Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-03-31
A POLYGOT COMMUNITY.
THIS is THE TITLE OF AN ARTICLE
IN THE APRIL CENTURY.

| A writer In the ABOVE magazine Gives
His Version of How English Speaking
Miners Were Driven Out of the A. Anthra-
cite Coal Fieid-Gross Exaggerations.
The Century for April has group OF
papers on the coal region of Pennsyl-
vania. Henry Edward Rood. who for
merly worked in Hazleton and is a SON
in-law of Geo. III. Troutman, ESQ.,, writes
of "A Polygot Community" Below is
given his view of the anthracite region
in general and this section in particular.
That the pictures he presents are based
on truth might be conceded, but the ex-
aggerations in many paragraphs are TOT
gross to be endorsed as whole. He says:
"When anthracite came into general
use, the original miners quickly estab
lished themselves in their adopted homes
and ceased to speak regretfully of child
hood associations in Wales or in Eng
land. They had an abundance of work
here, and wages that would seem II
fortune in the old country. In those
days Pennsylvania miner deemed it an
unlucky month If he and his two brawny
sons failed to earn $500 or more. They
were not always paid at regular inter
walls before and during the civil war, for
money was not plentiful in this region.
But they were credited fully on the
books of the company, and they were
permitted, If not encouraged, to pur-
chase goods at
THE COMPANY STORE,
where could be obtained food, clothing,
toys, furniture, In fact, about all the
necessares and comforts and Injuries
the miner had learned to use. Prices
were high, but wages corresponded, and
work was steady.
But after the terrible struggle be-
tween North and South came a period
of depression in business. Selling prices
dropped lower and lower, and wages
felt the result. But the average miner
did not understand this. He saw that
the operator of the collery took wife
and children to New York and Philadel-
phia as often as in previous years, and
that the superintendent wore clothing
as costly as ever. He forgot that while
he had been spending his wages every
month, and often exceeding his account
at the company store, the operator and
other officials had been saving por-
tion, if not the greater portion, of their
earnings.
1.-The miners grew discontented, and
talked the matter over. As the panic
drew near, they had more idle hours
than ever, and the complaints reached
the ears of smooth-tongned rascals who
organized" them into
BAND READY TO RESIST
any further oppression" as the bus-
ness changes were termed. And right
at this point let it be said that the old
time professional agtators referred to
were wholly different from the RESPONSE
BILE, Intelligent men who have perform
ed such good service during recent years
by organizing and directing trades
unions like those which embrace print
ers and the locomotive engineers and
iremen.
IF the anthracite miners of Pennsyl-
vania had been wisely led and firmly
controlled in the early seventies, the
Keystone State would now be spared
many black chapters in her history.
But such happiness was not foreordain-
ed Owing to some degre to the tron-
blesome times, and in greater degree
to group of beings more devilish than
human, there sprang into active control
of a portion Of the commonwealth the
most brutal, vindictive, terrible conspir-
acy that ever civilized community had
been cursed with in recent times-the
Molly Maguires; and it required the
genius of Franklin B. Gowen, of the
Reading Railroad, and in the marvellous
courage of James McParlane, a Pinker-
ton detective, to break it up, and hang
its leader spirits, not singly but in
groups of ten.
Then within a few years, came the
long strike in the Lehigh region,
when the
OLD HANDS REFUSED TO WORK
under any consideration. Week after
week and month after month dragged
by. The collieres remained idle; the
men, women and children almost starv-
ed. Fortunes were lost in flooded mines
and in burning breakers. And at last
one of the greatest of the operators sent
abroad to Austria-Hungary and brought
thence to his mining patch in Penn
sylvania the first of the foreigners,
who have long ago succeeded, by their
very presence, in driving out all of the
| Z, 4,
work elsewhere and who had the means
to remove their families.
"It is an old story now, how the first
of the Slovaks, Polacks, Italians and
Sicialians who came here were compar-