The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1919-10-30

This week Friday, at midnight, I'M
less something unforeseen happens,
the anthracite coal miners CT the
United States will enter upon a strike
that will virtually end the production
Of hard coal in this country for an
indefinite time. 1t is possible, too,
that sympathetic support on the part
OF other unions may soon involve the
soft coal miners, so that the produc-
ton Of all varieties Of coal will be at
standstill. This on the verge of
winter, when shortage of fuel must
mean the curtailment of industry and
an era of suffering more widespread
and narrowing than any that has &C.
CURED in the history of the country.
1t is almost impossible to conceive
the conditions that may exist if fuel
is denied the teeming millions who
dwell in the great cities, denied
them during the entire course of a
long cold winter which may be al
most at hand. The miners are strik-
ing for six hour day, for five days
in a working week, and a sixty
per cent increase in pay. Think of
it! A thirty hour week! And labor
the one force which has built the
world that civilization calls its own
to-day. When labor, earnest labor,
is the one force that must preserve
the world and keep the mind of man
clean and clear and worthy of kinship
with the infinite. 1t is just as true
now as it ever has been that cit is but
step from idleness to crime"
This always has been and ever will be
great truth and the poorer classes
have by no means had monopoly of
exemplifying its verify. 1t has
been and always will be true of every
one whose aspirations reach no high
er than idleness. But to return to
the matter at issue: These miners
perform possibly the most hazardous
and exhausting labor in the world.
They should be we'll paid. But work
in the mines should net be arbitrar-
lily stopped by any man acting indi-
vidually or through delegated author
ity. Both mine owner and mine
worker should be made to behave de-
Gently. The interests of the nation
should be supreme. AS people we
are getting to a point where bicker-
ings between selfish interests must
be swept aside and the dignity and
superlative character of national
rights asserted. A six hour day!
Next year, mayhap, three hour day.
And millionaires exploiting these
stores of fuel which Providence i'm
planted in the bosom of Mother
Earth; which are well nigh as essen
tial to the existence Of man as the
air he breathes. And between these
pigmy interests, to whom years of
servility to custom has given stand
ing, hundred millions of people
are made to suffer. Think of
this And then think a little further
and ask yourself if the time is not at
hand when the people of this country,
the sovereign people, as we have
been wont to term them, must be
ready to fight out the issue as to
whether organized and selfish inter-
ests are to be allowed to take them
by the throat and choke them into
submission whenever caprice inclines
them to do so. That is the biggest
thing we shall have to deal with in
this country for some time-the
question of whether the country is to
belong to and be governed in the in
terests of the whole people or wheth-
er is is TO be pirated and wrecked by
organized and selfish interests, be
these industrial, capitalistic or other
wise. Personally, we feel that we
are ready for the inevitable contest
now.
II ID