Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1905-03-22
AlNiners Life
IA Wyoming

forcing you to deal at their COM
missary. If the company has the
right to give or deny you the
privilege of applying your labor
to the natural resources of the
earth, why has it not the right
to give or deny you the privilege
of spending where you want the
wages they allow you to earn.
Then don't say it is a pity and
shame because little children are
taken into the mines as soon as
they are big enough to carry
dinner pail to help the father pay
the bills at the company store.
The greatness of this country is
not calculated upon the intelli-
gence, the happiness or well-being
of the people, but upon the wealth
accumulated in the form of cap
ital.
Then don't shed hypocritical
tears because men almost too old
and feeble to drag themselves in
and out the dismal caverns are
forced through necessity to work
in these mines. 1t is your own
fault, the fault of your criminal
ignorance and stupidity in sup
porting system that compels
men who have created thousands
of dollars worth of wealth, that
has been stolen from them to
create capital and capitalists, to
labor when they are old and weak
by the capitalists slave drivers
lash-necessity.
Here is the way the monthly
earnings of the miners at Dietz
are conhscated:
So. so to SI3 per month for
three or four-room shacks.
so cents per room for electric
lights.
ST. 50 for doctor.
so for coal.
so cents for water.
SI.oo for blacksmith.
90 rents for minors lard oil.
SAYS for powder.
Company store charging ex-
orbitant prices.
The company store uses a form
of money fearfully and wonder
fully made. Little elliptical pieces
of celluloid with the coat of arms
of the Sheridan Coal company
and the fictitious value stamped
thereupon is the coin of the
realm" in Dietz.
The miner receives IS cents for
digging and loading a ton of coal
not mined by machinery; for
machine mined coal the loader re-
ceives the magnificent sum of Io
cents. This coal sells for 81 per
ton a few hundred miles down in
Nebraska. A miner digs and loads
on the mine cars seven tons OF
coal for S3Is. The same seven
tons-minus thirty-three and one
third per cent. off for slack-is
sold to the Nebraska farmers for
IS3267. The miner receives as
his reward for producing this
lS3267 worth of wealth, after the
expense for his tools, powder and
oil are deducted, the tail end of
the sum-$2.67. The Sheridan
Coal company, the B. & NJ. rail-
way and the coal dealers contis-
cate $50. The $50 goes to buy
palaces. automobiles, yachts, for
eign titles and blue-blooded peli-
greed pug-dogs; the S2.67 pays
the rent for the miners shack,
buys the rags his wife and CHI
: dren wear and fills his dinner pail
full of cold grub and river water.
The mining districts of tile
United States can be searched
over and in no states except West
Virginia and Alabama are the
J leaders so poorly paid. They do
; not, on an average, make their
board and expenses. The men
with families living in t'lr cum
pany houses can not make 3 doe
cent living. This is cold, calm
truth! Now and then IN uutor.
tunate sheep herder an COW
puncher fills up on bad booze in
Sheridan, and after losing his
stake on the roulette wheel
wanders down TO Dietz; and be-
fore he comes into full possession
of his mental faculties gets a job
"scooping coal for 10 cents per
ton in the mines. After feN:
days "scooping," when the TN
fortunate "scooper" is in debt for
his board, he again comes to his
senses and escapes to the alfalfa
field and sage brush.