INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES WAR AT THE MINES IN THE STATES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1914, Page 3

INDUSTRIAL TROUBLES WAR AT THE MINES IN THE STATES

USE' OF MACHINE GUNS. GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATION. ! (FROM OUK OWN CORRESPONDENT.) J SAN FRANCISCO, 3rd March. I The coal-miners' strike in Colorado and the copper-miners' strike in Michigan, botli of which have been in progress more than six months, have been productive of so much lawlessness and bloodshed that Congress has directed an investigation of tho industrial condi tions of those industries, and a committee of the House of Representatives has for some weeks been taking sworn testimony on the ground. The unrestricted use of firearms by both sides in these miners' struggles, and sometimes of dynamite, has caused them to develop into a species of private warfare. The Secretary of Labour, in his annual report to President Wilson, states that gioups of men on both sides, without police or military authority, have used firearms with fatal effect in the strikes, and he recommends legislation to regulate and restrict the shipments of arms from State to State, which is the only method in which the Federal Government has jurisdiction of the subjeot. In Southern Colorado the mineowning company's officials admitted the purchase of machine guns to protect their properties, and frankly accepted responsibility. *A tax of 1 per cent per ton on all coil mined was levied to form a fund with which to fight the strikers, and part of this money went for the purchase of weapons of warfare, which were placed in the hands of private guards. .Both the miners and the mmeowners take refuge behind the claim that they buy guns and ammunition for the piotection of theii lives and pioperty. The investigation of the Michigan strike brought out the fact that a species of peonage, or slavery, has grown up in connection with the copper mines since the strike began. Workmen are enticed fiom other States to the mines by being told that the strike is practically over. The desire of the mineowners to keep up operations without giving in to the strikers is so great that no scruple has been felt in misrepresenting conditions to these men from outside. After their arrival they are kept under constant guard day and night. An attempt was made by the representatives of the companies to 'show that the guards Ayere furnished only as a protection against strikers, but there was testimony of workmen who had attempted to leave but were forcibly prevented. Their wages were kept to pay for their provisions and lodging. Some at the end of a month had but a dollar or two due to them ; others were told that they were actually in debt to the companies.; The striking copper miners told many stories of abuses to which they had been subjected by the mineowners. In the dead of winter some 200 of them had been evicted from houses belonging to the companies because they refused to go hack to work. Men and women told of their furniture and household belongings being dumped in the snow by mine guards. One btriker said the officers carried out a hot stove while his wife was baking bread. While Congress is investigating the controveisies that have kept thousands of miners idle in Colorado and Michigan, another strike has broken out in the coal mines of West Virginia. Rioting has been more or less general, and in one conflict last week a striker was shot dead and a deputy-sheriff wounded. In Pennsylvania, where many thousands of men work in the coal mines, a strike is also not improbable. The representatives of the miners- and the companies are now endeavouring to adjust a wagescale, but after some weeks of negotiation there seejns little prospect of agreement.