The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-10-09
The Orient Miners Strike and the
Criminal Syndicalist Law
BY ZOE TASH

BY JOE lash
TIVE organizers of the National Miners Union
L and the Communist Party are being held by
the Franklin County authorities in the Illinois
coal fields, charged with criminal syndicallsm
Scores of militant miners we're taken for quest
Joining, threatened with deportation and prison
terms if they did not withdraw from the Ma
tional Miners Union.
The fire of the coal operators and their gov
eminent was drawn by the militant step taken
by the Orient miners last June when they struck
two Of the largest mines in the state of Illinois
The miners struck against the laying off of
great number of them when the Chicago VIII
mington Iron and Fuel Co. decided to install
loading conveyors and machines into the num-
Der one mine.
The attack against the Orient miners did not
come in its sharp form until late in the strike
The reason for this is clear, the bosses thought
that the strike was just another Illinois wild
cat" and that the miners would return to work
after being told to do so by the officials OF the
UMWA They failed to see in the beginning
that the strike of the Orient miners was not only
against grievances that existed in the Orient
mines, but against conditions, that exist in the
entire Illinois coal fields.
After a month of struggle the character OF
the strike revealed itself to be of militant
nature and gradually connecting itself with the
strike of the miners led by the N.M.U. in Penn
sylvania, Ohio and West Virginia and becoming
a starting point for strike that would sweep
the entire Illinois coal fields. For the issues
around which the Orient strike was fought were
the issues concerning all the Illinois miners,
against mass lay-offs against the effects of ra-
tionalization and for wage and conditions that
would enable the miners to make decent living.
The strike had another role which was directed
against the officiadom of the UM.W.A. both
district and national, and threatened to wipe
out the company controlled by U.M.W.A
When Walker district president of the UNI.
WA sent telegram "instructing" the miners
to return to work, the men promptly told him
to go plumb to hell" When John L. Lewis
came to West Frankfort with the purpose of
smashing the strike, two thousand miners jeered
and booed. throwing Lewis into confusion. Ee
yelled that the demonstration greeting him was
carried out in true Communist" fashion and
typical of action taken by the miners in Penn
sylvania against the officials of the UM.W.A
Lewis Plans Attack With Operators
1t was not until after the failure to send the
men back to work with the ready agents of the
BOSSES that the open direct and vicious attack
came against the NMU. and its militant sup
porters. Although the N.M.U. as such did not
lead the strike in an organized manner (due
to our own mistakes and weakness} the bosses
we're aware of the fact that the N.M.U. policies
which were being carried out through its men,
bers we're the backbone of the struggle threaten
ing to spread the strike to greater proportions
and linking it up with the great strike Of the
miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Vir-
ginia. This is what the bosses feared.