The Connecticut labor news., 1922-06-23
CONVENTION RISES AND MAKES PLEDGE
 TO ASSIST MINERS
A. F. of L. Gives Enthusiastic En- dorsement to Great Coal
 Strike
Especial to The Labor News.)

Especial to The Labor NeWS.)
 Cincinnati, O., June 23.-When, by rising vote, the convention of the American Federation of Labor re- Sponded to motion submitted by Executive Council Member w. D. Mahon it did two things:
 Tt gave enthusiastic endorsement to the great strike of the miners;
 2-It pledged all possible assistance to the miners in the winning of that strike
 Responding to the vote of the con vention, William Green, secretary of the United Mine Workers of Amer ica ,and A. F. of L. executive council member, conveyed officially the ap- preciation of the miners to the con- vention for it's whole-hearted action
 "You have always understood, I am sure," he said, "that the United Mine Workers of America are a fighting, militant organization, and they have never hesitated to fight when pressed against the wall or when an attempt was made to inf1ict upon them an i'm defensible wrong. And so now they are engaged in a mighty conflict, struggling for the recognition of a principle, demanding that an agree ment entered into shall be religoius1y observed.
 May 1 just state to you as a mat ter of information, that about two years ago the coal operators of the central competitive field, representing vast tonnage, agreed to meet with the representatives of the United Mine Workers at the expiration of a contract that was then entered into, for the purpose of negotiating a new agreement. That contract was made under government supervision and government direction; the govern ment, in fact, was a party to the agreement; but when the contract ex- pired and they were asked to comply with the agreement they had entered into the coal operators fatly refused and up to this time have steadfastly refused to live up to their agreement
 50 the miners are fighting, first, for the recognition of contract rights S, fighting to compel the coal operators to adhere to a contract they entered into. The struggle has, gone on for more than 70 weeks. The fight has been desperate from the beginning. In many non-union sections of the country and in some thoroughly or ganized sections as we'll, the coal op- orators have fought the miners by all the brutal, uncivilized methods that have heretofore characterized indus trial conflicts in the mining fields.
 ''In the state of West Virginia, in junction after injunction has been is sued, men have been arrested for vio- lating these injunctions, charged with the violation of these injunctions Men and their families, with their be- horn hao,, of Fl, miserable homes that belong to the operators, into the roads and high ways and on the mountainsides; but, notwithstanding these brutal methods they have stood like soldiers with their backs against the wall, unfalter- ing in their determination to win this fight.
 "I don't know whether or not you from other trades have observed a conflict where members of organized labor and their families have been de prived of their homes. Imagine, if you please, family a wife, father and four or five children, some of them babies too young to understand the meaning of 1t all, thrown out on the highway with their belongings in the rain, the snow and the sunshine. Can you conceive of a more brutal method of industrial warfare than that? With no home in which to live, and the only home we can offer them IS tent into which our organization moves them for the purpose of pro- tecting the family from the elements. That is the kind of warfare that has been engaged in.
 Last week I addressed a meeting at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, with 10000 United Mine Workers and many of their wives and children present. I never observed on the faces on any body of men and women a more fixed determination to go through with the conflict even though the fight may last all summer. As they told me the stories of brutality, of attacks that had been made upon them, my heart was touched. It thrill ed me, because 1 didn't believe there were any employers in America that would be so inhuman and brutal as to pursue the policies that have been pursued there.
 Now the struggle has reached a tention of the people, We have propose to continue to fight and fight valiantly. Our purpose is to fight to win, but our organization feels that rather than meekly submit to inde- fensible reduction of wages or the imposition of unfair conditions of em- oloy1nent, we would rather fight and lose than accept 1t without protest. That is the spirit of our people,
 In Ohio, within the confines of the state in which we are holding this convention, the district officers have been enjoined again and again, men have been arrested and haled before the courts charged with the violation of indefensible injunctions. The struggle is going on in all sections. The pressure is greater now than it has ever been. The spirit and morals of these men are wonderful, and I am sure you can appreciate, in view of the deductions in wages that have been imposed on members of organ ized labor since this march back to