Los Angeles herald., 1906-02-12
TELLS WHY HE
OPPOSES STRIKE
D0LAN MINERS PRESIDENT,
MAKES STATEMENT
Points Out That the Men Have Never
Won an Important Soft Coal
Battie--Severely crtieises
Mitchell
BY Associn ted Press.


PITTSBURG, Feb. 11,-President
Patrick Dolan of the local district
United Mine Workers of America
whose resignation was demanded last
week at the convention of delegates
from the local union in the district be-
cause he voted with the operators at
Indianapolis to maintain the present
wage scale. tonight issued statement
in which he gives his reasons for so
voting. In the statement President
Nolan says:
LET us be honest about these things,
Our wages have been increased more
than 100 per cent and our hours of la
Dor have been decreased from ten to
eight hours since 1897 Is it right, I'M
der this Ryan resolution, to ieopardize
all these things? And let me tell you
the miners of the country have never
won an important soft coal strike uni
der the direction of President Mitchell.
Mark Hanna settled the first anthra-
cite strike for us and President Roose-
welt settled the second. Nobody has
settled our big soft coal strikes, be-
cause we have lost them. President
Mitchelrs big soft coal strike was in
the southwest. 1t lasted eighteen
months and ended in utter failure.
Hundreds of good men were victimized.
Maryland. where our people of the en-
tire state were utterly defeated. His
other disastrous soft coal strike was in
Kentucky where our people were
beaten.
"In Colorado, where the organization
spent over 100000, our union was
wiped off the earth; in West Virginia.
central district, we were defeated; in
the Cabin Creek district in West Vir-
ginia, where the organization spent
100000, we lost; in the MYersdale dis
trict we spent 100000 and were de-
feated.
AT the present time we have a strike
of 5000 miners in Alabama, which has
been on for nineteen months. They
are striking against 10 per cent re-
duCtiOn. Under the Ryan resolution
which says all districts must get 1917
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 1919 per
cent advance, or q total difference of
221a per cent. before any other district
in the country can settle. How is this
to be brought about?
THE Pittsburg district has been crit
icised because it has not more than
2S000 members. President Mitchell is
as 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 mis- popularity and wide
ly advertised two meetings. At one he
had fifteen men and at the other we
adjourned-there was not anybody
there. When Mitchell can't get a meet
ing what can fellow like me do?
II have been in the trades union
movement for thirty-five years in
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 1 learned that it is a leaders
duty to tell his people not what they
would like TO hear, but what they
should know. They must be told when
they are in the wrong as we'll as APP
plauded when they are in the right.
This is my platform, and L am willing
to rise and fall with it before the min
ers ana public of this country"