Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-11-08
FIVE THOUSAND
WILL STRIKE
Temple Company's Miners
Ready to Quit.
Mine Workers Fight Against
the Blacklist Is Likely to
Involve the Entire Anthra-
cite Region.

Five thousand union miners employed
by the Temple Iron and Steel Company
will strike on Monday morning. Presi-
dent Nichols orders calling out the
Temples men were ratified yesterday
by the local unioHs at each of the eight
colleries belonging to the company.
There is a feeling among the workmen
that another great battle between the
United Mine Workers and the coal trust
has begun, and that the strike just or
dered may spread until the entire an
thracite region is embraced.
This outcome, the miners say, is a
direct result of carefully laid plan on
the part of the coal companies to estab-
lish the blacklist system and eventually
to break up the Miners Union entirely.
The trouble with the Temple Iron and
Steel Company is only the entering
wedge
The Temple Company is composed of
the presidents of seven large carrying
companies, with President Baer, of the
Philadelphia and Reading, at the head.
The company has already closed three
OF its mines, and announces that If the
miners go out no effort will be made to
get them back.
Inasmuch as the carrying companies
have numerous other mines they will
find no difficulty in getting all the coal
they want. For this reason the miners
of the entire anthracite region may be
called out. 1t would, to all appear
ances, be necessary to do this, for the
large companies would undoubtedly
blacklist the Temple Company's men.
The strike of the Temple Companys
men is the most serious labor revolt
since the big strike of last fall, and it is
not improbable that it will lead to
similar strike. The system of black
listing the strikers at any mine is one
which the union must fight. and fight it
the United Mine Workers will, If all the
men in the region have to come ont.
The officials say the operators have
become overcontident of their own
powers during the last few months,
owing to the unaggressve attitude of
the union, in compliance with the wishes
of President Mitchell and district presi-
dents.
This feeling on the part of the opera
tors has, the union men believe, led
them to test the strength of the union
by the attempted blacklisting. If sue
cessful with the Temple Company en-
ployes, it would, they firmly believe, be
put in force at other colleries through
out the region, which are doing the same
as the Temple Company did, employing
men who are strikers from other mines
The first men to follow the lead of the
Temple Company men in striking will
probably be those of the Lehigh Valley,
pany the fifty discharged men were
strikers.
If the movement for sympathy
strike gets well started it will spread
rapidly, the union leaders believe. be-
cause the period of repression has told
upon the thoroughly organized men,
and there is not colliery in the entire
region where the men have not some
grievance they desire adjusted.
1t was not planned by the union to
make any determined step for reform
until next April, but this matter has
been forced upon the union by the
Temple Company
The impression prevails that tho opera
tors have been anticipating this move
and quietly preparing for it for many
months and would be happy If general
strike should be declared with out their
seeming to provoke it too openly. If it
is they believe they would be in much
better position than the miners to fight
it out.
The union, however. is in better con-
dition financially and as regards organi-
zation than ever before. In the anthra-
cite region the organization is almost
perfect, and the men would have the
advantage of the sympathy and aid OF