SERIOUS RIOTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 9

SERIOUS RIOTS.

AMERICAN MINERS.

TROOPS CALLED OUT. Day And Night Of Terror In South Illinois. STRIKES IN PROGRESS. (United I'. A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, October 6. A message from Harrisburgh, Illinois, states that troops of the National Guard were ordered to Southern Illinois after a day and a night of terror in the coalmining areas, where a strike is in progress.

Twenty or more persons were wounded and one is said to have been killed. The power lines leading to the mines were cut. A hotel was bombed and a railway bridge near the mine property was blown up.

About 1500 pickcts were posted and tliey allowed neither doctors nor ambulances to enter the line where the wounded miners lay for hours. The arrival of the troops ended in the dispersal of the pickets.

A message from Pittsburgh states that | violence broke out anew in the tri-State j industrial area of West Virginia, t»liio and Pennsylvania as the coalminers' j strikes spread. Mine pickets tightened the lines, grimly determined to strangle production. State police are sprinkled throughout Western Pennsylvania, which is a zone of much trouble, and are busily engaged in suppressing over-zealous pickets. Many people were clubbed and several agitators, including women, were arrested. N.R.A. Officials Differ. Synchronising with the news of the miners' strikes came the official filing with the Compliance Board of a charge by the Illinois Coalminers' Union that the bituminous code under the National Recovery Act was violated by the mine owners. I

Tho Department of Justice began an immediate investigation. A conflict of opinion developed Between General Johnson, chief administrator of the Act, and Mr. Richberg, assistant administrator, as to whether the mine owners must deduct and send to the unions each worker's union dues from his weekly wages.

Mr. Richberg approved and General Johnson disapproved. It is expected that the issue will have to be settled by President Roosevelt.

In signing three codes to-day, the President eliminated from them the socalled "merit clause." This was allowed to remain in the motor industry code. It permits the hiring and discharge of employees on a basis of merit only, irrespective of existing contracts with the unions.