The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-07
OFFICIALS SEEK
TO STAvE Off
RISING REVOLT
Miners Relief Keeps Up
Fighting Spirit
Ey JACK RODGERS.

big hearted capitalist politicians have
suddenly come to realization of the
fact that a strike which is going in
to its eleventh month has left hunger
and disease in its wake among the
hills and valleys of Western Pennsyl-
vania. Here a smoke smeared sky
hangs like a pail over the giant steel
mills in which hundreds of thousands
Of workers sweat out their lives pro-
ducing millions for the lords of in
dustry who own the government OF
Cossack-ridden Pennsylvania.
Sudden Discovery.
Not only are the demagogic cap
italist sheets and the political pand-
erers of the democratic and republican
parties walking up TO the crisis caused
by the strike, but the high officials
of the United Mine Workers of Amer
lea, in Indianapolis, seem to realize
that there is strike on. How else
can the visit paid to this city few
days ago by John L. Lewis and
Thomas Kennedy be explained?
Hitherto Mr. Lewis has confined his
strike activities to occasional blasts
against the "reds," polite communica-
tons to the public" thru the press,
or playing the leading role in confer
ences of his peers, where we'll groomed
and prosperous labor leaders meet in
the first class hotels to talk, pass
resolutions, praise each other and de-
part to meet again at another con-
ference.
There are several reasons for the
belated interest taken by business men
and reactionary labor leaders in the
serious situation resulting from the
ong-drawn-out strike, but the most
determining factor is the growing re-
volt among the rank and file against
their own officialdom as we'll as
against the operators.
Hence the sobsisters-the female
Fanny Hurst for the Hearst sheets
and the male Basil Manly for the
Scripps- Howard syndicate-cracked
the whip over "Bolshevism" which is
represented as stalking thru the coal
fields" and issued solemn warning
to the operators that unless they dis
play more conciliatory attitude to-
wards the Lewis machine those pesky
radicals will get the leadership over
the rank and file, and then they will
have real fight on their hands.
Better union leadership that be-
lieves in cooperation between capital
and labor than leadership that will
fight every inch of the way for the
interests of the coal diggers and be-
lieves that their can be no cooperation
between capital and labor except at
the expense Of labor" This is the
club that is being waved over the
heads of the die-hard operators who
refuse to come to terms with the labor
officials. Those officials have limited
strongly time and time again that
they are willing to reconsider the
Jacksonville scale with a view to re-
vision, but that all the Concessions"
must not be made by the workers.
The rank and file of the strikers, on
the other hand, stand solidly for the
Jacksonville scale and for strictly
union working conditions.
Politics Fate.
While other considerations, such as
loss of trade in certain lines of bust
ness and the approach of the presi-
dental elections, are partly respons-
;ble for the recent furry Of excite
nient over the strike, the threatened
Investigations Of the coal situation in
general, by the senate; of the coal
and iron police by the governor Of
Pennsylvania, the organization of
business mems relief committee in
Pittsburgh; all are chiefly due to the
revolt of the rank and file of the
striking miners in Pennsylvania and
Ohio against the corrupt do-nothing-
but -draw-salaries policy of the Lewis
gang. This revolt is finding leader
ship and direction in the "Save the
Union Committee" of the miners
union and thru its organ the Goal
Digger, the first issue of which has
reached thousands of miners through
out the u. NJ W. of A.
Lose Confluence IN Macnlne.
The striking miners have lost all
confidence in Lewis, Murray. Pagan,
and the rest of the payroll gang and
are now turning to progressives and
radicals like John Brophy. Powers
Hapgood, Alexander Howat, Pat Too
hey, Anthony Minerich, Vincent Ka-
menovitch in Pennsylvania and to
Joseph Tumulty and several others in
Illinois. The most farsigh cd Of the
coal operators are visualizing the con-
sequences that may follow, should the
iragressives secure the leadership of
the miners union and they favor a
mere conciliatory attitude towards ne
Lewis machine.
4 committee Of Pittsburgh nan%ers
last week organized relief commit
tee but left the work in the hands of
group of church social workers. As
usual the principal activity of those
people will be confined to headlines in
the press and whatever relief will be