Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-02-25
4 DISTRICT IMPRESSION
THAT THERE WILL BE NO GENERAL
STRIKE OF MINERS THE COM
ING SPRING..
HAVE LITTLE TO GAIN
SAVE RECOGNITION FOR THE UNION
ORGANIZATION.
February and March Are the Periods
Tor District Wage Settlements.
Some Trouble May Occur in the
Pfttsburg District-The HazIeton
Conference of March 9TH Will Be an
Important Meeting.

conference of March 7th VIII Be an
Important Meeting.
PTTTSBURG, Pa, February 24.-The
Commercial Gazette tomorrow will
say:
While the industrial East, with its
railway and other interests. largely
dove-tailed with the anthracite col
%llerles, is looking forward with dread
anticipation for the advent of April
lst, as the day on which another
great miners strike may be called, the
body of the United Mine Workers of
America is standing on a conservative
platform, which is reasonably certain
to obviate anything of the kind. Even
II n anthracite operators refuse to
meet the miners in joint wage confer
ence, it is barely possible that a strike
can be avoided.
consent In any form, even if only
taclt, to allow the present agreement
to continue, thus opening the way for
the miners to correct various local O n
dltlons, promises to close the matter,
with all its complications. In a O n
terence the miners have little to gain
save recognition for their union.
Miners of the bituminous fields are
naturally vastly interested in the out
come of the proposed wage conference
IN thp Qnthro otto folds 80, l;co,rc
ing the matter with a number of repre-
sentative miners in the Pittsburg dis
tr1ct, the consensus Of opinion would
seem to be that since the bituminous
fields have settled their wage scale at
last years rates, barring local COM
plications, the anthracite wage question
might be settled or the same basis.
FOL the betterment of the condition
OF the anthracite miner the ~organiza-
ton OF the miners has already taken
steps to secure legislation in Pennsyl-
vania. They are asking State laws for
the payment by the ton instead of the
mine car, the establishment of check
Welghmen and other desirable provis-
ions. For these laws all of the miners
OF Pennsylvania and other districts
will cooperate. The Indianapolis con-
vention of the miners went on record
as opposed to a demand for a ten per
cent. advance for the anthracite dis
tricts, and every move of that conven
ton in relation to the anthracite fields
was for conservative action.
The convention directed the officers
of the anthracite districts to block a
custom of operators to lay up large
stocks of coal by ordering a ~curtaiI-
ment of work to meet the conditions
of the market. This is now being done
and in it the miners are making their
only aggressive 10Y that may figure
in the proposed settlement next month.
A policy for the proposed joint o n
ference with anthracite operators will
be outlined at a convention of the an
thracite miners, and the national offic-
ials, called to take place at Hazleton,
March 7th.
w. D. Ryan, secretary-treasurer of
the Illinois miners, said recently in re-
lation to the anthracite situation:
with a satisfactory scale settled for
the bituminous fields a hitch in the
anthracite fields would hardly justify
the calling on strike of the entire or
ganization. Sucn action would be a
violation of the interstate joint agree
ment for the Unanimous fields and the
various district agreements to which
the miners will not consent"
This and nextSmonth are the per-
iodS of district wage settlement for
the miners. In the Pittsburg district
a prompt re-affirmation of the pres
ent scale will probably be tied up for
a. time by a demand of the miners for
the check-off system. This issue will
be stubbornly fought by the workers
committee, and as ~obstinately opposed
by the operators. 1t would mean every
thing to the organization here, putting
it in way of trebling in a year its
present membership in good standing
of about 10000.
Representatives of the miners are
going abroad in the unorganized r.
win and Allegheny Valley fields. They
hope that the organization may be in
position to make a demand for the r.
win field with fair prospects of estab-
fishing it on April LIST, with the posi-
bility of declaring a strike and organ
iZing marches.