The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1916-09-08
GUN MEN RULE
IN MESkBA STRIKE
Iron Ore Miners Seek Only
Small Wage Increase.
GRATING Mine FOREMEN.
Men Are Obliged 20 5ribe the Captains
For Work-Miners Never Know What
Their Wages Will Be Until the End
of the Month-Orssnixed Labor TIA
boo on the Range.

Their Wages Will Be Until the End
of the Month-Orsanized Labor TIA
boo on the Range.
A bitter drama Is being enacted In
northern Minnesota. The stage Is the
whole sixty miles Of the Mesaba iron
range. The action is scattered over
ten towns and a hundred mines. The
actors are the several thousand strik-
ing miners, the steel trust officials
mine superntendents. mine captains
n-unionlsts, hostile townspeople, sym
pathizers-among them mayors Of half
dozen municipalities state investiga-
tors, federal medators sherlffs and
deputies, chiefs of police and the ever
present, all persuasive gun men.
The miners are striking for:
Open pit mining, $2.75.
Underground work, So n day.
Wet underground work, $3.50 a day.
An eight hour day.
Abolition of the contract system.
The open pit men now get 50 60 and
the underground men are paid at vary
ing rates. According to the companies
figures, the men are striking for less
than they receive. They certainly are
not striking for a great raise. 1t is
one of the remarkable features in this
strike that the money demands Of the
strikers are so small.
Meanwhile there IS an invisible and
silent actor-the steel trust itself Re
mote and invisible, yet It's policy domi-
notes the policy of visible but silent of
fcials. The steel trust, as every one
knows, has always fought unions bit
terly. Its boast has been that 1t has
crushed all organization among it's
thousands of employees, from those In
the mines tc those who work on the
finished product.
1t is the opinion Of all those with
whom | have talked when not hope
lessly biased against the strikers that
the strike might have been settled In
the beginning had the steel company
been willing TO meet the representative
Of the strikers But "A principle Is at
stake, and the principle is that organ
lied labor must not be recognized.
The strike. which began June last
IS one by former strike breakers For
months before the strike there was an
uneasiness among the workers.
The mining companies strove to allay
the uneasiness by small raises on Feb
and May l. These raises were made
TO the open pit men and not to the un-
derground miners, who work on the
contract system, for In spite Of the as
sertion Of the companies that the con
tract miners participated the miners
seem unaware of this.
The miners working under the con
tract system contract TO mine ore at 80
much a carload, the price shifts. ac-
cording to the conditions encountered
In the mine. being fixed by the mine
captains. The result Is, according to
the men, that they never can tell what
they VIII get until the end OF the month.
Moreover, they must pay for their
powder, fuses, tools, etc, and no item
ized account ever Is rendered them by
the company
The assigning OF the positions is, OF
course, In the hands OF the captains,
and this has led to a system Of bribery
and graft The captains demand pay
for the soft Jobs.
There are depositionS OF men who
paid s. a month for their jobs and
depositiOnS of others who paid sums
as high as $50 to get a good job at all
In these brief accounts Is the story Of
| injustice uncertainty, graft and petty
tyranny. The miners want this sys-
tenn changed and they say that there
will be trouble on the range until 1t is
changed.
1t is a curious strike, silent strike.
There is no walking up and down the
streets. There are no menacing groups
of idle men. The only sinister groups
Of which one sees are the staggering
plug uglies." They look like the bad
man" of the old fashioned melodrama
great, alcoholic buskies in blue shirts,
large deputys star attached to a sus-
| pender swinging a billy of comic di-
mensions, while a gun sticks out OF a
hip pocket
thousand Of these men, not merely
{, guarding company land. but lounging
| extensively around the streets and
highways. Up TO this writing every
clash between strikers and gun men
has occurred on the public highway.
Had the deputies remained on com.
| pany land there would have been sev
| eral hundred arrests less.
At first they seem humorous, some
thing from the comic section Of a
Sunday paper. Later when you have
seen them, rife in hand silhoueted
against the sky line you learn TO feel
more seriously about them. After you
have seen them reeling drunkenly down
the streets of mining village, vii
lage too, In Indian territory, into
| which It is against the law to bring
! liquor of any kind; when you have
seen the great impetus that these clubs
have given TO libertines, when you see
women and children In Jail because
they tried to get water from the only
well in the settlement end that we'll on
company land, deep indignation is born