The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-21
REJECTION OF OVERTURES
FROM PITTsBURG OPERATORS WHO
PROPOSED ARBITRATION.
Leaders of the Strikers Will Treat
Only with Mine Owners of All Dis
tricts-OperatOrs' Statement.

COLUMBUS, O., Aug. 20-The national
executive board of the United Mine Work
ers adjourned to-day, after having issued a
call for a conference of organized labor to
be held in ST. Louis Aug. 80. The board re-
jected the proposition of the Pittsburg OPP
orators for a conference to arbitrate the
wage dispute in that district, claiming that
such action would be prejudicial to the in
terests of the miners at large. The board
is ready to consider overtures for the arbi-
tration of the issues of the great strike only
when these overtures come from all of the
operators in the competitive districts.
which includes Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West
Virginia and Pennsylvania. The board has
decided not to deviate from the established
policy until the result of the St. Louis
conference is known. The aggressive work
in the field will be continued and the eff
forts to spread the strike in the West Vir-
ginia district will be renewed.
The success or failure of the strike hangs
on the ST. Louis conference, the call for
which has been Endorsed by Samuel Com
pers, president of the American Federation
of Labor, and J. r. Sovereign, general mas
ter workman of the knights of Labor They
maintain that the fight now being waged
by the miners is one of common interest
to organized labor throughout the country.
At the St. Louis conference all labor organ
izations will be asked to join issues with
the miners. The failure to secure a gen.
eral suspension in West Virginia has
greatly interfered with the prospects of
success, as the coal supplied from that and
the few isolated districts is meeting the
limited demand. The only hope of cutting
off this supply appears to lie in the refusal
of organized labor in the ordinary chan
nels of traffic and business to refuse to
handle or use this coal. If the object of the
st. Louis conference is accomplished, the
strike will be extended to nearly every
branch of labor in the country.
The call for the conference is addressed
ITO organized labor it's various divisions
and subdivisions, and to all reform, social,
educational and scientific bodies. who con-
denim government by injunction and the use
of force to coerce the people and deprive
them of their rights as American citizens. "
1t reads:
THE great miners strike has gone be-
yond a struggle for living wages. crisis
in the affairs of the Nation has arrived in
which all patriotic people must determine
whether they will accept and consent to live
under the rule of an oligarchy of wealth,
or whether the institutions of free govern
ment, the rights of free speech and peace
able public assemblage are to be preserved.
The present struggle has assumed a con-
test for the preservation of civil liberty and
constitutional rights.
"'rhe tyrannical and un-American injunc-
tons of the federal and state courts
revolutionary against the first principles of
free government and derogatory to the in
he1'ent, rights of the masses, endangering
al security and individual liberties of the
common people. The courts have deserted
the temple of justice and now stand for the
defiant bulwark of confederated capital.
Their arbitrary rulings have set up one
standard of rights for the rich and another
always right, as labor is always wrong.
They have made it unlawful for starving
working people to appeal against tyrannical
treatment, present grievances or propose
just and peaceable terms for the redress Of
insufferable wrongs.
'l'he present great miners strike is an
expression of discomfort that originated in
poverty and starvation. 1t was born in the
sorrow and restitution of hungry women
and children; it was the last protest of i'm
poverished and enslaved labor and it pre-
sentS to the world a cause as righteous and
humane as ever inspired the souls of a
Christian people. The philanthropc heart
of this great nation has responded in SYM
pathy with the miners appeal for the right
to receive a respectable living for the most
arduous and hazardous labor in the world
Their appeal for small share of the wealth
they create and for the right to enjoy SOME
of the fruits of advanced civilization finds
a responsive cord everywhere in the COM
monality of mankind, and if it were a strug-
gle between miners and mine operators on
ly, liberty would triumph over oppression
industry over greed, and right over wrong
without the necessity of this call
But 1t is no longer mere struggle be-
has assumed the indetensible claims of the
operators and the struggle is between tyran>
meal courts and the whole people. The
courts, although under oath to serve the
rich and poor alike, have volunteered to de-
fend the sordid interests of the rich as
against the God-given rights of the poor;
and now they threaten to turn the Calling
guns and the Winchesters of criminals and
thugs against all who dare to protest
against their despicable restraining orders
The judiciary, prostituted TO the bidding OF
oppressive capital, has placed the rights
of property above the rights of persons, ana
has Disseminated against the many in the
interest of the few.
THAT 10000 miners should be condemned
TO lives of drudgery and starvation by the
arbitrary rulings of the courts is an insult
to a benefcent Creator an outrage upon
free government and disgrace to the
Christian civilization under which we live.
The recent injunctiOnS and their extreme
application against the lawful rights of the
poor the arrest and Incarceration of hum
general employment of armed thugs to over
awe, haraSS and cOerce the miners have so
exasperated the people in localities where
applied that we feel that we can no longer
be responsible for the public peace.
And TO the end that just and equitable
settlement of the differences between en-
public peace. the liberty of the masses,
the sacred Institutions of free government
preserved and the courts estopped from
these outrageous perversions OF constitu-
tional rights, we appeal to that higher,
more humane and patriotic court-the
great plain people-who in times of trouble
have always proven the just arbiters of
every difference between diversified inter-
ests and contending elements in the gov
eminent of human society. We appeal to
the liberty-oving people Of this great Ma
ton. to send accredited delegates to st.
Louis, Mo. where mass convention will
be held Monday, Aug. so. The object of
the convention will not be TO merely pro-
test against the usurpation and tyranny of
the courts, but TO formulate plans to COM
pei return to the principles of free gov
eminent and put said plans into practical
operation
"Our people have suffered all the evils
that are sufferable. and we are given the
alternative of submitting to the injunctions
of the courts and cowardly entreating our
miners TO return to the novels of misery
and shame or appealing TO the patriotic
hearts OF America to consider our cause
and render verdict in accordance with the
just claims of suffering humanity. We have