The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-04-26
History of Coal Miners
Union Proves Necessity of
Action on National Scale
By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL


AT SEA- Aboard United States Liner President RoOse
"A welt, Thursday, April 7. (By Mail from Plymouth
England )-There is daily morning newspaper pub
shed on this ship, in with all the steamers OF
the United States Lines. 1t is called the Chicago Irlb
une Ocean Times" It has many pages of features anC
advertisements pages in the first issue distributed or
this trip. These all made up shore Only the
10th page is printed aboard ship and this is devoted tC
calculated to be Of the greatest interest to the
passengers 1t is clearly to be that the editor who
decides what news is to appear in these Ocean Dailies
has a definite yardstick to guide him. Scandals big
court trials like the Sapiro in Detroit, famous
divorce cases. baseball and other sport news is re-
duced to paragraphs Each day. however, there is fea
tured the story that strikes hardest at the dom
nant social order the that affects all humanity
alike Thus today China gets the doublecoumn spread
with this headline Soviet Threatens to Quit Picking
Reprsal for Raid Consulate; Guns of Foreign Powers
Trained on City of Hankow; Situation Becomes More
Tense; Premier Wellington koo Resigns
But nowhere as in the New York capitalist dailes Of
yesterday is there to be found paragraph about
the crucial struggle being waged between the mine
ers and mine workers around the American coal pits
An Indiana mine is aboard this ship bound for
holiday in Europe typical of the with whic
American capitalism views the present effort of the Goa
miners to lift their standard of living under the leader
ship of the reaction that rules in the union Capitalists
and capitalist press alike realize to the FULL that tn
mine workers have been hamsrung by the policies of tn
regime in the United Mine Workers Union of Presiden
John /. Lewis and that they not in position a
this time to effective struggle The British
coal miners strike, for months, news, the Wor
around. The American coal miners struggle will en-
gage similar attention when it develops similar unity
purpose and militancy in action. To accomplish THU
end is the task of the left wing
It is nearly fourscore years since the first local unol
Of American coal miners organized by John Bates
the anthracite field in Pennsylvania in 1849 That il
the earliest effort at organization known in the Amer
lean coal industry. This more than half century
after Robert Fulton astonshed the world with his steam
boat that fired with wood in 1898, and exactly so years
after Evans invented his highpressure steam engine
But also 20 before the first great recorded
coal mine disaster that took place Sept. g. 1869, a
Plymouth, Pa, claiming the lives of ITO miners the
greatest loss of life until the Scofed, Utah. mine dis
aster May /, 1900, that took toll of 200 lives.
This pioneer effort at organization in 1849 did no
bear much fruit From this date and thru the decade
leading up the Civil War little is known, according
the historians of the miners union of the efforts of the
miners to organize local unions in either the anthracite
the bituminous fields. Evans History of the United
Mine Workers of America records that toward the
Of 1860 call sent out by union leaders in Illinois
appealing to the miners to unite and to form
izatOn national in scope 1t was pointed out then, as
now that only thru organized effort could the miners
obtain their rights and ameorate their unbearable
ditions
Thus the American Miners Association came into ex
istence the result of convention held January %
1851 This the first national union of mine work
ers in America. 1t might be looked upon amb
tious undertaking. The Weekly Miner, the propaganda
and publication of the unon established and
the organization iauncned upon a campaign 10 IOrn
locals in both the anthracite and btumnous fields The
years of depression following the Civil War proved too
much for this first effort however and by 1868 it had
lost its hold and gradually dwindled away"
Overproduction is not new evil in the industry 1t
is estimated that the yearly demand for soft coal today
totals $50 million TONS while the mines in operation
with their present labor force could produce approx
mately 900 million tons
From the beginning, therefore, there has been con-
siderable underempoyment in the industry The btu
minous mines averaged only 215 days per year in the
30-year period from 1S92-1921 The shorter workday
has, therefore, been one of the big demands of the
miners union since its inception, important even
than the demand for increasing wage rate and i'm
proved conditions.
With extreme competition prevailing in the industry
the mine has fought just hard for decreasing
wage rates the long workday and conditions of labor
that have been the of developing and growing
rest among the mine workers. Brief mention of the
abuses suffered by the coal miners show that these have
changed to any very great extent since the begin
ming. They shortweighng Of coal and excessive
dockage, resulting in the demand for check weighmen
employed by themselves the payment of wage rates
based the amount Of coal which would pass over
of certain mesh and subject of abuse,
and it pointed out that this abuse could only be
remeded by requiring payment according to the weight
Of the coal it from the mine; the nonpayment
for "deadwork the company store with its high prices,
monthly payment of wages and the company houses
with their high rents
These conditions forced the coal miners to make de-
mands upon their employers, not individuals, but
thru their organized power Even Arthur E. Suffern in
his book, "The Coal Miners Struggle for Industrial
Status" the result of investigation made under the
auspices Of the Carnegie Corporation of New York adj
mits that:
"The history OF the development of miners unions is
repete with evidence of the neffecveness of local and
district organizations compared to national oganza-
ton"
Yet President John L. Lewis is trying to fly in the