The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-08-05
Preparing the Hoover Coal
Conference
By BURCK

personally responsible, would never enter the
slave minds of the Scripps-McRae eunuchs
The strike continues Support from other
workers in the form of relief has doubled and
trebled in the last three weeks. Nevertheless it
is clear that much sharper smashing attack on
the strike is under way and the whole front
must be strengthened to meet and defeat it.
The operators are trying to revive the UNTWA
as strilSebreaking instrument conveniently at
hand in the present emergency. But anyone who
thinks that the hardboiled lords of coal and
steel are now, without o still stronger strike,
going to give miners, through the UN1WA bet
ter wages and working conditions than pre-
vailed before the present strike are laboring
under great a delusion The big coal operators
are not at all interested in saving the fortunes
OF the smaller fry. Their program is to smash
the strike freeze out the small fry, restore and
deepen slavery and strengthen their suppressiye
machinery. They are willing that the Washing
ton Conference be called to further spreading
of the illusion of a beneficient federal govern
ment acting as an impartial mediator between
slave and master, they are willing that the Hoo
yer administration and all the Friends of the
Miners" who willing to help the miners in
every way except the strike, shall put forward
the Washington conference as an alternative to
militant organization and strike struggle as
spread.
But the big operators are going to agree to
better wages and working conditions only when
they have been convinced by an unbeatable
front of miners and other workers that miners
will no longer accept starvation and slavery as
the basis for employment in the industry. 1t is
therefore necessary to defeat the UMWA now
and thus deprive the operators and their gov
eminent of a principal weapon
The operators are going to fight it out-wth-
out very many gestures toward the worried Glib
erals, either, Some inkling of this is begin
ming to seep into the so-called brains of the edi-
torial tribe is to be seen in the following quo
tation from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette of
July q. cThe Pittsburgh Press, after fervid
denunciation of Communists and the NMU, the
day previous wrote in a similar strain on July
26):
1T is commonly understood that the Mel
Ions own much OF the stock of the Pittsburgh
Coal Company and it was emphasized that
the most powerful interests of the industry
the Rockefellers Steel representatives and
others along with the MELONS, naturally
should be invited to the washington confer
ence. Under the circumstances, the Pitts
burgh operators should have been the first of
the $50 or more invited. . to send accep-
tances dispatch from Washington saying
that none of them had yet responded-repIies
by telegram having been requested-is cause
for regret, but 1t Is difficult to believe that any
of them would deliberately seek to thwart the
efforts of the President to do something for
the distressed industry. In such course they
would not only retard efforts to improve con-
ditions for the country, but would be acting
against their best interests; they would cast
aside great opportunity to cultivate good
WILL If the Pittsburgh operators do not
do their part to bring about and make sue
cess of the proposed conference they will
cause grave disappointment"
All OF which reminds us of the attempt of the
canary to seduce the elephant.
In the meantime, the central task is to
strengthen and broaden the base Of the strike.
extend the front, bring more miners into strug-
gle for the program of the National Miners
Committee of Unity and Action expand the net
work OF elected rank and file strike committees,
build the National Miners Union, exposing and
defeating the UMWA by winning the thousands
OF miners now in revolt in the anthracite and
Illinois for the national program of unity and
action.
This is the fighting program of the mine
workers against the open warfare of the big
operators, and the slightly masked warfare pro-
gram OF the proposed Washington conference