The evening times., 1900-10-20
The Trust and the strike.


The Trust and the strike.
The prospects for an immediate or even
early settlement of the coal strike seem to
be poorer today than ever. Evidence in
support of the theory that the Coal Trust
has been insincere in its roundabout over
lures to the mine workers is accumulat-
ing, and in consequence. an ugly feeling
is growing among the less biddabie class
of strikers-that is the Slays. Poles, and
so on.
1t seems to be the determination of the
miners to stand out for fiat advance OF
ten per cent irrespective of the price of
powder, which they are willing to leave TO
arbitration. In effect. however, the de-
mand now is for ten per cent and powder
at a dollar and half keg Officials OF
the Coal Trust declare that no such con-
cessicn will be made, rs it would amount
to a net advance of sixteen per cent to
miners The latter admit the fact but in
sist that such an advance is no more than
reasonable.
What we have been able to earn of the
actual circumstances and conditions sur
rounding the anthracite industry, con-
vinees US that the men are right. When
the Coal Trust magnates speak Of what
miners earn they invariably use for ex-
ampies the cases OF the most favored
workers under the most favorable condi-
tions. They give the maximum and ex-
ceptional earning power as the average.
This is consciously dishonest. of course,
but it is the way of trusts.
AS we have remarked hitherto. fifteen
years ago it was common thing for an
industrious miner to make ninety dollars
a month. That was when production
was competitive and long before the field
had been cornered and practically monop-
oliZed by the Morgan Rockefeller trust
It has been shown, to our satisfaction at
least, that, under the rate of compensa-
tion paid to the miners during the past
summertime average earnings of each for
the whole region, did not exceed thirty
dollars per month, after paying the helper
and for powder. 1t is true that in some
favored locality individual miners who
we're given work on wide and clean coal
seams. and who had a pull with the
| docker have been allowed to make as
much as sixty dollars a month: but we
dollars represents a fair general average.
The reduction of dollar and a quarter
on the price of powder per keg is stated
by the operators as equivalent to wage
advance of six per cent. That added to
the ten per cent demanded in addition
would make sixteen per cent. Taking the
average net earning OF thirty dollars
month as a basis if both were conceded,
the average earning power of the miner
would be increased TO thirty-four dollars
and eighty cents a month-certainly not a
| princeIy income for a man who tolls ard
ueusly in the bowels of the earth. and
has from two to five dependents Oh his
hands.
| The willingness of the Coal Trust to
| pay its workers enough to give them the
| Hanna full dinner pail and means to
| relieve their small children from the
necessity of labor when they should be
at school, can only be aseribad to the
| most heartless avarice. The Coal Trust
| is in a position absolutely to de ate the
| cost of anthracite fuel to the consumer
in the greatest hard coal market of the
| country, where municipal ordinance has
made its use obligatory. And the trust
| is able everywhere else to dictate the
| price up to the point where bituminous
| ecaI would come in and replace anthra-
| cite. There are what are called ''iEde-
| pendent" operators in the field, who do
not belong to the trust. It would be
more truthful to call them dependent. -
| because they are utterly at the mercy OF
| the Morgan Rockefeller combination,
which, owning the coal roads as well as
| itself producing seventy psr cent OF the
total output of the field, is able to coerc
the outsiders by means OF the freight
| club. These same individual operators
are to be frozen out, and their mines
| confiscated, in due course CT time, when
| ever the trust is ready for that charac-
| teristic Standard Oil swallowing process
and for practical purposes they are too
negligible for consideration as factors in
! the anthracite coal problenm.
| Now the Coal Trust as We have shown
| is in q position to compel the public to
pay what it pleases to ask. at least to the
extent of an advance of two dollars ton
over the prices ruling last August, to
speak eonseryatively.
| 1t is hHONn 10 iui6Iu ludt hdlntGuduCt
of present prices for some time, even il
the strike is shortly settled, in order te
recoup losses. and then to make only 8
slight reduction. establishing permanent
| plane of extortion for all time. In this
way experts in New York estimate thai
the Coal Trust viii add twenty mil1ior
dollars annually to it's profits, and the
public viii be helpless to prevent it. Now
if the trust can mulct the consumer tC
| the tune of a dollar or a dollar and z
half extra, in perpetuity, without re-
course, there ought to be some power te
compel it to share a modieum of this ad-
i ditionaI extortion among the men whc
produce its wealth. We say, there ought
Ito be, well knowing that under existing
| conditions there is not any such power
nor is there likely to be while trusts con-
| troll the country and are permitted to cor
ner, monopolize, loot, and rob at theil
pleasure.
Why 1t CHngs to Power.
| (From the Peoria Herald -Transeript.)
D.