The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-07-24
THE COAL STRIKE.

However much the grievances and
hardshipe of the coal miners may de-
serve public sympathy and attention,
it is difficult to believe that the great
strike inaugurated on the 3rd instant by
their trades union will, in the heavy
odds against them. better their position
in any way. We transfer the iudicious
review of the situation given in the New
York Observer. The states chiefly af
fected by the strike are Ohio. Pennsyl-
vania, Indiana, Illinois and West Vir-
ginia, and the strike for an increase of
nine cents per ton in the wage paid for
mining ton of coal, which would make
the rate in the Pennsylvania district SO
cents ton and 60 cents elsewhere.
According to President Ratchford, of
the United Mine Workers, the strike is
not Of the miners choice, but is forced
on them by the reduction of wages be-
low the living point, and if the state
ment of the Illinois workers that on the
existing wage scale they can make only
nine cents an hour is true, their griev-
ances would seem sufficiently serious
Admitting that, however, the conditions
of general business and of the mining
industry itself are not of a kind to give
promise of a successful strike, the pro-
cess of recuperation having not yet gone
far enough, to warrant employ ers, espec-
tally in the industries upon which min
ing depends for support, in increasing
wages. 1t is noticeable that the opera
tors are making little effort to conciliate
the men, and agree in asserting that
trade conditions do not justify an in
crease, and though it may be said that
this is always their insistence, there
must be some of them who have the
interests of their workmen seriously
at heart and who would pay if they
could. Moreover, coal strike to be
successful must be universal. and as it
is not universal in Pennsylvania and not
even general in West Virginia, unless
the situation greatly changes, there will
be a repetition of the conditions of three
years ago, when the strike was beaten
by the continuance at work of the min
ers of the latter state.
A suspension in other states is West
Virginia's opportunity to find new mar
kets, and as the facilities for the pro-
duction of coal there have increased
rapidly within the past few years, the
state can very largely supply all present
demands. To make the strike effective,
violence must be resorted to, both to
prevent the shipment of coal and the
importation of foreign and non union
labor, and when that occurs the defeat
of any strike is certain. Again, every
strike of this kind tends to hasten the
introduction of mining machinery and
so to diminish the amount of work for
miners, and as the adoption of machin-
cry by one mine compels by its superior
economy the others to follow or shut
down, the deprivation extends to the
whole body of workers. That with the
p6TI6CblOu Vi LOW piOhinS uoShihO ~
which two unskilled laborers can do the
work of four skilled ones, this will be
the result in the present instance there
is little doubt; and further, the strike and
the consequent stoppage of the furnaces
and mills, will prevent the return to
their old avocations of the thousands OF
iron workers who, during the hard times
sought labor in the mines and over
crowded the ranks Of the miners, AL
together the disadvantages resulting
from the strike are likely to far out
weigh any benefits to be derived even
from it's successful outcome, and hope
will be general that through the efforts
of the labor commissions of the vari-
GUS states a satisfactory compromise
may be speedily reached.