The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1910-10-01

found desolation, hunger. sickness,
stagnated business and misery. Ev-
efywhere are empty company houses
with doors and windows boarded up,
eloquently telling of the homeless,
condition Of their former occupants,
who are now living in tents. Some OF
the houses are occupied by strike
breakers, but many more are empty.
On every empty house is mo tres.
pass" sign. Tiny truck gardens with
vegetables rotting on the ground tell
the pitiable story of the suddenness
with which the striking miners were
evicted by the operators two months
ago. >......'. -.
The strike? The Labor World has al
ready told about that. The men
claimed and apparently have proved
that they and their families could
not live on what they were being paid
last winter SO they struck. Deputy
sheriffs and detectives were imported
to club them into submission There
was bloodshed and terror Men were
arrested and even shot for refusing to
enter the mines. But the strike is six
months old, and the men as deter
mined as ever =. ....
It has been q hard struggle. When
the tightest pinch came some of the
men went back to their old homes to
gather the potatoes, sweet corn and
vegetables that they themselves had
planted and cultivated They were ar
rested for "trespassing." 49, -
During the summer the union has
been able to give little relief-a pit
tance, however. The men We're al
lowed Is cents a day., women seven
and children two. How far does 30
cents a day (for man, wife and five
children) go in your house, Mr.. Citl-
zen? 49,
Now the chilly nights of the fall
up here in the foothills are upon them.
LIS cold, often at night, bitterly so.
To heat the tents is practically i'm
possible, even if the coal barons would
sell the coal to the miners, and II
| they had the money. to buy it with.
While it was too cold for me to go
! without my overcoat last night, saw
little children barefooted, clothed in
thin, tattered summer garments, fair
ly blue with cold. One little fellows
! teeth chartered 50 badly as he told
ne, II hope we can move back home
/ soon,' that it was difficult to look
at the carefully cropped lawn and
palatial mansion of one of the big
Local operators in the near distance
I With anything resemhl bling comJtsis-
ance. - ~ i - r. ::
. The father Of a family, himself II
/ ragged garments, with tears In his
eyes. said: ttI can't see my wife and
our babies starve and freeze, would
willingly go back into the mine to
save them, but they are not the ones
1 at stake. -
'It's the lives and comfort of all.
II we go back now, all is lost. For
20 years I have worked In that mine
! there, and never once have I had
enough to eat and wear. If l and the
rest go back now, It. will mean 70
more years of the same slavery"
| In front of tented home saw 9
tired, pale mother. doing the family's
washing. "Oh, don't mind it SO
much,"' she said, "but the little ones
| is what is worrying me. We can't
buy shoes for them. Their clothes
! are last years. and they're mostly
/ holes. It has been hard all summer,
and it is getting: worse every day. Ev-
cry night s.the children cry because
they are cold, though give them all
! the bed covering we've got. And when
I think that winter is coming on, my
I God! l don't believe we can live
through it. = ~. %.. .
But she would not listen to her hus.
bands going back to work In the
mines under the old conditions.
While the miners families are suf-
fering from cold, hunger and sickness.
the coal barons refuse to arbitrate.
! Marcus saxton, treasurer Of one OF
the larger. .coal companies and virtual
head Of the. operators combine. told
a committee of strikers: 4.
There is nothing to arbitrate. The
coal mines are here. You can start
to work tomorrow If you wish We
own the mines and you own your Ia,
s; bor.. The wages we will pay Is what
we want to give you and not what
| you think you ought to get" (" 5sg*s&