STRIKES IN AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 146, 17 December 1913, Page 3

STRIKES IN AMERICA

BITTER INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES MUCH BLOODSHED MARTIAL LAW. (FROM OUft OWN CORRESPONDENT.) SAN FK AN CISCO, 13th Nov. When the miners of Colorado go on strike it always means a, condition of civil war. The men of the coal tnines in the Southern part of. the Stato are on strike now, and pitched battles, in which soldiers, mine guards, and the miners participate, are of almost daily occurrence, len years ago a miners' strike in Colorado brought the State almost to a condition of anarchy. Trains were dynamited, scores of men killed, hundreds run out of the State, and all constitutional guarantees wore withdrawn in tho zone of (rouble. The struggle now in progress is being fought out only a little less viciously. The following brief despatch from Denver, Colorado, last Saturday, describe grimly but comprehensively the happenings of a single day in the strike :—: — "Five non-union men killed, two'perhaps mortally wounded, one less seriously hurt, tour troopers of tho State militia deported by strikers, two nonunion' miners -badly beaten, an attack upon State troops at Forbes, four railway bridges burned on the Denver and Rio Grande lines marked tho resumption of hostilities by the strikers in the Southern Colorado coalfields to-day." Whether the news correctly portrays the actual conditions or not, most of the newspaper despatches from the zone of trouble describe outrages by tho fttrik ers. At Aguilar the miners fought all night against a guard of 15 men, and, finally overcoming them, thoy completely destroyed the mine offices with all thoir contents. The local post office was also burned down, and letters, mail orders, and ' money destroyed. The local postmaster declares that the mail was rifled before the building was fired. At and near Berwind, in the heart of the' coalmining district, three hot battles wore fought between the mine guards and the strikers on the day after martial law had been proclaimed in Southern Colorado. There wero many casualties, | but only one man, a non-union miner, was killed. At Tabasco, while the fight was at its height, the strikers dropped a tin bucketful of black powder into the canyon at & place calculated to throw it against one of the many frame buildings of the camp. Water from falling snow had gathered at the point where' the bucket landed, and the fuse was extinguished. At about this time the mine guards began to operato their machine guns on the strikers from the top of an embajnkmont, guided by the light of a high-power searchlight, and the men attacking tho camp wero forced to retreat. State soldiery are scattered all over the scene «f the struggle, but so far have had little success in preserving order. Another strike in which, tho soldiers were called in to aid the peace officers maintaining order raged for more than a week at Indianapolis, the chief city of Indiana, where the street car employees struck work in a body and completely tied up the city and suburban transnor-

tation systom. For eight days thousands of people who wore 'in the habit of riding on the street cars to and from their homes daily had to trudge it bapk and forth. Much popular sympathy waa evinced for the strikers, and many men and women paraded tho streets bearing placards, which read: "Wo walk; do you?" Attempts to operate cars with strike-breakers brought to Indianapolis from outsido only inflamed tho strikers . and their sympathisers to violence. There were many riots, and the cai'3 remained idle. When tho Mayor of tho city asked the Governor of Indiana to declare niartial law and order the Stato militia into Indianapolis, tho Governor retoitod that the police were not doing their duty, and at first refused to interfere. What looked like flat mutiny on the part of tho police characterised one attempt to run rars with outside operatives. Thirty policemen were ordered to ride on tho cars with the btrike-br.eakors. l'ins they absolutely refused to do, saying they would march with' the enrs", fight in the streets, use their guns ana clubs at risk to themselves, and face tho missiles of the crowd— in fact, anything but board the euro. Mayor Shank seema to have supported tho policemen in their disobedience, stating that he believed the lives of officers riding in the cars would be in danger, and ho did not want bloodshed. The policemen wero not suspended from duty, but they will bo tried on preferred charges later on. After this fiasco, the Governor ordered 2000 Stato troops to assemble, at Indianapolis, but just whon they had reached the scene the strike ended by , the employers agreeing to arbitrate 'the men's demands. During the week of disorder four men were killed and hundreds in1 jurod.