The daily worker., 1926-10-14
FOUR COUNTIES
HOLD FATE OF
next COAL war
Former NOnuniOn
Fields Form Balance
BY ART SHIELDS
Federated Press)

Federated Press)
PITTSBURGH, Pa, Oct. 12-Four
old non-unlon counties of southwest
ern Pennsylvania can largely make or
break the national strike in the bltum-
inous coal fields that may follow the
ending Of the s-year jacksonville
wage agreement next April l..
Hold Key.
Four kew coal counties Fayette
and Greene in the grip Of the steel
interests that feed their blast fur
naces in Pittsburgh and nearby metal
towns with coke. Somerset county
controlled by the Berwind-White Coal
Co that bunkers ships and supplies
public utilities from its Windber pits
and By the Consolidation Coal Co.
Rockefeller enterprise-one of the
three Of four largest coal companies
il .ae nation Westmoreland county
il it's 1100O.0OO tons a year is of
aiet importance.
These four counties, producing al
together some 5OO0O,OO0 tons a year,
SUI .rs.scd the world by joining the
great national coal strike Of 1922 and
afing the United Mine Workers.
pen shop since the Knights of Labor
PISSED in the early nineties they were
counted in the tonnage estimates Of
ths enemy. But the calculations of
Secretary Of Commerce Hoover and
other experts that the non-union fields
would take care of the market were
knocked awry. The four-c0unty walk
ont shut off nearby sources of supply
and the railroad shopmen's strike cur
tailed shipments from more remote
fields.
Must Be Defeated.
What the Somerset-W et-Westmoreland-
Fayette-Green county miners did in
1922 must be repeated if the United
Mine Workers are TO win the next
national strike. Unfortunately bad
feeling was left in the four-county re-
gion by the results of the Cleveland
conference of 1922 which ignored the
men who had saved the rest of the
union.
The new msmbers were left to con
tinue the strcSgle by themselves ex-
cept for the financial assistance which
District 2 continued in Somerset to
the end and the national union gave
the coke field workers OF Fayette
county for a more limited leriod. And
these local strikes were inevitably
broken by the coal which the struck
companies were getting from their
own mines in other districts. Open
shop ruled again.
Breach Healed.
The bad feeling which was left be-
hind has eased somewhat with the
passing Of four years and the hope of
another joint walkout next April L
If the union issues the calls bright
er again.
II is a fifty-hfty need The national
union cannot win without the non
Nnion fields and the men from there
cannot recover their wage cuts and
regain civil rights in their company
towns without the industrial solidar-
ity Of the rest Of the miners Of the
nation. No local strikes against their
powerful employers can succeed. The
Westmoreland county men found that
out in the 2-year strike Of 1911. The
Somerset men discovered It in their
fruitless continuation Of the 1922
strike into 1929. Rockefellers scores
of Consolidation mines in West Vir-
ginia, old Virginia, Maryland and
Kentucky can easily take care Of his
market needs while the Somerset men
are striking alone And U. S. Steel
can feed its furnaces with West Vir-
ginia coke II its mines and ovens OF
Fayette county alone are tied up.
But when all the miners stand to-
gether not all the gunner at the dis
posal of these big corporations-there
were 1000 in these counties alone
can break the strike. That also was
shown in 1922 when new and old un-
ion men stood together without a
break in. the FIVE months common
fight.