The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1897-08-21
ARBITRATION DECLTNED.
Miners Cfoials Refuse to Meet
the Operators,
THE CRISIS IN THE BIG STRIKE.

A Conference Of Labor Leaders called
to Meet in st. Louis, at Which an
Effort VIII BE Made to Draw All
workers Into the Struggle.
Columbus, Aug. 21.-The national ex-
ecutive board of the United Mine Work
ers adjourned yesterday after having
issued a call for the conference of or
ganized labor to be held in st. Louis
on Aug. 80 The board rejected the
proposition of Pittsburg operators for
a conference to arbitrate the wage dis
pute 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 arbitration of the issues of the
great strike only when these overtures
come from all the operators in the COM
petitive district, which includes Ohio
Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia and
Pennsylvania. The board has decided
not to deviate from the established pol
icy until the result of the st. Louis
conference is known. The aggressive
work in the field will be continued, and
the efforts to spread the strike in the
West Virginia district win be renewed
The success or failure of the strike
hangs upon the st. Louis conference,
the call for which has been endorsed
by Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor, and
j. b. Sovereign, general master work
man 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 con-
ference all labor organizations will be
asked to join issues with the miners.
The failure to secure a general sus-
pension in West Virginia has greatly
interfered with the prospects of sue
cess, as the coal supplied from that
and the few Isolated districts is meet
ing the limited demand. The only hope
of cutting off this supply appears to
lie in the refusal of organized labor
in the ordinary channels of traffic and
business to handle or use this
coal If the object of the st. Louis con-
ference is accomplished the strike will
be extended to nearly every branch OF
labor in the country.
The call for the conference is ad-
dressed to all "who condemn govern
ment by injunction and the use of
force to coerce the people and deprive
them of their rights as American citi-
zens," and is in part as follows;
''The great miners strike has gone
/ beyond a struggle for living wages.
/ Al crisis in the affairs of the nation
| has arrived in which all patriotic peo-
pie must determine whether they will
accept and consent to live under the
rule of an oligarchy of wealth or
whether the institutions of free gov
ernment, the rights of free speech and
peaceable public assemblage are to be
| preserved.
1.-THE present struggle has assumed
a contest for the preservation of civil
liberty and constitutional rights. The
tyrannical and un-American injunc-
tions of the federal and state courts
are revolutionary against the first
principles of free government and de-
rogatory to the inherent rights of the
masses, endangering the public peace
and destroying the personal security
and individual liberties of the common
people.
1.-THE courts have deserted the temple
Of Justice and now stand forth the de-
dant bulwark of confederated capital.
Their arbitrary rulings have set up
one standard of rights for the rich and
another for the poor. They decree that
capital is always right and labor al
ways wrong. They have made it un-
lawful for starving working people to
appeal against tyrannical treatment,
present grievances, or propose just and
peaceable terms for the redress of in
sufferable wrongs.
"The present great miners strike is
an expression of discNhtent that origi-
mated in poverty and starvation. 1t
was born in the sorrow and destitu-
ton of hungry women and children.
1t las the last protest of impoverished
ara enslaVed labor, and it presents to
orld a cause as righteous and
ne as ever inspired the souls Of a
yteaIl- Nan people The philanthropiC
heart of this great nation has respond
ed in sympathy with the miners ap-
peal for the rights to receive re-
spectacle living for the most arduous
and hazardous labor in the world
Their appeal for a small share of the
wealth they create and for the right to
enjoy some of the fruits of advanced
civilization finds a chord everywhere
in the commonality of mankind, and
If il were a struggle between miners
and mine operators only liberty would
triumph over oppression, industry over
greed, and right over wrong without
the necessity of this call.
But it is no longer a mere struggle
between employe and employer. The
judiciary has assumed the indefensible
claims of the operators, and the strug-
gle IS between tyrannical courts and
the whole people. The courts, although
under oath to serve the rich and poor
alike, have volunteered to defend the
sordid interests of the rich as against
the God given rights of the poor, and
now threaten to turn the Calling guns
and Winchesters of criminals and thugs
against all who dare protest against
their despicable restraining orders The
judiciary is prostituted to the bidding
of oppressive capital, has placed the
rights of property above the rights OF
persons and has Disseminated against
the many In the interests of the few.
THAT $50 900 miners should be con-
demned to lives of drudgery and starv-
alton by the arbitrary rulings Of the
. courts is an insult to a beneficent Gre
ator, an outrage upon free government
and a disgrace to the Christian civilizai
ton in which we live. To the end that 9
lust and equitable settlement Of the
differences between employers and em'
oioves NAV be effected and the courts