BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-10-21
SAN JUAN, OCTOBER 21
Down To Real Issues.

DOW " k\(Cll NlSos
With the arrival of the full militia
forces called out by Governor Stone the
contest in the anthracite regions has
settled down to final test of the few
great principles tina are involved in it..
These are:
I. The Supremacy OF the Law-That
anarchy and not law has reigned in the
coal disctricts formore than four months
is admitted. It is officially proclaimed
as existing by the governor of the state.
He is now exerting his full power to
restore the supremacy of law, and if he
falls in the attempt he must call upon
the national government for aid. In
the end, and that speedily, law and
order will be restored, for behind the
state of Pennsylvania and the national
government stand the whole American
people in unbroken mass in defense of a
principle which is the foundation stone
of free and enlightened and orderly gov
ernment.
2. The Right to Work.-With law
upheld and enforced, the right of every
man to labor on his own terms and
wherever he chooses will be restored in
the coal regions. Nothing is more cu-
rious in all strike controversies than the
popular tendency entirely to lose sight
of this right The man who strikes
does not assert this right, but its oppo-
site. He asserts his right to be en-
ployed on his own terms. In defense
OF that right he denies the right of any
and every man to work on other terms
and under other conditions than those
on which he himself has gone on strike,
and he seeks TO enforce that denial by
intimidation, personal violence, and
even by murder. Why should popular
sympathy be extended to the man who
refuses to work, says he will remain
idle rather than work at the terms Of
fered, and be denied TO the man who
is ready and eager to work on the same
ternls3 Is not the man out of work
against his will as much an object of
sympathy as the man who is Out Of
work through choice? HAS the man
who says he can afford toIl,ve inidleness
for time any right to say that another
man, who is suffering want from idle
ress, shall not be permitted to work !?
This is the question that is pressing for
solution in the coal regions, as it pres
ses in every great strike which is sus-
tanned by intimidation, by assaults upon
property and BY personal violence.
8. The Right to Control Ones Own
Business After all has been said that
can be said concerning the output of
coal as a necessity of life, it must be
admitted that the coal operators are on
impregnable ground when they say
that they will NOT admit an outside
person or organization to dictate to
them the terms upon which they shall
conduet their own business, or the busi-
ness of the stockholders in the COM
panies Of which they are the heads.
They would be guilty Of a breach Of
trust we're they to take any other
ground. No business kno to man
can be conducted successfully on any
other basis for any considerable length
of time. To say that the principle
must be abandoned because coal is a
necessity of life is to propose that coa-
troll of a aathracite fn ming be turned over
to Mr.. Mitchell and his associates for
the public good. It would amount to-
that very speedily.
a. Can the Operators Work the Mi
mes Fully, if Proteeteda This question
can only be answered after the forego-
ing fundamental issues shall have been
fully sustained. With law supreme,
with every man who desires 10 work in
the mines enabled to do So without
interference or intimidation, with the
operators upheld in their determination
to manage their business in their own
way, then will come the first fair or
portunity that has existed in this coa-
troversy to dernonstrAle, the real
strength Of the strikers. If their cause
is only sustained by violence it will fail /
Immediately when violence is absolute |
~ suppressed. Il the operators, fully
protected, caanot secure a sufficient
force 70 produce enough coal to prevent
a lanline during The 9roaeisag win
ter, then some e rasid inary measures
will have to be provided to enable IL snG
to increase their force, for nothing IS
clearer than thai The IA asst havei
coal ID far larger quantities than are
Forthcoming now OF else ran the das
ger Of serious troubles as well as aeatc
suffering, In al our large cries.