The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1921-12-16
Cant Strike" Law Suggested By President
Horrible Methods
Used by Virginia
Coal Mine Bosses

Indianapolis, Ind, Dec. 8.-"Star-
walton is the instrument that is be-
ing used by coal operators in the
New River field of West Virginia to
torture the union miners into sub
their wages and destruction of the
union," Lawrence Dwyer, of Beck
ley, W. Va, told the international
executive board of the United Mine
Workers of America, meeting in In
dianapolis; Dwyer is the member of
the board from that field. The
board was hearing reports of condi-
tions in the various coal mining dis
tricts of the country when Dwyer
made his statement. From practi-
cally every section of the country
there came heart-rending tales of the
deplorable condition of coal miners
and their families, due to the long
continued wave of unemployment and
the determined effort of coal opera
tors to reduce wages and wipe out
the United Min Workers of America.
But the story told by Dwyer was,
perhaps, the most narrowing of all.
"That operators are taking advan-
tage of the terrible depression to
carry out this plan. Our men have
been out of work so long that they
have used every cent that they had
earned and they are in debt as deep
ly as they can go. Hundreds, may
say thousands, of families of coal
miners are without a cent and with
out food. How they exist God only
knows. Company stores have re-
fused to supply them with more
food. There is no other place for
them to find employment. This sit
uation gives the operator his oppor-
tunity. Coal companies, some of the
largest, richest and most powerful
in the country, are telling their en-
ployes that if they will accept a re-
duction of 80 to so per cent in their
wages and withdraw from the union
they will give them some work, but
they do not promise steady work.
With their families actually starving,
many a man is tempted to accept
the offer.
"Only a few days ago, two small
children in school in Fayette county
tainted, and physicians said it was
due to their weakness because of
lack of food They were children of
a coal miner. And this is not an
isolated case.
"At 8 o'clock one morning recent
ly a woman, living in the coal camp
at Wickley, called at my home in
Beckley. She carried a coal oil can.
This poor woman asked me if /
would let her have a little oil. She
said the family had spent the night
in a dark room, and that her baby
had died at midnight. The family
had no money with which to buy
coal oil to light the hovel home in
which her baby lay dead.
"The manager of one coal company
that is attempting to starve it's
employees into acceptance of wage
reduction told the men recently that
he was acting solely in their behalf
in offering them work if they would
take lower wages and withdraw
from the union. He said he knew
their families We're suffering for
food and that he wanted to do
everything he could for them. The
next day miner whose family was
without food went to the store of
that company and asked the store
manager to give him credit for
small sack of flour. promising that
he would pay for it out of the first
money he earned when he got back
to work. But the store manager
refused to let him have the flour un-
less he gave some kind of security
for the debt. All that the man had
was the few pieces of furniture in
his house. and the store manager
told him to bring a dresser to the
store and leave it as security. The
miner went home. and he and his
son carried the dresser to the store
and left it as security for the price
of a 12-poond sack of floor. This in
cident shows the extremity to which
the miners are reduced in the New
River districts, and it is this condi-
tion that the coal comnanies are
utilizing to starve and beat the men
into submission.
81 say to you that it is the height
of cruelty for these coal companies
to enforce starvation of men, wom-
en- and children as a means of fore
ing wages down to a point where
the men cannot make a living for
their families"