The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-26
TCOHS OF THE OCTOPUS ENFOLD
 STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT
Zdle WineYs Should Consider
 Cause And EtIect .0f Strike
Recognition of Union Would Have Meant Continued Burdens and Uncertainties Dangers That Threatened.
 Signs of Approaching End of Strife
BY FRANK V. EVANS.

uty sheriffs nor soldiers there The audi ence was composed of white and black men and white and black women. The only spokesmen were two impudent ne- groes. who stood before even southern white women advising them and their husbands as to dirty work These ne- groes advised their mixed audience of strikers to stay in the companys houses at any and all hazards and not allow themselves driven out by any law or otherwise; to keep their guns loaded and ever by their sides, and to use them against any union miner who attempted to return to work.
 It Is just such ideas as these. such so- cial admixtures, such dangerous meetings and utterances that these misguided peo- pie have had suggested to their minds by that deviish spirit to which I al- luded in my last letter
 Deception Practlced.
 The deception practiced by the leaders toward the idle miners is monstrously wicked For instance it was stated by one of the speakers at Fulton Springs last Saturday that there were many idle in- dustries in this vicinity, shut down for lack of ability to procure coal, citing the Decatur Car Wheel works. The manage ment O. that enterprise being immediately offered any quantity of coal desired an- swered that they were overstocked by five cars, so that falsehood was nailed. The purpose of the speaker was obvious.
 The striking miners are told every day that the mines are not in operation, and that they cannot be until the union is rec ognized; whereas nearly every mine in the district Is producing coal every clay, and there is a sufficient output for all present pressing necessity.
 Cont of the Strike.
 As further evidence of the im- mense cost of this profitless strike to the miners union, a well-known mine man says that the miners union Is eX- pending $10O,000 per week and has been Going so ever since the strike began. This is money wrung from the hands of labor ing men in mines of other sta es--a cruel ty within itself; and an imposition of an unjust burden.
 Headess Army.
 When this strike was first ordered by President Lewis, my information Is that it was done on promise of MT. Farley that he could win; and that the financial support granted him by the headquarters at Indianapolis was conditioned upon the Idea that the campaign should be act l i've, rapid and successful. As captain l Mir, Fairley has not kept the promise; and, as I believe, the end is near. Without a leader no army can ever be victorious. MT Fairley having gone. and. believe, never to return, the ranks of the hosts he left behind must be- 1 come dlsmembered. disorganzed, hun gry. and weary. Such a condition must open their blinded eyes and they will re- turn to their natural places and resume their honorable and profitable labors. Already there is tapping at the doors of the mines for admission by the prodi- gal ones; already there is a break away from folly here and there; and each day the output of the mines Is increasing. Monday, pay day by the Pratt Con solidated, witnessed the production of more coal than any Monday since the strike, and yesterday there was much greater production.
 I do not say that the officials of the mine workers union will formally and officially call the strike off immediately, but l do believe that the beginning of the end Is now, and that each day this season of folly of dis order and of idleness will diminish in volume, and that within a very brief pe- riod the coal miners strike of 1908 will have passed into history, and that there will be many years of peace, order and progress in this district happily ridded of those spirits which have caused the terrible condition through which the dis trict is now finally passing.