Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-07-29
KANSAS MINERS.
Illinois Delegates Trying to Get Up
Strike in the Sunflower State.
KANSAS DEMAND FOR COAL.
The Steam Thrashers Using Up Large
Quantities Of the Fuel-Union Labor
Appealed to-Operators to Con-
slider Uniformity Plan.

taxable evidence that the Illinois
strikers have sent about IA delegates
here to agitate a strike in all of the
important mines The delegates come
quietly and deal with the delegates Sc
lected by the several mines to to-day's
convention only. The strong argu-
ment the agitators use with the Kan
sas miners is that Kansas holds the
key to the situation Westward; that if
Kansas goes out the railroads will
bring operators to time. Operators
say that it will make no difference
whether Kansas, with only 1O,O00
miners, goes out or stays in, but the
miners see in the extra work and stor-
ing of coal that is going on a desire on
the part of the operators to fortify
themselves against a strike. They are
also suspicious that coal from Kansas
mines is to be SNUG gled into strike
territory. :
The Illinois men have laid before the
Kansans an account of the trouble
which the miners east of the MiSsis-
sippi have been forced to undergo. In
some places the prices are down to 81
cents a ton for clean coal-about65 per
cent. of the Kansas prices. The fami-
lies of the eastern miners are almost
destitute and the Kansas men are told:
IF you stand in our way we will fail
We must have your cooperation"
A leading labor man, who has been
national president of one of the great
est labor organizations in the United
States, said to-day: 1.-THE operators
must not think they can smuggle coal
out of Kansas to go into strike terri
tory. 1t is one of the doctrines of or
ganized labor that whenever one set of
men begin to do work that is to the
injury of organized labor. the work
becomes scab work. The miners of
southern Kansas are union men. As
long as they mine coal for Kansas and
territory which they have been accus-
toned to supply, they are occupying
neutral ground and are not interior
ing. When they mine coal to be used
in territory usually supplied by min
ers who are striking they become in
the eyes of organized la Dor what we call
scabs."
The Kansas Demand for Coal
TOPEKA, Kan. July Csc. J. Devlin,
who mines practically all of the coal
used by the Santa Fe Railroad Co., said
this morning in regard to the increased
work in the Kansas mines: 1.-THE rea-
son why we are able to give our miners
more work than usual is the fact that
Kansas is full of steam thrashers, and
all of them are at work. 1t may seem
odd, but the fact is that the thrashing
machine engines are burning more
coal than is needed for the locomotive
engines. The wheat crop has been
heavy in Kansas, and in every town
ship in the state the machines are hard
at work. They burn up tremendous
amount of coal, and the mills which
are starting up in every town of i'm
portance add to the amount of coal
used. Coal mined in Kansas is used in
Kansas and is not going east"
Union Labor Appealed To.
FAIRMoNT, w. Va, July 25.-M. D.
Ratchford, president of the United
Mine Workers of America, sent tele-
president of the National Federation
of Labor, in which he declared that
free speech and peaceable assemblage
had been forbidden in West
Virginia; that public sentiment
was overwhelmingly with the
strikers, but the corporations and
their vulgar parrot, the sub
sidized press" was opposed to them;
that this was a struggle against starv-
alton; that the West Virginia miners
were eager to join the strike. but were
as much slaves as were ever the ne
groes. For these reasons he called
upon Gompers to convene all of the
chief executive officers of all national
labor organizations at Wheeling next
Tuesday to aid the miners.
Operators Will Confer.
PITTSBURGH, Pa, July 25.-If the
plans as outlined do not fail, the ma
jority of the coal operators of the
Pittsburgh district will get together
at the courthouse here next Tuesday
at II o'clock and consider the uni
formity plan to end the strike.
The call was sent out to-day and
enough signatures We're attached to it
to make the meeting almost an assured
success.
USING TOO MUCH.