Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-10-23
Eight Prominent Men Lent Efforts
to Settle Strike.
WAS FORMALLY BEGUN MAY II
Not Pound of Coal Was Mined That
Day When $4,000 Men and Boys
Refused to Enter the Mines in obe-
dience to Strike Order.
[BY H. ]. MAHIN.]

Washington, D. c., Oct. 21-(Spec-
ial)-When the coal strike has been
closed and the commission investigates
and brings in its report, one of the
greatest history-making events of the
age will be concluded. Future histor-
les of the United States will devote
whole pages to the great coal strike
of 1902 and the names of Morgan,
Mitchell, Crane, Hanna, Baer, and the
commission that decides the issues
will go down to posterity. The older
Washington newspaper correspondents
are unanimous in declaring that they
can remember no national event that
was of such widespread Importance
and peculiar significance in a national,
political and sociological way as the
coal strike. Many of them have saved
every item published in regard to the
strike and hundreds of valuable scrap
books will be prepared from which fn
ture histories will be written. Many
people regard this strike as simply one
of the skirmishes that are preceding
the great struggle which must inevi-
tably come between labor and capital
in the United States under the present
headlong tactics of progress The his
tory of the strike, briefly, is that since
May 10, 145,000 coal miners have not
been working because their employers
would not give them what they de-
mand in the way of pay and hours.
As a result the miners have lost $685.
800 900 in wages, the mines have been
damaged to the amount of $6,500,000,
and the total cost to date in all ways
is $135, $4,000 Over twenty people
have met violent deaths during the
struggle. Eight of the most prominent
men in the United States made unsuc-
cessful attempts to mediate until j. p.
| Morgan stepped in; they were: Presi-
dent Roosevelt, Senator Hanna, Sena-
tor Platt, Senator Quay, Senator Pen
rose. Governor Odell, Governor Stone
and Secretary of War Root
How the Strike Began.
1t was in last April that the anthra-
cite miners first made the demands
which resulted in the strike that has
dwarfed all other coal strikes and has
been more far-reaching than even the
great Debs railroad strike. They were
disconnected demands at first and the
United Mine Workers did not then
look at the strike with any enthusi-
asm. There Lad been murmurings
among the employees at certain mines
! for more tran a year. In some places
I the discomfort that had brought on the
strike that began in September, 1900.
and lasted or year had never died
out Last April the disatfected min
Iers formulated demands for an eight
hour day, sixty cents ton for coal
mined and recognition of the union.
Then followed series of preliminary
conferences and attempts to avert the
battle No one believed that it would
be so bitter or its effects so wide
spread as they have proved to be.
Senator Hanna and other members OF
the arbitration committee of the Ma
tional Civic Federation brought about
a conference which failed. The Of
ficials Of the union met in Scranton on
| May to consider the matter. Nh.
Morgan, then in Europe. was appealed
to by Senator Hanna to intervene, but
declined. President Mitchell stated
his position to the operators but they
refused to make the concessions
asked.
War Enthusiastically Declared.
j On May s the managers OF the coal
j roads issued a statement in which
! they formally declined to accede to the
miners demands and the next day
temporary strike was ordered. May j.
} 900 men failed to appear for work.
Every miner. breaker and helper boy
obeyed the order and not a pound Of
! coal was mined that day and very lit.
tie coal has come up from the drifts
and levels since. Senator Hanna tried
to bring about sixty day armistice,
} which would allow more Of the win
! ter's coal to be mined, but by that