The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1897-08-28
GREAT STRIKE POSSIBLE.
Striking Coal Miners Denounce the
Iniunctions Of tho Courts.
LABOR CONFERENCE CALLED no MEET
IN 81. LOUIS AUG. soth.

IN 81. LOUIS AUG. soth.
The officers of the United Mine
Workers of America met at Colum-
bus, Ohio, Aug. Goth, and declined
to arbitrate the differences with the
Pennsylvania mine operators unless
the mines Of other states were in
cluded. They issued a ringing ad-
dress to organized labor and to the
public at large, calling for a confer
ence at st. Louis Monday, August
Both, to determine whether or not a
general strike in all branches of
labor shall be ordered. The call is
Endorsed by Samuel Gompers, pres
ident of the American Federation
of Labor. and J. R. Sovereign. grand
master workman of the Knights of
Labor.
They maintain that the fight now
being waged by the miners islone of
common interest to common labor
throughout the country. At the
St. Louis conference all labor or
CARNATIONS will be asked to join
issues with the miners. The failure
to secure a general 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 channels of traffic
and business to refuse 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 following is the call for the
conference:
To organized labor. it's various divisions
and subdivisions, and to all reform, So
cial, educational and scientific bodies who
condemn government by Injunction and
the use of force to coerce the people and
deprive them of their rights as American
citizens:
The great miners strike has gone be-
yond a struggle for living wages. A 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
government, the rights of free speech and
peaceable assemblage are to be preserved.
The present struggle has assumed con
test for the preservation of civil liberty
and constitutional rights.
The tyrannical aud un-American in
functions of the federal and state courts
are revolutionary, against the first prin-
ciples of free government and derogatory
to the inherent rights of the masses, en-
the public peace and destroy
ng the personal society and individual
liberty of the common people.
The courts have desecrated the temples
IF justice and now stand as the defiant
oulwark of confederated capital. Their
rulings have set up one standard
If rights for the rich and another for the
poor. They decree that capital is always
light and labor always wrong. They have
made it unlawful for starving working
people to appeal against tyrannical treat
nent, present grievances or propose just
md peaceable terms for the redress of
nsufferable wrongs.
The present great miners strike is an
Of hat tol
q poverty and starvation; it was born In
he sorrow and restitution of hungry
women and children. 1t was the last pro-
est Of impoverished and enslaved labor
md 1t presents to the world cause as.
ighteous and human as ever inspired the
ouls of Christian people.
The philanthropic heart of this great
ration has responded in sympathy with
he miners appeal for the right to receive
! respectable living for the most arduous
Ind hazarous labor in the world. Their
appeal for a small share of the wealth
hey create and for the right to enjoy the
ruits of advanced civilization finds re-
ponsive chord everywhere in the CON-
of mankind, and if it were a
struggle between miners and mine opera
ors only, liberty would triumph over
industry over greed and right
over wrong without the necessity of this
.all.
But it is more than mere struggle be.
ween employe and employer. The judi
:iary has assumed the indefensible claims
if the operators and the struggle is be-
,ween tyrannical courts and the whole
people. The courts, although under
bath to serve the rich and poor alike,
lave volunteered to defend the sordid
interest of the rich as against the God
given rights of the poor and now threaten
he Calling guns and Winchesters of GRIM
nails and thugs against all who dare to
protest against their pespicable restrain
ng orders. The judiciary in prostituting
o oppressive capital has placed the rights
# property above the rights of persons
md has Disseminated against the many
n the interest of the few.
That $50, 900 miners should be con-
lemned to live lives of drudgery and
by the arbitrary rulings of the
courts is an insult to beneAcent Creator,
n outrage upon free government and q
Iisgrace to the Christian civilization un-
Ter which We live.
The recent injunctions and their extreme
pplisation against the lawful rights of
he poor, the arrest and incarceration of
hundreds of innocent, inofensive people,
he employment of armed thugs to over
we, harass and coerce the miners, have
o exasperated the people in the localities
vhere apn}Ied that we feel wa cannot /