The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-06-08

Boy Scouts. IL mas set aside Tor
the periods of the national emergency
its opposition to the militaristic spir-
it. 1t has subscribed to $4,000 of
the Liberty Loan Bonds.
"This great, patriotic and solid
organization of the workers in the
basic industry of the war stands
ready to dig from the earth all
the coai tnat could possibly be used
FOR all the possible needs of the
nation. Figuratively and yet ac-
curately speaking, it can bury tie
whole land in coal foot deep. 1t
is able and eager to double all rec
ords in the production and distribu-
{ n of coal if it is given the nee
essary facilities and the right spirit
of cooperation and help. It's produc-
tion last year was six hundred million
tons of Goa Right now it can
raise this rat of production to one
billion tons. In Illinois the miners,
one hundred per cent organized into
our union, can increase the last
years output of sixty million tons
to one hundred and fifty millions,
given the right transportation and
the right encouragement. And that
same proportion runs through every
coal state and section where condi-
items are equally advantageous.
"The tremendous issue here pre-
sented, gentlemen of the Council of
National Defense, is of vital concern
to all the people. On the material
issue rests the greater and grander
issue of democracy or autocracy; of
freedom or compulsion. In the let
ter sent out by the Committee on
Coal Production, Secretary Franklin
K. Lane is quoted as saying that the
business men and capitalists of the
nation will always work better in
free spirit of cooperation than un-
der compulsion. Gentlemen Of the
council and Mr.. Presidnet, so will
the workers who produce the coal
without which business and capital
cannot work at all and without which
our imperiled nation would be vastly
more imperiled. Gentlemen of the
Council and Mr.. President, all men
self respecting enough to be good
workers and manful fighters must
be free. They must not be chained
to the soil in spirit of the older
Russian serfdom, as the arrangement
proposed by your Committee on
Coal Production would chain them.
Every advance which they have
gained by the difficult and often
times heroic upbuilding of their col
lective organization and collective
action must be safeguarded as a
princeless heritage for them and
for the nation and for the nations
children.
Recently the fruits of years of
toll and of struggle have come free
ly to the hands of the Mine Workers.
The fair minded and most able and
most numerous of their employers
have recognized the justice and fine
idealism Of their demands. Only
few of the powerful corporations
which control other industries, such
as steel, and are interested in coal
production only as a side issue, still
fight the United Mine Workers be-
cause they fight all capable and
humanitarian efforts to advance the
cause of labor. 1t would be most
bitterly ironical and most dangerous
to overthrow now the splendid and
enduring peace which the Mine
Workers and the great body of mine
owners have attained in order mere
ly to place such men as j. f. We'll
born, the Rockefeller agent of the
Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, in
dictatorship again of the Colorado
and Northwestern field (recalling
the Ludlow Massacre) and such men
as Erskine Ramsey of the Steel Cor
poration, in dictatorship of the Bir-
mingham and other Southern dis
tricts.
'In conclusion, | express the con-
fident belief that no eXigency of
overwork or multiplicity of other
duties will divert this tremendously
important matter from your atten-
ton. And l express the confident
belief that no mistaken or sinister
intervention of self interest will be
permitted by you to displace the
splendid program of cooperation and
effectiveness which can be so easily
grasped.
Respectfully submitted,
JOHN p. WHITE,
President, United Mine Workers of
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