Omaha daily bee., 1903-03-27
STRIKE COMMISSION REPORT.

Detroit Free Press: with both the
miners and the operators claiming a vic
tory. the decision OF the strike commission
must be considered eminentlv satisfactory.
Springfield Republican: The president
OF the United Mine Workers organization,
John Mitchell. expresses himself as much
pleased with the awards Of the strike com
mission. He may we'll be. The general
ommen is that the miners have won a
sweeping victory.
Baltimore American: While the contend
ing parties in the coal strike both claim
victory in the report Of the commission, the
public interest in the matter lies chiefly in
the question whether the report will prove
effective in preventing such strikes in the
future. Having had a bitter experience
with one coal famine. the people have no
desire to pass through another.
Washington Star: The chief public in
terest centers in the observations Of the
commission on the subject OF the status OF
the union, on trades unionism in general
and on the matter Of lawiessness of all
kinds during the strike. only the most
radical advocate of the union can object to
the commissions remarks on this score.
They are temperate and judicial and force
full in consequence.
New York Tribune: "a sweeping victory
for the minersi" exclaims one commenta-
tor upon the report Of the presidents com
mission on the anthracite coal strike. "a
bomb In labor circles!" declares another
with equal assurance. Both are wrong. The
report gives victory to one of the parties
to the controversy. But II is not the
miners, nor IL It the operators. 1t is rather
that third party whose interests are para
mount, though too often overlooked by both
the others and their hot championships
public. So far as the two parties first
named are concerned, each has partly won
and partly lost, as was to be expected. The
public. whose demands we're simply that
Justice to all should prevail, seems to have
won on every point.
Minneapolis Journal: One fact that will
come to mind more f~orcibly, after the first
wave OF absorbing interest in the findings
OF the coal commission has passed over,
is hat IL 1t had not been for President
Roosevelt's unconventional disposition,
when a bad situation develops, to do some
thing to improve, whether 1t happens to be
his particular official duty or not, there
would have been no commission. 1t was
not necessarily the presidents business
to take a hand and try and settle the coal
strike, and a great many sensible people
honestly doubted the wisdom and the pro-
priety OF his action in calling a conference
for that purpose. But Theodore Roosevelt
is emphatically q man who does things,
and when he saw the point at which the
controversy had arrived, and no possibility
that either side would do anything to re-
lieve the situation he felt that 1t was
his duty to try.
Chicago Chronicle: h point in the
finding of the anthracite coal commission
which is Of most public interest is that
both i~nterentialIy and specifically 1t Axes
the responsibility for the strike upon the
operators. In deciding that the small in
crease In pay which was asked for by the
miners should have been granted the COM
mission informs the American people In
effect that the suffering and extortion to
which they were subjected last fall and
winter were wholly unnecessary and were
the result not of an unjust demand by
labor, but Of the arrogance and selhshness
Of a few men in control Of the coal bust
ness. 1t is this brutal spirit which leads
to most Of the serious labor disputes.
Sometimes II is found on one side and
| sometimes on the other. Wherever 1t is
It is barbarous. and the whole force Of an
informed public opinion should BIO united
against It.,