The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-02-12
GIVES REASONS
FOR HIS ACTION
President Dolan Tells Why He Voted
for the Present Wage Scale
at Indianapolis.
NO PROSPECT OF WINNING
BLAMES MITCHELL FOR PAST
FAILURES.

P1ttSDurS, E'eD. 1l.-EreSlueHC I dlIrCh
DoIan of the local district United Mine
Workers of America, whose resignation
was demanded last week at the con-
vention of delegates from the local
Union in the district because he voted
with the operators at indianapolis to
maintain the present wage scale, TO-
night issued a statement in which he
gives his reasons for so voting. In the
statement President Dolan says:
Wages Increased.
''Let US be honest about these things.
Our wages have been increased more
than 100 per cent and our hours OF
labor have been decreased from ten TO
eight hours since 1897. Is it right under
this Ryan resolution to jeOpardize all
these things; and let me tell you the
nirers of the country have never Won
a prominent soft coal strike under the
direction of President Mitchell. Mark
Hanna settled the first anthracite
strike for us, and President Roosevelt
settled the second. Nobody has settled
our big soft coal strikes, because we
have lost them. President Mitchells
big soft coal strike was in the south
west. 1t lasted eighteen months and
ended IN utter failure. Hundreds Of
good men were victimized. The second
soft coal strike was in Maryland where
our people of the entire state were ut
terly defeated. His other disastrous
soft coal strike was in Kentucky
where our people were beaten.
''In Colorado, where the organization
spent over $500, Co., our union was
wiped off the face of the earth; in
West Virginia. Central district, we
were defeated; in the Cabin Creek dis
trict in West Virginia, where the or
ganiZation spent $500, 900, we lost; in
the Meyerdale division we spent $780,
600 and We're defeated.
AT the present time we have a strike
OF 5000 miners in Alabama, which has
been on for nineteen months. They are
striking against a 10 per cent reduc-
ton. Under the Ryan resolution,
which says all districts must get 1919
per cent advance over the present
scale, the Alabama operators will have
TO withdraw their demand for a 10 per
cent reduction and give the 121z per
cent advance, or a total difference of
2215 per cent, before any other district
In the country can settle. How is this
to be brought about?
5Iames Mitchell.
The Pittsburg district has been
criticised because it has not more than
$4,000 members. President Mitchell is
at much at fault as any living man
He refuses TO help US. He came into
the nOn-union Irwin district at the very
height of his popularity and widely
advertised two meetings. At one he
mad fifteen men and at the other we
adjourned because there was not any
body there. When Mitchell can't get
q meeting what can a fellow like me
do?
Il have been in the trades union
movement for thirty-five years i'm
Scotland and America. and have sat
at the feet of the greatest labor leaders
the world has ever known, including
the great Alexander Mcdonald. From
boyhood I learned that it is a leaders
duty to tell his people, not what they
would like to hear, but what thew
should know. They must be told when
they are in the wrong as we'll as an
nlaCded when they are in the right.
This is my platform, and I am willing
TO rise and fall with it before the
miners and the public of this country"