Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-09-01


Of prophet and foretelling the destrue-
ton Of the miners organization
Ny friends, no greater calamity
try than to have the miners lose their
strike. (Applause.) The miners
organization is struggling the same as
other labor organizations are struR-
Cling. While on a short visit in New
York City in 1920 read a statement
in a morning paper to the effect that
the miners were demanding a six-hour
day and a five-day week, and the
statement was commented on editor
tally in the same paper as follows:
There's organized labor for you.
Ii is only short time ago that the
railroad men decided they would not
work longer than eight hours; now
the miners have decided they won't
work longer than six hours a day,
five days a week. By and by some
other labor organization, or perhaps
the railroad men, will decide that they
want four or a five-hour day"
The Truth About the Coal Miners
Conditions.
Not then knowing the miners side
of the story, | had to bide my time
until the truth filtered out as to what
the miners were asking for. Later
on, a big paper in the East began TO
state what it ought to have stated in
the start. IL began to tell the truth
about the miners situation, and in
stead of the miners demanding a six
hour day, five days in the week, they
were demanding that they be permit
ted to work not less than six hours a
day, five days a week, which was an
entirely different proposition from
that presented by the anti-labor press
in the beginning. The miners, nearly
all of whom have families to take
care of, could not live upon the wages
that they were receiving from the
very limited number of hours of work
they were performing each week. The
miners, like ourselves, have no press
through which to present their side of
the story, for we have none outside
of our official publications, and our
Washington weekly paper known as
Labor. But the time will come, and
it is not so far away, when labor will
have its own press equal to anything
published in America, and when that
time comes labor's side of the story
will be heard by the public, and it will
be listened to. (Long, continued APP
plause.) Organized labor is young.
comparatively speaking, it has not been
in existence very long in this country.
And it takes time to do the work that
is planned for it as the years go by.
And so, friends, the miners had to
get their story to the public as best
they could.
ran across a paper, the Sioux
City, Iowa, Tribune of recent date
that places fairly well the miners
side of the story before the public,
and its article on the coal strike is
headed, "Class Government" and it
reads as follows:
Representative Bland sums up the
coal controversy without waste of
words:
"On March 10, 1920, the operators
and miners entered into a written
agreement, which was underwritten
by this government, promising that
before the first day of April, 1922,
the operators and miners should get
together and agree or try to agree.
The operators say they will not meet
the miners. One reason is that they
want an unsettled condition in order
to boost the price of coal, and they
are boosting it. Another reason is
that they want to destroy the miners
organization. say that the force of
government ought to be brought to
bear on them and compel them to
meet"
The miners have agreed to meet
with the operators, but the operators
refuse and defy the government.
When the railroad unions threatened
to strike, being forced to action by
the determination of the railroads to
flout authority of the railroad board,
the government acted promptly with
threats of injunctions to prevent a
walkout.
What is the matter with the gov
eminent that it is not now applying
similar pressure to the obstinate and
defaulting coal operators
If production of coal ceases on
April l there will not be a strike in
the coal fields. 1t will be a lockout.
At the time that this article was
published in the Sioux City Tribune,
what Congressman Bland had to say
about boosting the price of coal has
come true, recent Washington, ID. c.,
dispatches saying that coal has in
creased in price at the mines from 20
per cent to so per cent, and in some
instances 100 per cent.
Arthur Brisbane, discussing the
coal situation, among other things
says:
"The miners will wonder after a
while and others will wonder why the
government that had so much power
in 1920 in bringing the operators and
miners together and underwriting
their working agreement wherein they
were to meet in 1922 to agree to try
10 agre, has none now. Governments
have power when they want TO have
it,"
Continued Next Week.