Coal Strike Consequences

It was July, two years ago, when the unionized employes of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. went on strike. It was April, this year, when other miners in western Pennsylvania went on strike. It was bitter November last week, when some 400 officials of the American Federation of Labor and subsidiaries met in Pittsburgh to hear of the hardships and grievances of the Pennsylvania miners and their striking comrades in West Virginia and Ohio who, with dependents, brought the total number of sufferers to 750,000.

Charges. The current bituminous coal strikes arose from the unwillingness or inability of operators to pay a wage minimum which Labor and operators had agreed to at a conference held in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1924. That conference was under the auspices of Secretaries Davis of Labor and Hoover of Commerce. Thus the gravest charge made at last week's conference was when Vice President Philip Murray of the United Mine Workers said that the Pittsburgh Coal Co. had "deliberately slapped the Government of the United States in the face in violating the Jacksonville agreement."

Since the miners struck, operators have remanned their mines with non-union labor. To prevent the union men from interfering, the operators have obtained court injunctions against them, chiefly on the ground that to interfere with coal-mining is to hamper interstate trade. These injunctions have been detailed and drastic and in Pennsylvania, to back them up, the operators have obtained special state-appointed policemen, whose salaries the operators pay. Vice President Murray's report dwelt at length on the technique of these special policemen, whom he styled "gun-men," "thugs." Coalminers are not a fragile, thin-skinned lot but they were shocked by photographs Mr. Murray showed, by stories he told, of strikers with skulls bashed and cracked by rifle butts and axes.

Governor Fisher. The Labor conference had invited Governor John S. Fisher of Pennsylvania to come and address it on the subject of state-appointed coal-&-iron police. Governor Fisher declined. It was unfortunate for Governor Fisher that he had to decline because that gave one-time (1917-21) Governor Gifford Pinchot a chance to dwell on the subject in his stead. Mr. Pinchot is no political friend of his fellow-Republican, Governor Fisher.

Mr. Pinchot. Mr. Pinchot pointed out that when he was Governor there had been no head-bashing, or any other disorder, in the coal fields. "To do justice," he said, "means that the state must neither harass capital nor bludgeon labor. . . . There has been little attempt by the government to harass employers. . . . To bludgeon labor is little short of idiocy. . . .

"Nine-tenths of the violence that occurs in strikes would be prevented by the mere exercise of courage and justice on the part of the men who have charge of the government at the time. . . .

"The police reflect the will of the administration."

Governor Fisher. The absence of Governor Fisher, furthermore, gave President John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers an opportunity to point out that Governor Fisher is a vice president and director of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corp., one of the companies fighting the unions. Two days after the Pittsburgh parley adjourned, the Clearfield Corp. obtained an injunction so airtight that it forbade strikers even to go to church when strikebreakers were attending; even to sing in public; even to speak to any non-strikers; even to receive food from the United Mine Workers. "That fact," said President Lewis, "gives a possible motive as to why the Governor permits coal and iron police, the deputy sheriffs and the State Police to run amuck in the coalfields."

More Charges. President Lewis' and Vice President Murray's speeches were fraught with further charges. Mr. Lewis named the New York Central, Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio R. R.'s as "a gigantic conspiracy of combinations of capital to break the resistance of the miners' union as a step toward weakening the entire trade union movement." Mr. Murray named President William Wallace Atterbury of the Pennsylvania as arch conspirator of these combinations, which, he said, were linked with the banks and power interests to depress the price of coal and compel independent operators to go antiunion.

Steps. President William Green of the American Federation of Labor heard the miners' troubles sympathetically. So did the heads of many a union at the conference--carpenters, glassblowers, engravers, sheet metal workers, et al.--who, on the second day of the meeting, took steps. They voted full support of the United Mine Workers, and a national appeal for immediate aid--food, clothing, funds--to the strikers, many of whom were penniless, evicted from their lodgings and living in tents, hovels, barracks. They voted that President Green and a committee should demand of Governor Fisher an investigation of alleged police outrages, and should then go to President Coolidge for Federal aid in the three matters of injunctions, police and capital conspiracies.

Governor Fisher received President Green & colleagues at Harrisburg; promised To read their report and investigate thoroughly.

President Coolidge received President Green & colleagues at Washington. . . . The President received them, heard their requests that he ask Congress to investigate the alleged conspiracies of Capital and that he call a conference of miners and operators. The President said he would confer with his Secretary of Labor.

Comment. John L. Lewis has been President of the United Mine Workers for eight years. "One who holds no brief for the coal companies" (New York Herald Tribune) commented succinctly on the "gigantic conspiracies" alleged by Mr. Lewis, as follows: "Only a first-hand observer would care to hazard an opinion as to the methods used by both companies and unions in the mine wars of Pennsylvania and West Virginia; but one does not have to be an observer to feel that there is something wrong about this picture. An economic and social tragedy which has now lasted over a long period of years of general prosperity can hardly find its sole cause in capitalistic conspiracies or its sole remedy in attacks upon the injunctive proceeds. If after all these years of his militant leadership Mr. Lewis can still report 130,000 of his followers facing starvation, eviction and broken heads, it is as much a confession of failure as a proof of virtue. There clings about Mr. Lewis an irresistible suggestion of those military geniuses who, after feeding soldiers unavailingly into the holocaust of war for four years, were still thinking of nothing better than to offer up fresh hundreds of thousands in the same unselfish strategy."