The labor argus. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1906-1915, 1906-08-09
The Michigan Ore Miners Take Lives in Their Hands When
They Enter The Shafts
STAND IN WATER FROM , TO II HOURS PR nv
hey Become Old and Worn Five Years Of Toll dd
and Their Children Up in Ignorance and Poverty o,,
to Follow in their Foocps-A Life of Drudsery


Isaac Cowen, who has been on a
speaking tour trough the West.
submits the following interesting
The miners in Michigan who go
down into deep and dangerous
shafts for iron ore surely take their
health and their lives in their
hands. They stand and work iii
water from nine to eleven hours
for the pittance of 81 80 to 5000
per day. Frequently it is a ques-
tlon OF jump or drown with many
of them, for when the pumps get
out of working order there must he
nasty retreat for open ground,
with the chances greatly against
the men.
The miners i'll this country are
old at 3S and very old at AZ. The
land for miles around the mines is
owned or leased by the great steel
trust and even the towns as we'll
by the fat gentleman who never
saw the inside OF the mines. but
who clip coupons, regularly ana
take from the miners the greater
portion of the wealth they pro.
duce.
The copper mines airs simply ter
rlble. Men become aged and worn
out in two to five years of toll, es.
peclally those who are compelled
to fill cars at the bottom of the
shafts. This work is so severe that
even the strongest are barely able
10 stand the dreadful strain for
more than three years.
The country around is bare ana
rocky and there is little vegetation
or grain of any kind. TO reach
this part of Michigan. one has to
travel through miles of forest and
half-cleared country, full ofstumps,
the relicts tl,tell the story of
swindlers grabbed the land or
perhaps boltght1tfrom the govern
ment for a mere Wong and robbed
1T of the fine timber, lodged taxes
and became millionaires and great
politicians.
The shacks, huts or cabins that
the miners live or exist in would
furnish material for a "iunple,,
story founded on real life or slow
death, according to the point of
view, and one naturally asks: care
these poor men, women and chill
dren, who produce one of civiliZa-
TONS greatest neceSsities-ore-to
be consigned to Il living death until
real death relieves them of the ter
rible travail, without hope of sun
shine and joy here and with hell's
fire in store for them in eternity if
some of the sanctimonious preach
ers hove their way?
The great modern tools of pro-
duction have reached this Siberia
OF, America. In every direction
you can see the labor displacing
machinery manipulated by one
tenth or even one fifteenth of hui
man labor formerly required. Per
haps it IS god-send to those who
are driven out of employment.
They are kept on the starvation
line when at work, and they can
not be much worse off while Shaving
their lives away for a few greedy
plutocrats.
The children are, of course, kept
III Ignorance, just what the YAM
pires of the system want, so that
they can depend upon a rising
generation of docile wage slaves.
Capitalism looks ahead and plans
to keep its progeny in control of
the means Of production and dis
trlbution, and unfortunately the
toilers still acquiesce with their
ballots.