The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-25

Emile Zola in what is perhaps his most
powerful novel. ''Germinal," pictures the
horrors of French coal miners strike.
The French coal miner is paid starvation
wages; the young girls. wnen barely past
puberty, and the women. work under
ground, naked to the waist, loading and
pushing the coal cars to and fro
in hot, sitting atmosphere, water
dripping everywhere upon them. These
French coal miners of both sexes
toll together under conditions that invite
vicious relations; they are practically
starved wolves. and when they strike and
riot it is but the desperation of creatures
maddened by oppression and morbidized
by miserable diet, pestilential air and de-
grading sexual associations.
Out of this French coal pit of filth,
want, wretchedness and RIGHTEOUSNESS
no wonder crime comes periodically
forth and runs amuck like a gaunt.
starved lunatic through the land. A
French coal mining strike is the wild cry
of "the Lost Children" out of a hell of in
human, cruel and hopeless conditions 20
them. Here is an extract from Zola's
| terrible picture of what a French strike
for bread and the riot that follows it
| means:
The women haa appeared; nearly thousand
women, with streaming hair disheyeled by the
race in rags showing the bare skin, hslf-naked
| women tired of giving birth to children only TO
| see them die of hunger. Some held their little
irsr has ,Nau
| about like flag OF mourning ana vengeance
| Others, younger, with the swollen thfoats of
| warriors. brandished sticks; while the old ones.
frightful-looking. howled so loud that the cords
/ of their scraggy necks seemed TO be
! breaking. Then the men STRAINED
! along; two thousand furious men, Grand
| boys, miners, repairers, compact mass
! rolling on in single serred column, crowded
| together in such manner that neither the
! faded breeehes nor the old WOODEN jackets could
/ Re distinguished, all being uniform in the
/ blackness of dirt Their eyes were burning,
/ the openings only of their dark mouths were
! seen. singing the "Marseillaise,' the verses
| being lost in confused roar, accompanied by
! the Gathering OF the.r ssbois on the hard
/ ground. over tire heads of the people was
| carried on high sn axe, as the standard Of the
people, and in the clear heavens the sharp
| blade shone out like gui.lotine
/ II was the red morn OF a revolution which
! will carry an before IL in bloody night before
| the end Of the century. Hes, one evening the
people le; loose. unbrid!ed, will run thus on the
| roads and sp.u the blood of the citizens; they
! Will carry their heads On poles and scatter tue
| gold from their sales The women Will shrek
the men will have their wolt-like Jaws open 10
| bite. Yes, there would ~ tho same rags the
| same thunder OF heavy shoes, the same ter
| rib.s crowd of dirty skins ana infected
| brosshs, killing the otG people in their say.
| aye pushing. Houses would be burned: no,
| avail OF the cities would remain: they would
| return 10 the Wild life 81 the woods after grea.
| feasting; when the poor in the night wou 4
| hest down the women aud empty the cellars OF
! the rich. There would DO nothing leg;-no, :
| ecnt-oi the great fortunes; il would be ltSe d
new land.
| Men were sproatiug; = black avensinc army
stiu terminating ID ths burrows, was swelling
ior the harvesEs Of the next century, AMI IL,
spr!nging growth would sooa stsr.le the earta
This is 8 picture of the rage, riot and
prospective terrorism that oppressed and
tortured labor may present any moment
| in France Now turn from this picture O
labor dashed by starvation and hope, eSs
misery into riot to the picture OF labo
riots in Idaho ana Pennsylvania In IL,
United States il both Instances the labor
that has risen into riot and cruelty is vel
paid, we'll fed. well clothed twice beyond
The hes; remune~atei labor Of the h;ches
and moss humane civilization OF EG-ope
The r4ot and sayagery Of striking labo
in France is The Eruption OF Wild deg
chained AID starved into seEoeisy il Thea