The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-08-08
RAIL STRIKE
 PEACE HOPES
 HANDED JOLT
(Continued from Page one.)


 nection with the call for shop-craft executives to meet and pass upon the
 Presidents proposal, MT. Jewell point ed out that he and his colleagues did not have authority to answer for the Federation He added, however.
 that nobody ought to get the idea that the shop federation will accept" Executives Meet Friday. The railroad executives were tc
 meet Friday in New York to formu- | late their answer O the White House said to have been formulated at the White House without previous con | feTences with the railroad heads
 nothing definite as to their probable attitude was known here.
 MT. Harding's action today was of fcial1y described as final" so far as the governments efforts to bring the strike to a settlement through volun- ,tary action of the two parties is con cerned- Just what significance at taches to that declaration is not ap- parent, though it Implies that sho>SEd failure again mark the Presidents the government has a course of ac- tion in view to protect the interests of the nation as a whole
 Cleveland, Ohio, Aug S-With a definite program for ending the soft coal strike ready for consideration to- morrow, the joint conference of the leaders of the striking union miners and coal operators today marked time. awaiting the expected arrival of other operators, especially those of Illinois and Indiana. In addition, operators were expected from several other states, scattered over the soft goal fields, for the program a settle ment on substantially a national basis.
 No sessions of the joint conference were held today, and while there were several informal meetings of both operators and union officials their i'm terest was centered largely in Chicago and in Indianapolis, where operators were expected to determine who would attend the conference tomor- row.
 President John L. Lewis, of the miners, and also leaders among the operators here were optimistic regard ing the probability of a settlement, which is accomplished would be fol- lowed almost immediately by the union asking anthracite operators to renew the wage negotiations that were broken off in June after several weeks of fruitless efforts toward a
 the opinion that 'this. week will see l the end of the bituminous coal con-
 troversy."
 Old Wage Contracts. l In brief the program for settlement
 called for reestablishment of the wage contracts that expired last March 31,
 the eve of the beginning of the strike | that has continued more than four l months, ana also the creation or an
 advisory committee of inquiry through | whose influence it was expected that | disputes would be settled without l strikes. The reeStablished wage con tracts would continue in force until next April 1, and meanwhile the com | mittee would draft recommendation | for future contracts The 'check off, l system of operators collecting union | establishment of the old contracts,
 and there would be no change of | working conditions. | Mine union leaders and operators. who had gathered here for the joint | conference, said they had assurances that a number of prominent operators | of Illinois and Indiana wAsld have | delegates here tomorrow, it being ex-
 pected that the Indiana delegation
 would include A. M. Ogle, president
 of the National Coal association.
 The expectation of the break among the Indiana and Illinois operators,
 who had opposed the interstate meet
 ing as a means of effecting a settle
 ment caused the conference here to
 Wednesday. Members of the confer
 ence were sworn to secrecy on ac- | count of leaders being fearful that announcement of the definite plan for l settlement might lead to complica- | tionS, resulting in the non-attendance 1 of operators now absent After the
 extent of the plan became known, the leaders aptly lost none of their op- | tinism that the conference here
 would reach a settlement covering, in part at least, practically every soft
 coal field where the union is rec | oSnizad.
 Though the strike may be settled On a nationwide scale, there is ex- pected to remain several thousand miners still on strike. the largest
 number would be En central Pennsyl- varia, partly unionized ff4ld where
 many non-union mines were shut down by walkouts that marked the idevelopmen of the strike.