The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1910-09-12
Dn[Y BERRIES FOR.
'nOOTHs0F BABIES
AND MOTHERS
Families Of Stricken Mine Workers
h Driven From Their Homes When
Strike Is Declared, Live in
Tents On Hillsides.
Husbands, Fathers and Sons In
Desperate Stand Against Slave
Wages In Erwin.
NEW ALEXANDRA. Pa, Sept. u.

.
Three hundred puny babies, thiniy
clad and underfed by half-starved
mothers who have nothing TO give
live beneath canvas roofs and within
canvas walls these chilly days ana
shivery nights in the Erwin coal
regions OF western Pennsylvania.
A thousand other little children
barefoot and almost barebacked,
live" on bread and water in that
starvation camp among the foothills
OF the Alleghenies.
Five thousand women suffer grief
and hunger among their starving III
tie ones but bravely encourage the
despairing men-10.000 fathers, hus-
bands and sons---who refused last
March to be slaves in the mines of
the Erwin district operators any long
err and who are desperately sticking
to the resolve made them.
For weeks these men and women
and children, driven from the com
pany houses that were their homes,
to tents on the unused hillsides, have
lived on berries principally. The
chill nights of September have
brought refreshing II not overnour-
ishing change. They now have mush-
rooms with berries. And when the
union committee distributes the pen
MES of its relief fund. they have a
little of bread, too, although most OF
Il is saved for the children. who dip
Il in water-bread and water, the
dungeons bill OF fare.
In New Alexandra, in Latrobe and
In Greensburg. the county seat, l
found desolation, hunger, sickness,
stagnated business and misery. Every
where are empty company houses
with doors and windows boarded up,
eloQuently telling Of the homeless con-
dition of their former occupants, who
are now living in tents. Some very
few of the houses are occupied by
strikebreakers, but many more are
empty. On every empty house IL a
mo trespass" sign. Tiny truck gar
dens 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 Times has already
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 win
ter, SO they struck. Deputy sheriffs
and detectives were imported to club
them into submission. There was
bloodshed and terror. Men were ar
rested and even shot for refusing to
enter the mines. But the strike is six
months old. and the men as deter
mined as ever
1t has been a hard struggle. When
the highest 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
arrested for "trespassing."
During the summer the union has
been able to give little relief-a pit
lance. however. The men were al
lowed 10 cents a day, women seven
and children two. How far does 32
cents a day (for man, wife and five
children) go in your house. Mr. Citi-
zen?
Now the chilly night of the fall up
here In the foothills are upon them.
It's cold, often at night, bitterly so.
To heat the tents is practically i'm
possible, even IL the coal barons would
sell the coal to the miners, and II
they had the money to buy 1t with.
While 1t was too cold for me TO 20
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 so badly as he told
me, 81 hope we can move back home
SOON" that II was difficult to look at
the carefully-cropped lawn and pala-
tial mansion OF one of the big coal
operators In the near distance with
anything resembling complaisance.
The father of family, himself In
ragsed garments. with tears in his
eyes, said II 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
at stake.
Its the lives and comfort OF all
II We 60 back now, all is lost. For
20 years ! have worked in that mine
there, and never once have | had