Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1922-04-21
Coal Strike News

Cresson, Pa-The number of nom
union miners on strike in the central
Pennsylvania district now totals 2O,-
900 and big gains are being made
daily in Somerset and Westmoreland
counties.
John Brophy, president, District 2,
u. M. w. A., has moved his head
quarters from Clearfeld, Pa, to Cres-
son, which is on the main line of the
Pennsylvania railroad.
The few mines still operating in the
coke regions of western Pennsylvania
are being closed down in a weekend
drive, messages from organizers in
that section declare.
Observation-Disclosures coal miners
have Joined in the strike in tremendous
numbers.
Not only does John L. Lewis, presi-
dent, U. M. w. A., announce that over
$4,000 nonunion coal diggers have
quit work in sympathy with the effort
of the union to make operators stick
to their pledges, but the trade jour-
nails of the iron and coal industry ad-
nit an alarming shortage in coal.
West Brownsville, Pa.-Trains of
empty cars are pulling out of the
Connellsville coke region in Fayette
county, where 10000 nonunion men
have joined in the coal strike move
ment and affiliated with the United
Mine Workers.
This is considered the greatest
single victory the union forces have
so far attained, for the Connellsville
region was regarded as the most Sc
curely entrenched citadel of nom
unionism in the coal industry with the
possible exception Of the Logan and
Mcdowell fields of West Virginia. In
all the estimates of the operators the
100000 ton annual production of
Connellsville was relied on in the fight
on unionism.
Not a vstige of labor organization
has existed in this monster coal and
coke field since the days of the early
nineties, when Henry C. Frick fol-
lowed up his victory over the Home
stead steel workers by crushing the
Knights of Labor and the early eff
forts of the United Mine Workers in
the coal fields.
Union officials themselves are sur
prised at the rapidity with which the
strike movement has been spreading
and the fervent enthusiasm every
where.
In most of the 200 mines on strike
the men came out without waiting for
organizers. All had seen the strike
calls which had honeycombed the dis
trict for weeks. international organ
izers and volunteers from the union
mines and the United Trades council
had distributed them by the thou
sands.
Less than 1000 miners are still at
work in Fayette county. International
Organizer William Feeney, who is in
charge of the campaign, is confident
that the district will be shut down
tight before the week is over. The
work is directed from union head
quarters in West Brownsville, which
will probably be the capital of the new
district to be created in the Connells-
vile region. Heretofore this has been
a sort of no mans land in between
the western and central Pennsylvania
districts.
Masontown, Pa. - A series of
monster mass meetings in the Con-
nellsville coke region has swept aside
for the time being the opposition OF
local politicians and state constabulary
Seven thousand miners filled Gal
litin Gardens in Uniontown in the
first labor demonstration in that city
since Henry C. Frick smashed union
ism in the ferocious days of the early
COS. 1t was an overwhelming mass
movement that found its climax when
Organizer William Feeney called on
all who wished to join the United
Mine Workers to come forward and
the crowd that had been standing in
the amphitheater surged forward with
the force of the tide.
Youngstown, LOhio-The Shenango
Furnace Co. is the third firm here to
close its blast furnaces because nom
union miners striking in sympathy
with union miners have paralyzed the
Connellsville coke region on which the
steel corporations depend for fuel
Four other furnace units that were
ready to resume blasting have held
off owing to the precarious coke sup
ply. Stored coke is being bid up to
extreme prices by the frantic efforts
OF furnace companies to keep oper-
ating.