New-York tribune., 1922-09-06
Radical Miners
Fight F',lrionsly
To Beat Truce
Insurgents Bitterly Assail
Lewis and Charge That
Mem We're Sold Out by
Leaders in Philadelphia
Operators Won, They Say
Union Politics Said TO In
spire Their Action; Rati-
fication Still Forecast

WILKES BARRE, Pa, Sept. g.
Radicals in the ranks Of the United
Mine Workers of America are virtual
ly moving mountains in we'll or
ganized effort TO prevent the organiza
tion from accepting the Pepper Reed
plan for settling the hard coal strike,
when the tri-district convention con
venes here tomorrow.
Insurgent leaders are Rinaldo Cap
pillini and Alex Campbell, who bolted
the Lewis administration ut the
Indianapolis convention and supported
Alex Howatt. turning over the votes
of large number of anthracite dele
gates to the support OF the fiery
Kansan
Cappillini is bitter in his attacks on
the miners administration, and from
the platform to-day he openly charged
that the international officers had
sold out" the mine workers.
George Isaac, cepresident of Dis
trict /, has bolted the organization
and joined with the insurgents in an
effort to prevent ratification Of the
Pepper-Reed plan.
Radical Unions Join Movement
Several local unions, mainly in the
control of radicals, already have in
structed their delegates to vote against
ratification of the peace offer as ap-
proved by the international officers
and the district leaders. The radical
element is charging that the Pepper
Reed plan ignores all the nineteen de-
mands of the Shamokin convention
and they say that the miners have not
won thing, but that the operators
have emerged victors after a five
the miners and the public.
Alex Campbell, who is a member of
the general scale committee, declares
he voted against acceptance of the
tentative agreement on the ground
that it does not provide for a univer-
sal eight-hour day or the check-off
He waged fight in committee until
the early hours of yesterday morning
and declared that he would muster
every vote he could in the convention
for bringing about rejections of the
proposed pact.
Campbell, Cappilini, Isaacs and sew
eral Of the lesser lights in the camp
of the radicals are touring the entire
upper anthracite field. They are busy
day and night attacking the admins
tration of Lewis, and telling miners
that the Pepper-Reed proposal offers
them nothing more than bitter defeat.
Demand Two-Year Scale
In sections that have been considered
organization strongholds there is a
growing sentiment against the peace
offer, because the contract does not
provide for the old wage scale for a
period of two years. Several local
unions that have always supported the
leadership of the union, are threaten
ing to bolt on this ground. This is
lending encouragement to the radicals
and giving them the opportunity to
break into several places they could
not otherwise control.
On the eve of the convention the
leadership Of Lewis and his aide de
camps is seriously threatened. There
is real disappointment among many
conservatives over the duration of the
proposed contract and there is disap-
pointment too that all the Shamokin
demands were ignored.
The union leadership, however, de-
clares that the Pepper Reed plan will
be ratified and that the men will be
back in the mines next Monday. The
administration is rightly making much
of the fact that the radical element
has seized upon the situation as one
to play politics, with the hope of in
fluencing future elections within the
organization.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 5.-Confden.e
that the agreement reached in PhiIa-
delphia Saturday night will be ratified
by the anthracite miners convention
tomorrow in Wilkes-Barre, was ex-
pressed to-day by Senator Reed, Of
Pennsylvania, in conference with
President Harding. The production Of
hard coal will be well under way by
the end of next week, Mr.. Reed pre-
dicted.