The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-04
STRIKES AND THE COAL MINERS.
Mr.. GOmpers, of the Federation of La
Dor, Discusses the Situation.
September Forum

Awful as the conditions were at the time
Of the panic of 1S93--and still are as result
OF that panic-there can be no doubt that
had the workers not been so we'll organized
as they were there would have been no
limit to the depth to which wages would
have fallen. AS a result, the consuming
power Of the workers would have been
so much further reduced as to render the
economic and industrial depression still
more acute, and the Generalization and
misery of the workers SO much more
marked that, by comparison, their present
condition would represent a veritable para
disc. In WORD, the unions or labor, during
the past four years. have stood as rock to
check q wholesale reduction in wages, with
all its concomitant misery. Further, the
labor movement has served to shorten the
duration of panics themselves as well as to
enable the workers to maintain the con-
seriousness of power and the hope that full
justice will be secured to them in the no
distant future. Finally the movement has
been the one great preventive Of much more
serious conflicts, if not of a revolution.
The miners strike affords a study for us
all. In the coal industry as in most Others
machinery is introduced faster than new
employments are founded. Before the
panic of 1893 the miners were comparatively
poorly organized; reduction after reduction
WIS the order of the day; machine mining
had been freely introduced, without the
slightest attention being paid TO the new
conditions under which the miners were re-
quired to work. OF course, no observer
certainly no intelligent union member-en-
tertains the thought of opposing the intro
duction and full development of machinery,
out union IdDOT lHSlSIS lIldt Il, lAIOuSH the
genius of man, the production of the neces-
saries and even the luxuries Of life be made
easier. the producers of these-the work
ers-if they do not become the benet1ciaries
shall certainly not be made to suffer there
by. Union labor insists further that, if new
machinery be introduced, the worker shall
enjoy at least part of the fruits. 1t also
insists that the burdens of the worker be
lightened by a reduction in his daily hours
of labor and that he receive as reward
for his labor living wage-a wage which,
In the dawn of a, higher manhood and a
nobler civilization, will afford him an OPP
portunity to keep pace with the ever-in-
creasing responsibilities devolving upon
him as husband, father a man and a
citizen.
AS above stated, the condition of the min
ers' organization in 1893 was such that the
men were unable to insist upon fair con-
sideration of their interests. The old abuses
of the company stores" where the work
men were compelled to deal, were re1ntrO-
duced and extended; thus compelling them
to nay. in most instances. an excess of %
to so per cent. for every necessary of life:
The novels in which they dwelt. the well
from which they drank, the church at
whose altar they knet were ali owned or
controlled by the companies: the workers
We're truly their bondmen and their slaves.
There is a limit of poverty and misery
among the workers in civilized society," and
rather than sink below it they prefer to
incur the dangers of open revolt. Though
they deplore the disturbance it occasions.
it is the courage, hardwood and temporary
self-sa crifice which this course involves
that often prevent a relapse of society into
barbarism, and the people from being
thrust into actual slavery 1t was this state
of feeling that provoked the miners strike
of this year.