The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-11-28
PAT TOOHEY and
dunno SPEAK ON
The ANTHRACITE
Tell Chicago Workers
of Coal Strike
tContinued u om page ID

groups are forming everywhere Win
two things in mind, FIRST, to prepare
efficiently for the waging of the strike
and second If the strike is declar-
ed off by officials by the means Of the
fve-year agreement with no-strike
clause, at the coming convention, the
progressive miners will bring sufti-
cient number of militants to prevent
the betrayal of the men on strike.
All over the anthracite region there
is propaganda for the five-year con-
tract. The miners are asked to con-
slder the welfare of business men and
bankers. And nothing is being done
by the officials to lcounter-act this
propaganda. For that reason the re-
sponsibility for saving the union falls
upon the progressives.
Toohey Speaks.
Pat Toohey spoke after Dunno and
his speech gained for him the repu-
tation of the most interesting and
promising of youthful workers, for his
speech showed an understanding of
the workers struggle, the class-col-
laborating union officials and the
sources that make up the advocates
and upholders of the capitalist gov
eminent of America.
Toohey said the strike of the an
thracite miners Is puzzle to the min
err. as it a strike or not?" they ask.
In the soft coal regions in a strike
all the trimmings are put on. There
are mass demonstrations with jail
ings and every sort of persecution.
This does not exist in the anthracite.
The leaders of the miners union
set forth the proposition that this
strike will not be settled unless the
miners win the check-off, basing the
entire struggle on the check-off-an
issue that does not take in wages,
hours of labor, lettering of condi-
tons And the operators say we will
not concede the checK-off until we
are good and ready. =
''What is this checkloff?" you may
ask. What is this mighty issue? Just
little proposition whereby the OPP
orators become the collectors of union
dues for Lewis so that he or the other
officials do not need u do so them
selves. Soon you viii hear that the
miners have won. The fact will be
that Mr.. Lewis will get the check-off
and the operators willIhave gotten rid
Of their surplus coal. o.
Going back to theiBtrike, Toohey
told how, under the Lewis machine
system of conSueting this strike,
which they call vacation, 10000
union men are now soabbing in the
bituminous anthracite qregions. These
1000 maintenance men are really do
ing everything which comes under the
class of scabbing land still Lewis
thinks the miners are going to win
the strike as long as he permits these
union men to scab ON their fellow
workers."
He then related the deplorable con-
ditions under which the anthracite
miners work in way that only one
who has gone into the mines daily
with them and been all his life one
VI LuCiu COulu lCAdtOs AAC o0AA INV
slave like beasts in gas, water, mud
and slime and get home without a
decent days wage. One-third of the
anthracite miners, he said, is made up
of children between the ages of IL
and II. These children are supposed
" working eight hours a day but
every miner knows that in reality
.ney work IL hours for the operator
loses none of the time on the nu-
nerous preparatory moves which take
time and which is not counted into
The eight hours.
He told of the demands of the pro-
gressive miners, the chief among
them being world trade unity which
Lewis calls pipe dream. but
steamers that are today coming from
Wales and Scotland with $4,000 tons
OF coal mined by union miners to
this country while the miners here
are on strike could never happen If
this pipe dream were made a reality
by the miners union"
Very wildly and with much wit and
numOr ne tOld now ne ana Otner pro-
gressive miners we're arrested.
Halt Meeting.
Gangsters descended upon a mass
meeting of the progressive miners
committee which was packed to the
roof August Valentine was in the
chair Several 20O-pound sluggers
walked up to him, dragged him out
of the hall and to jail and kept him
there four days under the most vile
conditions. The next day miner who
worked beside Valentine in the mines,
read Of the arrest in the paper. He
had warm spot in his heart for Val
entine and decided to give bail for
him. He walked into Jail and he was
retained as dangerous red.
For five weeks they lay in Jail UNI
der the most miserable conditions
while the Lewis and Cappellini, fake
leaders, continued to betray the in
terests Of the miners and TO advocate
the expulsion from the union. But