The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-24
ANTHRACITE SITUATION
WALL STREET MAY BE SURPRISED
WIFE 1T DEALS WITH MITCHELL.
This Labor Leader Both Honest and
Earnest and Has "a Powerful
Organization of Miners.

w. @. Nicholas. in New York Telegraph.
Trustworthy advices from the anthracite
coal regions have been received which are
IN startling contrast TO the commonly ac-
cepted Wall-street theory the "barons' Will
have no trouble arranging terms of a set
Element of the labor troubles, now that
the whole matter has been referred TO d
committee" The Wall-street idea is. if the
''barons' find themselves unable to outwi.
or outmaneuver the labor leaders repre-
senting the miners, there is always an I'M
answerable argument at com-mand-money.
So many labor leaders have found IL i'm
possible in the past to resist that argument
it is no wonder the impression finds lodg-
ment in a quarter where money is the ac-
knOwledged god that none is invulnerable to
golden temptation, and as a last resort
money will bring about the desired result.
There are the best of reasons for the
belief that those who talk in this fippant
| manner of fixing the miners committee"
| and arranging" things TO suit the purposes
of the operators have no conception of the
true situation in the anthracite coal coun-
try. 1t may be that there is some sinister
background play TO justify the Wan-street
conclusion, and the conclusion also of the
railroad presidents. the miners will be sat
isfied with a continuation of the wage
| schedule agreed on last fall, but if there is
| the rank and file of miners in the field are
being deceived by their leaders, and have
no idea of the game being played.
MONEY "A o REACH.
Wall street refuses to listen to any other
view than the one embodied in the propo-
sition when President Mitchell, of the mine
workers federation. gets to New York he
will fall an easy victim to the hypnotic in
fiuences of the 'barOns' and their sooth-
savers. President Mitchelrs ultimatum,
recognition or strike" the men Of money
construe as vaporings to catch the ears of
his blowers and a shield behind which to
do funny business for personal advantage.
Talk to that effect has reached the coal
regions and has ihhamed the miners. It
may have been the means of making COM
promise utterly impossible.
Mitchell and his associates stand for a
miners organization which they, more than
any others, have built up from a beggarly
1900 to 1900 at the beginning OF the strike
last summer to a membership Of 10000
out Of a total miners enumeration of $780,
coo. Mitchell has shown himself to be pos
sessed of wonderful organizing ability and
generaIship.
He is almost fanatic in his ideas of the
duty of workingmen to organize for their
own protection. He has done an amazing
amount of missionary work in the anthra-
cite coal districts within the past four or
five months. and has created q powerful.
we'll disciplined and ably generated army
of 10000 men, welded TO the conviction
their very existence epends on obtaining
the recognition of trades unions they are
demanding. For their leaders to accept a
compromise of that principle, after having
laugh the entire population of its life and
death Importance, would throw them into
q frenzy. The might in their wrath tear
limb from limb the men they thought had
betrayed and sold them out. This is not an
overdrawn picture of the situation as it
exists to-day in eastern and central Penn
Sylvania.
MITCHELL'S AMBITION.
There is nothing in the public or private
life of President Mitchell to justify a sus-
picion he is either corrupt, weak or dis
loyal. On the other hand, he has given
repeated proof that he is in deadly earnest
in strengthening labor organizations in
every possible way. Indeed, it is his dream
to some day be at the head OF a grand
confederation of workingmen covering the
entire industrial field and taking in every
form of organized labor. He feels that only
by such all-embracing consolidation can
the workingmen be safe. Labor could then,
according to the Mitchell conception, COM
mand respect and consideration and in no
other way.
That is the kind Of a man the light
weights or the street are discussing when
they airily descant on the nonimportance
of the anthracite labor situation and pic
ture the ease with which the "barons' will
take the miner leader into camp. bending
him to their wishes. AS we'll talk of turn
ing a Cromwell, a "~Stonewall' Jackson or
a zealot of the cross from a line of action
marked out. Withal, Mitchell is a reason
able man and very willing to lead his fol-
lowers to a goal by an easy route, but he
will get them there by some means if he
can.
There are a thousand reasons for believ-
ing Mitchell means precisely what he says
to one that he is blufing or putting up talk
in order to make a compromise. Those who
know the man best and feel they have a
right to publish his measure predict that If
q strike is averted the recession and sur
render will be by the 'barons'' and not by
the miner leader in charge of the negotia-
tons.
As a whole the miners of anthracite coal
are lily educated and some of them might
be described as semi-barbarous. The very
men who are now fighting recognition
dragged a great majority or them from
eastern and southern Europe. The mass of
them are Polaks. Huns. Slavs and Italians.
with a saving admixture of Welsh, Cornish
men and Irish. The mass was imported to
take the places of a much superior class of
miners with whom the owners became en-
broiled in a death struggle not so very
many years ago. The immigrants have
reached that point in their evolution where
they are demanding some of the rights
denied their predecessors. Drive them out
and there are no others to take their places.
The bottom of Europe was Scraped before.
The. first breath of independence fills the
~nostrils of 10000 men who never before
knew what the word meant, and they are
reveling In the new sensation. In their
present state and with the recollection of a
partial victory still fresh in mind the
miners are likely TO prove a hard PROPOSE
ton to deal with. 1t must be further re-
membered, while the multitude may be de-
ficient in the finer points of modern civili-
cation, the captains and chiefs of clans are
a rugged, hardy and courageous company,
and the general seems TO be a stable per-
con UnC has vet rO meet his first dafaat