The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1897-08-27
STRIKE CONFERENCE.
ORGANIZED LABOR is TO
MEET AT ST. LOUIS
10 Decide Upon the Advisability of Or
dering a General Suspension of All
Trades In Order to shut or the Coal
suppIy-Tederal Injunctions.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Aug. 2L-The ma
tional executive board of the United
Mine Workers adjourned yesterday,
after having issued the call for the
conference of organized labor to be
held in ST. Louis August so. The
board rejected the proposition of the
Pittsburg operators for conference
to arbitrate the wage dispute in that
district, claiming that such action
would be prejudicial to the interests
of the miners at large. The board is
ready to consider ovcrtures for the ar
bitration of the issues OF the great
strike only when these overtures come
from all the operators in the competi-
tive districts, which include Ohio, In
diana, Illinois, West Virginia and
Pennsylvania. The board has decided
not to deviate from the established
policv 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 will be re-
newed.
The success or failure of the strike
hangs upon the result of the confer
ence. the call for which has been in
dorsed by Samuel Gompers, president
of the American Federation of Labor,
and J. r. Sovereign, general master
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 organiza-
tions will be asked to join issues with
the miners.
Call for the Conference.
Following is the call for tina confer
ence:
"The great miners strike has gone
beyond struggle for living wages, A
crisis in the affairs of the nation has
arrived, in which all patriotic people
must determine whether they will ac-
cept and consent to live under the rule
of an olgarchy of wealth or whether
the institutions of free government,
the rights of free speech and peace
able public assemblage are to be pre-
served.
1.-The tvrannical and un-American
iniunctions of the federal and state
courts are revolutionary against the
first principles of free government,
and derogatory to the inherent rights
of the masses, endangering the public
peace and destroying the personal
society and individual liberties of the
common people.
THE courts have desecrated the
temple of justice, and now stand for
the defiant bulwark of confederated
capital. Their arbitrary rulings have
set ND one standard of rights for the
rich and another for the poor. They
decree that capital is always right
and labor is always wrong. They
have made it unlawful for starving
working people to appeal against
tvrannical treatment, present griev-
ances or propose just and peacable
terms for the redress of insufferable
wrongs,
1.-The judiciary has assumed the in
defensible claims of the operators, and
the struggle Is between tyrannical
courts and the whole people. The
courts. although under oath to serve
the rich and poor alike, have volun-
teered 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 the Win
- nri, aina Ia fhnUS
against all who dare to protest against
their despicable restraining orders.
The judiciary, prostituted to the bid
ding of oppressive capital, has placed
the rights of property above the rights
of persons and has disseminated
against the many in the interest OF
the few.
"And to the end that a just an d
equitable settlement of the differences
between employers and employed may
: be effected, the public peace, the lib
ertv of the masses, the sacred institu-
tions of free government be preserved
and the courts estopped from these
: outrageous perversions of constitu-
} tional rights, we appeal to that
higher, more humane and patrl'
| otto court-the great people-who in
; times of trouble have always
5 proven the just arbiters of differ
: ences between diversified interests
2 and contending elements in the gov
eminent of human society. We ap
peal to the liberty loving people Of
this great nation to send accredited
a | dalaTates TO ST Louis Mo-, where
: mass convention will be held Monday
August 80, 1897. The object of the
. conyentio will not be merely to pro
test against the usurpation and tyran
nv of the courts, but to formulate
, mans to compel return to the prin
: ciples of free government and put sale
3 plans into practical operation"
.I.n. ,,nr,a for Perm.