Evening star., 1923-10-06

headwork; with me, I simply have
no caste for my job here unless l
nave little tobacco on my tongue.
So L make money by buying tobacco,
ecause with it get more coal. Per-
haps some people drink beer because
without 1T they would lose all taste
Ior work-and also. in these sad days,
for even life ITSELF
Want Enough to Live.
So l have found that among these.
as among most ard-handworkers
elsewhere, the first interest has to be
given not to political disputes, but TO
the sharp problem of getting enough
to eat and to wear
Even these wages which are con-
stantly outrun by the soaring costs
, after days and weeks Of disorder. AS
part OF the general program of pas
sive resistance number of pits here
were the scene OF the workers strike
iIs.nos or crossed arms" In this mine. for
instance, the men went down under
| ground but refused to work. When
their foremen became too insistent,
the miners went up outside" armed
themselves with sticks and then sent
In word that the BOSSES should come
out When these walked out OF the
cages of the hoist above ground they
were forced to pass through line
of many heavy blows.
May Close at any Hour.
TO this outrage the management
responded with lockout. After
some days. the extremists were tanned,
compromise arranged and work re-
sumed. Today it is one of the few
mines In operation simply because it
can send coal into Holland by means
taken over or torn up by the French.
But today, also. they may have to
close down almost any hour because
nre,dnt Ine mtiitary tay authorities practically
without which the work is too labori-
Gus in the hard veins.
we do not sleep two nights in
the same place, to avoid being put
managers already there" so one of
the superintendents told me.
I'm mine after mine. also, as in
every other place, every conceivable
effort Is almost daily made by the
soldiers to prevent the management
from getting the money for payday"
"a short time ago." so one Of the
workers told me, our bosses were
arrested by the French just as they
were taking the weeks supply of
keep us from going hungry. they
finally had to dress up and go to the
Essen Bank as farmers and egg-ped-
diers with chickens in their hands.
TO make it sure. the money was d.
vided up among more than a dozen
OF these peddlers. Since then, all
the money is being printed here by
the city of Gelsenkirchen, by the
mines and factories which have per-
mission from the government. But it
Is only question of time before the
soldiers capture all the printing
presses. What we workers will do
to keep from starving then. know
not"
Last week I happened on to about
thousand unemployed miners who
were meeting secretly in an alley for
the purpose of having their out-of-
work cards filed in and stamped.
Can't Get Products Out.
Not today but tomorrow morn
ing" one of the crowd explained,
the word will be passed around Sc
cretly, telling us where. we can go,
one by one, to get the money with
which the government. is keeping us
from starring-provided the French
do not add 1T to all the other bill
lions they have already captured
Even where the men are going
through the motions of work, such
local concerns as Krupp's are mostly
unable to ship their product because
of the bad railway situation. So the
German government has been raising
taxes and also making a nation wide
charity appeal for the "Ruhr- -Hilfe,"
workers in their resistance. to the
invasion. It is the heaviness of this
vast burden that is largely respon-
sible for the present rumors of peace
with the allies.
All this is. Of course. enough to ex-
plain the universal attitude of hatred
the men show toward the invaders.
But the surprising discovery of my
days with them down "below-day" as
they call it, is this: The worker of
the Ruhr hates the districts employ
Ing class and in general his country's
industrial captains. and millionaires
only a little less than he hates the
French.
Take SHINES, for instance:
"Out of the war he has grown" so
a miner fairly shouted as he paused
in his work, from q ten -timeS MIL
lionaire-thats gold, you understand?
to a hundred and fifty times mil
lionaire. He is supposed to be so
smart that he wants to own all our
newspapers and tell all our politi-
clans what to do. But when they ask
him how Germany can be saved. what
answer do you think he gives? Ha!
This that every laboring man must
work now ten hours instead of eight.
That's his whole solution"
Then another explains with more
wisdom than / had expected to find
so far from sunlight:
These industrielin," they tell us
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.