Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-11-28
Government Put to Test.


Not when the war of the sections
threatened disruption OF the Union
not when German ambition for world
domination menaced democracy every
where. did the government of the
United States face graver crisis than
confronts it today. Its supremacy is
denied and its sovereignty is chal,
lenged by an organized minority of
its own citizens. If government is I'M
potent to protect the majority against
an organized minority. then govern
ment is a failure and the reign of
chaos is at hand.
The coal miners who defy the gov
eminent and seek by freezing and
starving the nation to attain their
selfish ends are outside the pale of
law. As individuals they have legal
right to refrain from work. Where
two or more of them enter into agree
ment to refrain from work, they are
conspiring to restrict production and
are outlaws.
This is no ordinary ease of main
tanning the rights of individuals. The
Anglo-Saxon tradition upon which our
respect for individual rights is based
never contemplated that there should
be such collective assertion of those
rights as would bring death and de-
struction to u whole people. If self
preservation is first law of nature,
it is equally a first law of society.
Society, through organized govern
ment, will preserve itself, befall what
may.
1t is announced today as the de-
cision of the Presidents cabinet that
the government shall seize and op-
crate such mines as the owners of
which show a Discrimination to CO.
operate in carrying out the terms of
the Garfield settlement. That is a
proper policy, so far as it goes; but it
SoCS OHis Iitlit way Int IulHtS
must be manned before they can be
operated. If the men who threw down
inelr picks at behest of their union
leaders will not return to work, other
men must be recruited to take their
places. Sufficient man-power to pro-
duee the coal imperatively needed to
preserve life and health must and will
be modified. For the government to
do less would amount to confession
of failure and would necessitate sur
render to the outlaw strikers, for the
nation cannot exist without coal.
1t is idle to say that men to oper-
ate the mines cannot be found. Men
can be found to do any task when
their very lives and the lives OF their
womenfoIk and children depend upon
its being done. Men were found to
hurl the invader out of France and
Belgium, and the lives of France and
Belgium never were more surely men
aced than the life of America is men
aced by the suspension of coal pro
duction. Men went gladly to battle
to the refrain of "Keep the Home
Fires Burning They will go into the
mines to the same refrain, made more
pregnant in its meaning.
The striking miners are merely vic
tins of their own folly if they think
no other men can do their work. The
great bulk of mine labor requires no
special skill and little training. Men
who shovel coal out of railroad cars
can shovel coal into mine ears. Men
who build mine machinery can 90 into
the mines and operate it. Enough ex-
perlenced miners will remain loyal
and respecting to direct their op.
erations. The notion that the labor
market is SO undersupplied that men
for the mines cannot be found is an
other evidence of the folly of the
strike leaders. Already, because of
the strike, thousands of industrial
workers are idle; they soon will mum.
Der millions. Out of work, out of
wages, their families facing a fuelless
and fOOdless winter, why should not
these men respond to a call for sea.
son in the mines'
The essential requirement is that
those in authority shall maintain
stout hearts and a firm resolve. The
great masses of the American people
are back of them. 1t is no time for
tempOrizing or halfway measures
Pussyfooting will dig no coal.
W. laLL.=