The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1922-09-15
LETTERS TOTHE EDITOR
MI. Fortney Was Once a Miner.

Editor. Barre Times: Mr.. Mean
| drew, in his criticism lin The Times,
issue of Sept. n Of previous letter
/ of mine, as printed in The Times re-
garding the coal situation at the
mines, assumes, it seems, that / did
not know what I was talking about,
as am merely coal dealer and not
a MINER, whereas, without going far
into details, ! can assure him that |
have mined more coal than / hope to
get for my customers this winter, and
that | have relatives living in my ma
tive West Virginia who are both op.
orators and miners Of coal, from whom
get absolute facts, and no guess
work about it.
| hardly need to repeat the state
ments ! gave to the readers Of The
Times some two or more years since,
when ] gave the names of the miners
and the numbers of the mines in which
they worked and the exact wages each
received for one whole month, which
facts | took pains to obtain in re
futation of statements the late Mr..
Ironside had made in denial of state
ments | had previously made that
readers of the Barre Times might
know where to place the blame for
their not getting enough coal to keep
them warm.
The coal supply was cut off then as
now by strike" The exact aver
age wage the miners received then |
do not just recall now, but ii was
more than our stonecutters in Barre
were then getting for much harder
work. do know that my old home
paper stated that one extra good min
err, Robert Conway by name. mined
IL long tons Of coal in the old way,
with pick and shovel, before the new
machinery was placed in the Winches-
ter mine in sight of the writer's old
home, for which he received SI.25 per
ton, making his wages for that day
of nine hours, S2l.25, and he is
poor miner who does not earn nearly
half of that sum per day.
And let il be remembered that il
takes much less skill to mine coal than
to cut stone, and that accounts for
of Europe" flock to the coal mines |
rather than to granite industrial |
plants. And think my critic will do |
me justice to remember that com
plimented our stonecutters of Barre
for the peaceable manner in which |
they conduct their various strikes.
As to the wisdom and benefits of |
strikes there is at least room for diff
ference of opinion. After repeated
the strikers in all indus
tries may best judge for themselves.
No reasonable person, as said before,
denies the right of any man or set of
men to give up or leave his job. 1t is
his privilege to be idle if he so
,hooses, but let no man or body of
men interfere with the moral and le-
yal right of other men TO work on
he abandoned job if they so choose.
And that was the outrage upon the
ife and property of good lawabiding
'itizens at the coal mines of which
poke Who but the Ignorant and
'icious driftwood of Europe" or any
'ther part of the world for that mat
err, would be guilty of the atrocious
rimes of which spoke, against the
acred rights of good men, WHO with
onor to themselves and duty to their
antilles accepted work on the open
hop plan, as many others desired to
o had they not been faced by threats
( death. 1t was just such menac-
NJ power that denied the great limo
emit public millions of tons Of coal
o much needed to prevent suffering
he coming winter, and instead of Of
ering any apology for my brief state
nent of facts in my previous letter
ave the satisfaction of having re-
eived voluntary approval Of said let
Pr, while in Barre recently, by mem