The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1916-07-08
MINERS STRUGG[E
AGAINST TYRANNY |||| |
About 400 Workers In Mclean
- Mines Risk Hunger ind
Destitution.
OWNERS REFUSE TO MAKE
T.. ANY KIND OFASETTLEMENT
Unjust and Degrading Conditions
Forced Upon Employees in
Illinois District. =

WASHINGTON, July 7.-Edward B.
Mclean, multi-millionaire resident Of
Washington, is playing the role Of
John D. Rockefellerd in a situation
strangely esembling that which ex-
listed in the coal mines of southern
Colorado before the great strike of
1894: -.
Struggle Against Tyranny. Il.
Today in the isolated Ohio river
town of Rosiclare in southern Illi-
nois, 400 miners and their, families
have quit work in the lead and fluor-
spar mines belonging to the Mclean
family and are ,risking hunger and
destitution in struggle against in
dustrial tyranny.
At Washington Mclean refused to
make any effort to reach a. settle
ment when the situation was ex-
planned to him by James Lore, ,presi-
dent of the mining department of the
American Federation of Labor. In.
stead he permitted Colin H. Living
stone, his banker and agent, to dis:
miss the mems representative with
curt defiance, and the flat statement.
that the management would not
recognize any organization of the en-
ployes. j.
McLean's agents at Rosiclare are
using the company's arbitrary power
to evict miners from company houses
and are endeavoring, thus far without
success, to enlist the courts and the
local authorities to overawe and in
timidate their former employees. -,
Tn efo%4
ton James Lord, president of the min,
ing department of the American Fed
Grafton of Labor, said:
"Operations at Rosiclare have been
isolated from the rest of the state.
because Hardin county is one of the
two counties in Illinois that have no
railroads. The. miners are all native
white. Wages, hours and conditions.
5of labor have always been, and are
now the lowest and poorest in the.
American continent for this class or,
work. The worker in and around
the mines have been inarticulate. ac-.
cepting without question the CON-
panies' terms. The minimum work
day is 10 hours.
I'm addition to the low wages and
degrading conditions of work, the
miners have been denied any civil
and social. rights that the companies,
disapproved> of. Victims of personal
injury and preventable accidents
have ben met with threats and in-i
timidation. Men were compelled to
work Sundays and holidays under the !:
threat of immediate discharge, and
such things as sickness in the family.
baptisms, family gatherings. and re-
.vivals have never been considered
sufficient reasons for allowing men to
stay away from work even on sun.
day. A real system of peonage estab-i
lished years ago has been continued
up to date.
Contrast this situation with con.
ditions in practically every other min
Ing. town in the state, where the .
United Mine Workers, with $4,000 .
members, have increased wages, re- :
duced accidents to the minimum. pro-
tected every man in the exercise of
his rights; and established general
good feeling and satisfaction.
Organization Necessary.
1T finally dawned. upon these
workingmen that they could never be
free, to assert their constitutional
rights or seek redress for economic
wrongs, unless they themselves orr
ganized. So in May of this year they
began to organize into a local miners
union. They applied for. and received
a charter from the Western Fedora,
ton of Miners, Which is the branch
-. Continued I'M P.re . = - --,SE