Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-06-27
THE REASONABLE WAY.

y | VI Tie dul1IdcllS ulIHGIS
: urges arbitration as means of settle.
Ii ment With apparent reasonableness
Q and sincerity he says: 1--WE repeat oul
S proposition to arbitrate all questions
: 'in dispute; and If our premises are
I wrong, If our position is untenable, il
our demands can not be sustained by
ito the mines, take up our tools OF in
"dustry and await the day when we
shall have a more righteous cause to
claim the approval of the American
! people"
Now all this seems particularly fair
7 on the part of President Mitchell and
the mine workers. An offer to submit
to arbitration invariably produces an
! impression of candid honesty credita-
BILE to the disputant who makes the, Of
: fer. Without doubt President Mitchell
that for twenty-five years the miners
have been inhumanly- treated by their
employers. 1t is quite likely that he is
sincere in the pledge to abide by the
decision of a board Of arbitration, but
of this the public viii scarcely feel sat
listed While the threat of sympathetic
1 strike, involving a general breach of
i contract, is held over it. The troubles
between the bituminous coal miners
and operators seemed to have been
fairly settled last year. Now the dan
1 ger of disastrous strike confronts the
Icountry and this strike, if it comes will
have its root, not in the grievances of
those miners who secured large and
generally satisfactory concessions from
their operators last year, but as a gar
Irote twisted about the throat of pros
perity to force compliance to the de-
mands of other miners from other OPP
orators. There is such large disrespect
of honor in the suggestion of the
| threatened sympathy strike that the
general public will be slow to assume
| that an organization composed of
members whom an individual contract
| fails to bind, would submit to the rul-
ings of a court or committee of arbitra-
ton with the high integrity Mr. Mitch
ellis statement would indicate. Disre-
the wrong road to public confidence
and sympathy. Thus far the evidence
is against President MitchelPs prom
Uses and predictions in event of arbi-
tration.
Arbitration by board chosen in ex-
igency lacks in legal force and fails to
cary with it the power to enforce its
findings. A national board of arbi-
tration might and very likely would
find its usefulness limited by statute
and possibly by constitutional law. |
The right of the one to employ and the |
other to employment, with all the tam
gled conditions and contingencies
which group themselves about the
question are as full of possibilities of
litigation as any knotty case in chan
Gerry
The sympathies OF the country are
with the anthracite miners. II Mr.
Mitchell,s report is to be credited the
condition of those mine workers is la
Nine months work in the
year at less than s1.5o per day scarcely
fits in fairness with hard coal at $40 h
per ton. The impression of the people
at large is against the coal owners and
the railroads and with the miners. This
sentiment properly conserved will. ere
long, crystalline into legal enactment. 1.
There has been for some time grow
ing interest in the condition of the la :
boring classes. The public accepts to- ]
lay as the right of the laboring man f
which the public of TWEEN t
y-five years ago would Indignantly c
nave denied. The bituminous miners t
soud do no better than to assist with c
heir brethren in the anthracite fields.
rhe country is ripe, to listen. They
.ould do nothing more inimical to the
ause of united labor than to inaugu-
ate a sympathy strike. Such action t
would set the face of the country "
gainst the organization as tyrannical
nd utterly selfish and lose for them =
more than the last quarter of century :,
as gained. The crucial test of judg- 6,
nent will Genre at Indianapolis. If the k
MON keeps SIS contracts it will retain
he confidence and deserve the support
f the people. If it does not, it will an 81
agonize toe country and fail in it's OBJ II
ect. %
IOWA OPINIONS AND NOTES. pr
The Sioux City Tribune says "The g
elief is Strengthening that the gov -
ought to take charge of the -
pal mines. No one will undertake to =,