The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1897-09-30
FIRST TO CHANGE SCREEN
And the Change Amounted to a rs
Per Cent Wage Reduction.
RICH AT COMPANY STORE KEEPING
Men Not Compelled by Rule to Trade at
the "Piuck Me-" but Suffers
If He Does Not.
Jackson. o., Sept. 21.

Not only did Candidate II. l.. Chap
man lobby at Columbus against the
miners screen bin every time that
measure was considered, but he was
the direct cause or the agitation among
the miners for pay for their work with
out the intervention of screen bill
at all. Years ago the screen measured
Nut one inch between the bars, which
were supposed to be kept straight. All
the coal that fell between these inch
apart bars the miner received no pay
tor. Chapman was the first operator
to widen the bars to an inch and
quarter, thus allowing 25 per cent more
coal to fall through than with the inch
bars. OF course with so large an oper-
ator using inch and quarter bars his
competitors were compelled to follow
suit, and soon ali operators had put in
the wide-barred screens, thus depriv-
ing the miner of just so much more OF
his wages. Twenty-Five per cent more
coal will fall between inch and quar-
ter bars than through inch bars, and
this new scheme of Chapmans
dhOuutCu W q lShtIIiDh VI 81 PSA SShI
in the miners wages
Be it remembered that although the
miner receives nothing for mining coal
that falls between the bars of the
screen, the operator sells all of that
product, the nut Ior 10 per cent of the
price for lump and the slack for SO
per cent of the price. If the miners
received pay for mining the coal that
goes through the screens in proportion
to the amount received for that coal
by the operators, there could then be
little or no grounds for complaint on
the part of the miner. But when all
that goes through this screen is not
paid for at all, any increase of that
which drops through by enlarging the
: size of the screens is but another way
of cutting down the wages of the
miner. Chapman, "the best friend the
miners ever had,' as he is having him
self heralded about the state nova
days, is the author of this method Of
wage reduction.
~
The bars of all screens are supposed
to be kept sSralg-t Wherever bend
In one of the bars occurs larger pieces
& Of coal fall through than would other
wise, and therefore this understanding
amounts to rule. And yet the bars
of the screen that was used in at least
one of the Chapman mines at the time
the men went on strike were so bent
and warped that much of the lump coal
fell through that ought to have been
I saved and credited 70 the men who dug
1t out of Chapnans mine.
-r-~'~ - --.s-,t32Es .sS.
John Mcbride, ex-president Of the
Mine Workers association. who is now
supposed to be supporting Chapman
Tor governor and is really whooping
1t up for Mclean for senator in his Co.
lumbus newspaper, says Of Operator
Chapman: HE Is not worse than many
other operators, except that he delights
In taking the leadership and initiative
against the laboring people,"
Ex-Labor Commissioner Ray says of
Chapman: He is an aggressive, vim
dictive fighter against the miners. 9th
ers may prepare the balls, but Mr..
Chapman always fires them. He may
also have prepared many of the balls
that he has fired so destructively into
Z the ranks of the workmen."
The kind Of bal.s that Chapman has
fired at workmen is in taking the lead
as an operator in all reductions of
wages, conferences about fresh air in
the mines, controversies over com.
pany stores, where the miner has to
pay 20 per cent more for his provis-
, Ions than in other stores where he
could trade with cash if he had it.
There is no rule in existence COM
peiling Chapman's mIners to trade At
his company store. That Is to say,
Chapman does not say to his men,
"You must trade at my company
store" There are other ways than
making rules. For instance If miner
trades at a city store because he has
the cash finds himself shifted IN his
work from a room where the coal run
Is comparatively thick into a room
where it Is either thin or worked out.
= The result is that he has to work hard
er for less compensation than he did
before. Itsoon develops that he has no
cash with which to trade at cash stores
and he Is compelled to trade at the
company store, whe- he has to pay 20
- per cent more for everything he wants.
In 10 years 1t is said Chapman has
made 100000 in his company store
business.
Cuyahoga and Lucas Democrats who
affect to believe that Mclean is not Q
candidate for the United States senate