Evening star., 1937-10-08
MINERS QUIT
TO SUPPORT S|T-|N
80 Remain Underground as
Four Are Forced by Illness
to Leave Shaft.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
LANSFORD, Pa. October g.
Seventy-five hundred hard coal miners
in the Panther Creek Valley stopped
work today in sympathy with 80 sit
down strikers huddled deep in the
Coaldale Colliery in protest against
wage scales.
The entire Lehigh Navigation Coal
Co.'S workings in this section, involv-
ing five operating units, the strippings
and the storage plants. shut down.
The action shortly before noon fol-
lowed plea by the wives of the sit
down strikers that something be done
about it." Earlier in the day the men
had voted to keep working, except in
two collieries.
Union Leader Visits Mine.
A committee. headed by Peter Flyzik
district vice president of the United
Mine Workers. visited the eighth level
of the Coaldale Colliery, where the
original band of protesters has held
forth for two days and two nights.
Flyzik said he conveyed message
from the women urging their hus-
bands to return from their quarter
mile-deep stronghold to the surface.
Workers at two of the collieries
made arrangements for a mass meet
ing. They announced they were con-
sidering an automobile parade to
Hazleton to confer with Hugh v.
Brown. district president of the mine
workers.
Earlier in the day 1,700 walked
out of the Coaldale colliery today
in sympathy with twoscore fellow
workers who began the fourth day of
a sit-down strike in a tunnel 1900
feet underground. Illness has forced
four of the sit-downers to come out of
the mine.
The Coaldale miners shouted their
support at an open-air meeting near
the mine just before work was to have
started for the day. They sent dele
cations in automobiles to four other
mines Of the Lehigh Navigation Coal
Co. to enlist their support
The $500 miners are employed in
the Coaldale, Tamaqua, Greenwood,
Nesquehoning and Lansford mines.
the principal other workings in the
Carbon County coal field. All are
owned by the Lehigh Navigation Coal
co.
Send Word to Surface.
A few hours before the sympathy
strike was declared the 80 self-im-
prisoned miners, who threw down their
picks and shovels Tuesday demanding
higher wages for opening a new level,
sent word to the surface to hold the
men at work"
-Four Of the original group were
hoisted to the surface yesterday, ill
from exposure in the damp tunnel.
One of them was Harry Danchak. So.
the Oldest man among the strikers,
advised to leave the colliery by the
company physician. DR.. Robert Kistler,
who examined the men in their self
imposed prison. He pronounced the
others physically fit.
Danchak was reticent about talking
about conditions in the newly opened
eighth level which the Sit-dOwn
strikers have occupied, but did en-
phasize:
They'll stay down there until they
die
He brought out word that his COM
panions experienced considerable diff
Guilty with fumes from the tiny coal
stoves they have kept burning to keep
themselves warm and to heat their
coffee. Their beds are planks on the
damp ground. Electric wires were
strung so they could read newspapers
and magazines
So much food has been lowered to
the sit-down strikers that they sent
word up to send them no more until
they asked for it.
Meantime. the Lehigh Navigation
Coal Co. remained firm in its con-
tention that the strike was in viola
ton Of its contract with the United
Mine Workers.