Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-22
Coal Strike Possibilities.

President John Mitchell of the United
Mine Workers of America is giving out in
terviews which Indicate that he looks for
peace in the hard coal region and war in
the soft coal section of the country. He
does not explain how 1t will be possible,
in view Of the action of the recent con-
vention of the union, to arrange a pacific
settlement in one district while a strike is
called elsewhere. but hints that the ex-
ecutive officers have a power of inter-
preting the laws of the union which will
enable them to get around the apparent OBJ
stacle of the Ryan resolution. In other
words, that resolution seems to have been
passed merely for effect and Is not bind
ing. Whether the willingness to waive 1t
is due TO the attacks which Dolan of Pitts
burg has made on Mitchell and his meth
DDS may be left for further consideration.
The fact remains that Mitchell is apparent
ly planning to send the soft coal men out
on strike while he keeps the hard coal men
at work. This may be a strategic ma
neuver, inspired by a realization that In
case of a general strike in both fields there
would be no available source of income
whereas with the hard coal men remaining
at work they would be in position to con-
tribute something to the strike fund of their
the financial advantage Of keeping one
wing of the union at work would be greater,
for the anthracite miners are as only
about three to eight of the bituminous.
The union representa- tives have thus far
evlnced no disposition in their bearing to-
ward the anthracite operators In New York
to force an issue and a strike. They
presented themselves without formulated
demands, and the latest word from them
was that there would probably be no spe-
ciflc demands, but that they would ask the
operators to consider a general arbitration
upon all standing grievances, without men
tioning the eight-hour day or the recogni
ton of the union. If this is the program
there is little danger of a hard coal strike.
II Mitchell and his lieutenants are will
ing to waive the Ryan resolution to enable
the anthracite miners to adjust their diff
ferences with the operators, they will have
difficulty in persuading the country of the
righteousness of enforcing 1t to the extent
of compelling the bitumiuous miners of all
the districts to strike because those of a
single district are unable to agree with the
operators upon a wage scale. There is
wide divergence Of working conditions be-
tween the various soft coal districts, just
as there is between the anthracite field and
the DltUmlHOuS II IS ABSURD 10 call d gem
eral strike for wage scale differences which
vary with the states and with parts of the
same state.
A general and prolonged strike of the
soft coal miners will have a disastrous eff
feet upon the industries of the country.
There Will not be such acute individual suf-
fering for the lack or the high price Of
fuel as though the anthracite supply were
shut off, but there will be even greater suf-
fering on the part OF hundreds of thou
sands of people as the mills and factories
are one by one shut down for lack of
bftuminous coal for the making of steam.
The possibilities of such a strike are shock
ing They are indeed difficult to conceive
in the full, so heavily dependent is this
entire country upon the materials from
which power Is produced. The stoppage Of
manufacturing and of transportation for
even q month would entail consequences
so calamitous that the mind shrinks from
their contemplation. And yet this is the In
evitable result of soft coal strike so gen
eral and so prolonged as to exhaust the fuel
supply, and 1t is threatened today because
of the inability of the operators and miners
OF few relatively small districts to agree
upon a wage scale.