Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1902-08-08
Election Tuesday, Nov. q
For Congress, 10th Va. District,
Fl. d. FLOOD, Of Appomattox.
cONTE asPTUOUS MINERS-CONTEMP.
TIBLE CAPITALISTS.

A trip down the New River Canyon
will give an idea of the magnitude Of
the coal strike. Not mine running.
not a coke oven In blast, men sitting
about in groups of hundred or more
idle. Nothing doing.
The capitalist is never in the wrong.
He always does the right thing at the
right time; but the laborer, what does
he do? He always does wrong. He,
In this instance, has done wrong.
Powder Is one hundred per cent higher
than formerly, what he eats and wears
as well as all miners materials have
greatly advanced. Coal, the article be
mines, Is and has been for some time
in greater demand and much higher
than in many years. The miner has
struggled along under these changed
conditions with wages unchanged, and
at last he has asked for more, as poor
Oliver Twist did, and he has received
as bad treatment as Oliver got. He is
turned out of house and home, and he
and his family left to starve. 1t has
been only few days since the railroads
advanced the price of hauling coal 10
cents per ton. Has anybody kicked,
has anybody struck, indeed has anybody
opened his MOUTH Not so far as
heard from. Now all the miner has
asked is about2 81 cents per ton advance,
and by reason Of this demand the coal
barOns have closed their mines and
called on their friends the judges of
the U. 8. Courts, and the dockets of
those courts are filling with injunc-
tiOn cases, which, If continued as be-
gun, will absorb all the time of the
judges, and all the funds appropriated
for the use of those courts.
The coal barron can meet in the |
counting room of his bank, or in the
gilded Office Of his company. and con-
spire to grind the miner to powder as
we'll as the public generally, but up to
date no satrap of U. s. Judge has
issued any injunctions against him.
The satrap may respond, Nobody has
applied for SUCH" Suppose a miner
applied. how many would he get9 On
the other hand a miner cannot hold a /
meeting, none Of them can counsel the
Others to quit work or adopt this or
that measure for his self protection,
without mourning the displeasure of
some U. 8. judge, or without having
been in contempt of some U. 8. court.
The miner is the person the soldiers
must shoot, and soldiers are now STA
TONED at points in the coal regions of
Pennsylvania, ready to repeat the hor-
Tor of Homestead which occurred only
a few years ago. In the meantime the
q. S. courts are examining the jails of
those sections with contempt prisoners
to whom they have denied the right of
trial by jury. 1t is an ugly condition
brought on by suffering people goaded
to desperation by greedy set of shy
locks backed by the power of the United
States through Its courts, a power
never intended to have been granted,
and really never granted. but which
these courts have assumed and which
If carried much further will place them
in greater public contempt than any
miner, or walking boss, or old woman
has ever yet been to their robed Hon
ors. This Is imperialism at home, this
ls Republicanism as it is now being ;
1ished out.