The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-06
UNWILLING STRIKERS.

In his report on the anthracite coal strike
Commissioner OF Labor Wright says that
nearly all of the officers of the miners
unions persistently opposed the strike en-
the ground that il would probably last all
summer and entail great hardship and
suffering on the miners as well as work
incalculable injury to the industrial in
terests of the country. They also believed,
he says. that many of the alleged wrongs
OF the miners might be corrected by ap-
peals to the operators. but when the lat
ter refused to confer with representatives
Of the mine workers the latter took mat
tiers into their own hands and decided that
a strike should be ordered. In other words,
they overruled the officers. The latter are
presumably men of superior intelligence
and more conservative than the mass of
miners. Events have proved that they
were right in their belief that a strike, If
ordered, would last all summer and en-
tail great hardship and suffering on the
men and injury to business. They must
also have felt that there was some doubt
as to the success of a strike, as there is,
convention of last May u was in DELHI
Grafton three days before it reached a de-
cision to order a strike, and then there
was a considerable vote against it. The
total vote cast was S11. of which 461 were
in favor of striking and $50 were opposed.
The large vote shows that nearly one-half
of the miners were opposed to the strike
but they were forced into 1t by a majority
vote against the judgment of nearly all
the district officers.
In the light of later events and of the
present situation there is no reason to be-
lieve that much larger proportion of the
men regret the strike to-day than were
opposed to it at the beginning. If nearly
one-half of the miners were opposed to
the strike on May Is it is safe to say that
considerably more than half of them now
regret 1t. They were fairly outvoted and
overruled by a majority, and, the strike
being on, they were compelled by their
union pledges and by the force of miners
opinion to stay with it. Their situation
is that of a protesting minority who have
been forced by numerical majority to
pursue a course which their judgment has
at no time approved.
The New York Sun publishes a letter
from a miner, now on strike, who is evil
IDENTIFY one of this overruled minority. He
says: IT was a delegate to the Hazleton
convention and 1 know that many dele
| gates who voted to strike went there de-
IN riLr
says further that the convention was car
ried off its feet and stampeded into voting
to strike by the reading Of a message to
President Mitchell stating that the opera
| tors refused TO confer or to arbitrate
This message" says the writer, "acted
on the convention like spark in a powder
house. A delegate jumped upon a chair
and, waving an American flag in his hand
| cried: Let US strike; the United States
| is with U.S. Instantly the half-hearted
were tumbling over themselves to get In
| line. and we struck This is an interest
ing bit of inside history. and it shows that
a miners convention may be stampeded
as well as political convention. And yet
out of total of S11 votes. $50 were against
strike. The writer in the Sun, who says
he is a member of the union and a firm
believer in organized labor, says:
/ am a miner and / am not working
| You ask why? Because / have a son en-
gagged in the grocery business whose Gus
| toners men lately employed in tn,
| mines; because my daughter has a small
| millinery shop over his store; because
have a little home insured for one-third o.
it's value. and 1 cannot ruin their oppor
tunities in life by exercising my will. Blu
oh. the wrath that steals into my hear
when the district officers hold me and Other
men OCCUPYING similar positions up as ex
| amples of true, self-sacrificing manhood
steadfast strikers for American principle:
| their hearts that were we free of our re
sponsibilities We would be cutting coal to
day.
This affords another inside view of thu
motives that are operating with some o
the strikers. If the present strike fail
to secure important advantages for tn
men after all the loss and hardships it ha
imposed on them, the large minority VIII
went into 1t unwillingly and against thei
better judgment will have additional reason
for wishing that better counsels had pre-
vailed.