The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1913-07-24
Two Missouri Mining Districts
From the st. Louis Republic.

The lead miners OF Southeast Mis-
souri, ar" organizing union, aud
they are going 60 demand rccogni-
ton OF their union by the mine own
ers. There II nothing secret about
their plans. Instead, they have
notified the mine owners Of what
they intend to do.
Chose miners in Southeast Mis-
souri, have agrievance. They claim
and the Republic believes thoy can
suhstantiatc the claim-that they
are the poorest paid lead miners in
the country. II Is well known
fact that the wage of the Southeast
Missouri lead miner is much lower
than that Of the miner in tn" zinc
and lead mines of Southwest Mis-
souri,. The Occur d. Alene wage
scale is higher than the Southeast
Missouri wage scale.
The fallacy OF the theory that "A
protective tariff keeps up the wages
of the American workingman is
forcefully shown by the conditions
in the two great mining districts Of
Missouri. IN Southeast Missouri
four great companies own all the
land and do all the mining In
Southwest Missouri there is no cen
traliZed landownership and there is
no great controlling company In
place Of four big corporations there
are, approximately, 400 small com
panies in Southwest Missouri. In
trust. controlled Southeast Missouri,
you never hear Of IA group Of thrifty
miners who have saved their money,
leased small acreage, developed "A
prospect of their own and become
operators themselves That Is an
impOssibility in Southeast Missouri
because the miner there cannot lease
any land. But il IL precisely along
such lines That Southwest Missouri
has been made great mining dis
trict. There the thrifty miner IL al.
ways inspired by the chance Of be-
coming an operator. There anybody
can lease land. There the majority
Of the mine owners are graduates of
the pick and shovel. And there
wages are high-u0t because Of
protective tariff, but because the in.
dustry Of mining zinc and lead has
not as yet been un-Americanized it
has not yet been Guggenheimed
A further comparison of these two
districts seems pertinent because of
the cXtravagant abuses which the
minority stockholders in one Of the
big Southeast Missouri companies
have recently complained Of. Those
complaints recited that the president
of the company received salary of |
SUI 900 year; that he spent about
two weeks a year at the mines; that
me Travelled IN private car; that IA
costly establishment was maintained
the whole year round for his accom-.
annually sojourned in Southeast
Missouri That sort of thing is
quite unknown in Southwest Mis-.
souri,, Instead Of princely salaries
for absentee landlords, the miner in |
Southwest Missouri gets good !
wages.
There Is no miners union in South. !
west Missouri.
The miners have not had to or.
ganize because they have gotten
good wages without n union, and "A
responsive Legislature has enacted
laws for their protection, and made
AN eight-hour day the legal working
day But principally the miner has
not had to unionize in Southwest
Missouri because the industrial con
dltion to which the labor union Is
the necessary aud logical answer
has not developed there; namely,
Inc inine-owniuE trust, with its in
ordinate salaries, luxurious regimen,
slothfuI management, no chance for
the miner to advance low
wages. {
your trust IL IA wretched thing
when compared with the fairly com
petitive field. And the two Missouri
districts afford fair and
convincing field for such compare .
son.
Causes Of Stomach Troubles