Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-04-14

Altoona, Pa.-SucceSS OF the strike
movement among the non-union mem
bers of central and western Pennsyl-
vania is passing all expectations.
More than $4,000 non-union men
have walked out and over half of the
Pennsylvania mines on which the en-
ployers depended for crushing the
strike are already shut down. Most
amazing of all has been the strike
sweep through Fayette county where
the great Connorsville coking region
is located.
All but one of the H. C. Frick mines
there are idle and most of the other
mining operations on which the Pitts
burgh steel interests depended are
ceasing to function. In the neighbor-
ing county of Westmoreland, where
the least suspicion of unionism i'm
periled miners life in the hysterical
war days, several thousand of workers
have taken their tools from under
ground and joined in this biggest of
all American coal strikes.
Pittsburgh-Thirty thousand unor-
ganized mine workers in the Connells-
vile coke region of Pennsylvania
which began April 1 after the opera
tors had broken their pledge to meet
in conference with the men!
The Connellsville region is the
largest single non-unon field in the
country. 1t supplies the United
States Steel corporation with coke for
the steel furnaces. The influence and
policy of Judge Ebert H. Gary have
hitherto stamped out every attempt
to organize these workers.
The 10000 men who have walked
out have joined the United Mine
Workers of America.
The union drive is being extended
with success in the adjacent counties
Of Westmoreland and Greene. The
activities of the state constabulary
attempting to keep organizers out of
the district have failed.
Five hundred coal and iron police
go state troopers and a frantic sheriff
are scurring around Somerset county
trying to rescue the non-union opera
tors from the strike wave that is
washing over the non-union coal fields
of Pennsylvania.
Washington-Success in the first
weeks of the coal strike is shown by
the sudden drop in production report
ed by the U. S. geological survey,
which complies the government statis-
tics on mining
The total production of hard and
soft coal in the first week of the
strike, according to the survey, set
new low water mark in the history
of the coal industry. Anthracite pro-
duction ceased almost entirely and
bituminous dropped to 100000 in
stead Of the 100000 tons expected
by some optimistic operators. The
report indicates that non-union mines
have closed down in far greater num-
ber than the industrial experts" of
the newspapers had led the country to
believe.
Union organizers report good pro-
gress among the non-union miners of
Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In
West Virginia two federal injunc-
tions against union organizing have
been applied for by the operators and
granted by the federal district judge.
New York-A fight to the finish
will be the consequence of the turning
down by the bituminous operators of
the invitation by the house labor COM
mittee at Washington to enter a wage
conference with the 100000 striking
miners, in accordance with the con-
tract that expired March 81.
This is the comment of President
John L. Lewis, U. M. w. A. on the
news that Illinois operators had also