United States, the Importance
Of the controversy increases. Take the product
of this small region last year; load it on cars
htched together in a continuous train; start the
train running twelve miles an hour, to run unin-
terruptedly day and night; stand beside the
track and watch the silver gray snake crawl by
each hour counting Is, 600 tons of coke, and to-
ward morning of the ninth day, when the for
ward end of the train is jolting down the sunset
side OF the Rocky mountains the rear cars will
still be within the clutch of the Pennsylvania
police Stretch the train straight across the
continent and the headlight of the locomotive
will be flashing out of the Golden Gate while
the red lamps at the other end are choking In
the New Jersey fog.
Yet Provance Mccormick, one of the men who
made the first coke burned on this continent. is
still living, poor man but respected justice OF
the peace. Three men made the experiment for
ty-five years ago. John Taylor was a stone-ma-
son. and owned small farm near Connellsyille,
on which he worked a vein of coal. Provance
Mccormick and James Campbell were the house
carpenters of the little town. Taylor built three
ovens; the men jointly filled them with coal
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lit the fire that row blazes in twenty thousand
ovens. They burned about thirty tons of coke
loaded it on two f1atboats, which Mccormick
and Campbell built. and foated it down the
Youghiosheny. the Monongahela and the Ohio
rivers to Cincinnati. But they were in advance
of the market. The foundrymen looked suspi-
cicusly at their light gray fuel, and called it Gin
ders. After much peddling, about half of their
cargo was sold. The remainder they traded for
a patent grist-mill, which, by the way, wouldn't
grind. The three pioneers lost on their specula-
tion and the new industry languished for sew
era years. In 1850 there were four coke works
in the United States-small affairs. Twenty
years later there were only twenty-five. Now
there are ESQ., with 1857 ovens of which the
1925 in this Connellsv:e region, whore the
thick vein of pure soft coal is better than any
other to make coke out of, roast 1929 05i tons Of
coal year.
Scarcely any skilled labor is required in coke
making, and so, when, in the flush of times of So
coke, the men rose up with demand for big
ger share of the profits. their employers over
whelmed them with food of Polish and Hun
garian cheap labor. These people have no more
sense of decency or humanity than coyote. No
newspaper on earth would venture to print an
accurate picture of their life. The marriage ties
are elastic, and families multiply like rabbits. A
Hungarian can live on nothing and keep board
ers. tin cupful of cheap whisky, the heel of
loaf of bread. and a cut of raw bacon are the
stimuants and sustenance for his days work
He is the slowest workman, but the thriftiest
and steadest. A negro will dig FIVE wagons of
coal in day, and spend all the proceeds at
dance the same night. The Hungarian. who
digs only two wagons, will save half his pay.
The child of an Irish miner dies, and every
Irishman in the mine quits work two days to
attend the wake and funeral. When little
Hungarian dies its parents board it up in an old
soap-box and bury it themselves at night,
glish miner celebrates the Queens birth
day, Christmas Haliow cen, and about
everything else he has any excuse for celebrat-
ing. The Hungarian has no respect for any day
except pay day. AS soon as he has saved 5000
or 5000, he goes back to his own country to be
count and great man among his old neghbors.
He can buy title, and castle. and jackass
for that sum over there, and his wife will not
have to be hitched to the pillow any more.
The Hungarians have grown impatient of late
because the old wages have not been restored
since coke has advanced, and are, besides, rebel
ling against the system OF company stores, which
pluck them at the rate of about % per cent.
Their present strike is one in which they have
joined hands with the native laborers and now
they will neither work themselves, nor permit
anybody else to work. They have, almost all of
them. lived in houses owned by their employers,
and the crisis will come when an attempt is made
to evict them They have no legal rights, of
course. The leases are models of the catch all
kind. The tenant gives up everything but his
SOUL takes the hot end of every weapon known
to the law, and subscribes to sweepstakes final
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not exclude any other to which the lessons might
otherwise be entitled"
The main battle is with the II. G. Frick Coke
Company, Fl. G. Prick is the phenomenon of
the coke country. Twelve years ago quiet,
rather delicate young man, whom the neighbor-
hood familiary called "Clay Prick" was clerk
ing for $40 week in A. O. Tinstman's distillery,
at Broadford, in the edge of the coke country.
He had command of a little money, and got con-
troll Of the stock of twelve-mile branch rail-
road, running from Broadford to Mount Pleas
ant. When the Pennsylvania and Baltimore 81
Ohio fell to fighting for entrance into the coke
region he sold out to the latter at big profit
Then he and Mr.. Tnstman bought tract of
coal land and put up one hundred coke ovens.
Another hundred soon followed. Then Tinst-
man failed, and Frick somehow got all
the firm property and held it. He allied
himself with capital whenever he could
find it, and kept on building and buying coke
ovens. When he couldn't buy he leased. The
panic had knocked the courage out Of capital
and left many firm in distress. While unwill-
ing to sell, in hope of better times. they leased
their works Frick for tie sake of keeping their
mines working and in good repair Old men
wagged their boards solemnly and pitied the
young man. He had been lucky, they said, and
if he bad any sense. would listen to advice, he
might live in comfort all the rest of his life.
But he was making fool of himself and one of
these days we would see what would see.
Well. the boom came in coke. The yearly profit
on Tricks leased works was more than the pre-
vious value of the works themselves Those
who prophesied his ruin can see him any of these
the Frick Coke Company, which owns 1000 Of
the 100000 ovens in the region, and worth
$1,000, 900.