Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-07-28
PLANNING THE
RELIEF WORK
Miners officers Apportion
the Strike Fund.
Majority of the Local Unions
Favor Distribution by the
Store Order System--Fifty
Men Arrested, One Held.

Store Order System--Fifty
Men Arrested, One Held.
The United Mine Workers district
officers spent yesterday at Wikesbarre
In apportioning the strike fund for dis
tribution to the different locals, while
groups OF the locals held meetings to
decide upon plans for giving it to the
weekly fund shall be received the
amount sent is to be used in aiding only
the most needy cases.
1t will take little time to complete
all the arrangements for collecting, re-
hitting and distributing the fund, for
large amount of work is involved.
When the full amount is received, and
the strikers leaders cannot say just
when this will be, the task of distribut-
ing it and providing for the strikers will
| be easier.
The system of distribution most IA
vored is the issuing of store orders.
This would enable the men to patronize
whom they like, and the merchants who
| have given them credit will be given
| their trade.
1t is denied at strike headquarters
| that there is any dissatisfaction among
the strikers as to the manner in which
the relief fund shall be distributed.
Operators, however, believe that the
distribution Of relief funds will cause so
much dissatisfaction that there will be
trouble in the strikers camp.
| EXCITEMENT NEAR LANsFoRD.
About fifty men on Saturday evening
captured William Eagle, brakeman,
| at Hauto, near Lansford, and made an
attempt to march him to Mauch Chunk.
Twenty armed deputies were sent out
to intercept them, and encountered the
| marchers.
They surrounded them and at the
points of their guns compelled them to
board a train bound for Lansford
There the prisoners were marched to
the borough lookup.
At 7 o'clock the men were taken from
the jail, and, surrounded by deputies,
the march to the office of a justice of
the peace was taken up. When the
principal part of the town was reached
the men, encouraged by the shouts of
their friends, made dash for liberty.
When they did so the crowd pressed
in, and as a result all but seventeen
escaped.
OF the seventeen men who failed to
| escape from the deputies and were
given hearing, only one was held un-
der bail, the balance claiming that they
| had not participated in the march, but
were merely spectators. There being
no evidence against them they were dis
charged.
TEST OF STRENGTH COMING.
Mine workers officers believe the
| actual crisis in the strike will come
within the next two weeks. The oper-
ators so far have had the advantage,
| on the market all the time. The real
test of the strength OF the operators will
come when the supply OF coal in the
| market shall be exhausted. This situa-
tion promises to develop within very
| few days.
The shipments of coal from the an
thracite field, as shown by statistics of
the trade, are 1000, 900 tons short of
last year. A shortage existed in the
market before the strike began, and
with shipments cut off absolutely, the
supply on hand practically has been ex
hausted.
This will test the real unity of the
operators, it is thought. Whether they
will be able to resist the demands from
manufacturers and the public generally
is the question.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.
1t having been reported that house
occupied by an employe of the Susque-
hanna Coal Company at Nantcoke had
all the window broken in it by strikers,
committee from the miners union yis-
tied Nanticoke yesterday to investigate.
They reported that two panes of glass
were broken and that a twelve-year-old
boy, who had II aqnarreled with another
lad, hurled the stones and they went
through the windows.
President Mitchell says at the begin
ming of the eleventh week Of the strike
there is no change in the situation.
The strikers are as firm as ever and the
coal companies are as powerless to oper-
ate their mines as ever.
The Peoples Coal Company has noti-