The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-11-22
MINERS AND OPERATORS
ANXIOUS FOR AGREEMENT


which is ore ofsthe miners demands,
IS Impossible. Regarding the weighing
or coal, the operators say that it would
be impossible to grant the demands as
presented by the miners because of
the non-existence of machinery or sys-
tenn by Which a miner can be paid for
the 2,440 pounds of prepared coal. 1t
will have to be done. they. say, through
the present system OF averages.
The proposition is TO have the mine
workers make contracts with their
employers only, and not as it is done
in the bituminous states. where the
operators have state and district or
CARNATIONS which recognize the Unit
ed Mine Workers OF America The pro-
posed contract with each company does
not, carry with it a recognition of the
union, and on that ground it is not
likely that the two parties Will be
able to settle without resort to the ar
bitration commission. II is not doubt
ed that whatever agreement, if one
is reached. win be approved by the
commission. The agreement. however,
will have TO be one that will provide
for a reasonably sure permanent set
Element. The instructions given to the
commissioners by President Roosevelt
when he handed the case to them TO
settle, are explicit. In these instruc-
tions he says:
You will endeavor to establish the
relation between the employers and the
wage workers in the anthracite fields
on just and permanent basis and, as
far as possible, to do away with any
cause for the recurrence of such diff
iculties as those which you have been
called in to settle"
DR.. Gibbons On Stand.
The examination of DR.. R. H. Glib
bons of Scranton was Immediately re-
sumed when the anthracite strike COM
mission met today He said that the
occupation of a miner subjects a man
to pleurisy, govt, neuralgia, asthma,
bronchitis, sciatica and other diseases
He believed the day would come when
men will be subjected to medical eX-
animation before they undertake min
ing. Children, ne said, who have suf-
fered from any form of disease of the
respiratory passages, bronchities or
pneumonia, should never be permitted
in the mines under the age of Is years
because they should have a chance TO
eliminate the predisposing factor in
the case of SO-called miners asthma
On further examination DR.. Gibbons
said he did not mean to be understood
as saying that miners form an I'M
healthy class, but that they are debIl-
itated and run down.
The witness was crosS-examined by
James H. Torrey for the Delaware &
Hudson company. In reply to a ques-
ton, DIR. Gibbons said he did not be-
lieve there was an ambulance in the
entire coal region that mad sterile
blankets or that the vehicles were
sterile.
In fact" said the doctor, they are
a bunch of infection. Every ambu
lance carried death and disease to
v,1a
DR.. Gibbons was followed by DR.. Eu-
gene j. Butler. a member of the CEN
trail poor board of Luzerne county. who
testified that 20 per cent of those in one
of the poor houses of Luzerne county
We're miners, and that 40 per cent were
crippled by accidents in and about the
mines.
Many of these, he said, had become
insane through worry over their af-
Fiction. A man who works a few years
as a miner, he declared, is not fit for
anything else
A H. McClintocE, representing the
Lehigh & Wilkesbarre~ Coal company,
Cross examfned the witness and asked
if it was not true that a large number
Of the professional men and merchants
in Wilkesbarre were men whose fathers
and grandfathers had been employed
in the mines.
IF that is So the witness replied,
the iaIherS ana grandfatherS were the
wise fellows who got out in time They
We're not men who worked for twenty
or twenty-five years in the mines.2
DR.. Butler was excused and the. Rev.
DR.. Roberts was called to the stand.
MI barrow, who cross examined him
for the mine workers. asked what was
the temper of both parties during the
flve months of the strike The witness
replied that it was a condition of war,
and that both sides We're iutenn Nora Re
DR.. Roberts, in reply to a question as
10 what wages a man should receive to
maintain the American standard of Iiv-
ing, said that he would place the pow
erty line at S575 per annun Under
that amount, he said. the miner and
MS family would suffer physically, in
tellectually and mentally.