STRIKING MINERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 149, 25 June 1943, Page 5

STRIKING MINERS

MAY GO INTO U.S. ARMY Rec. 12.45 p.m. RUGBY, June 24. Thousands of American coal miners today refused to obey the order to return to the mines, issuing a new threat to production, states a New York message. Only 20,000 of 125,000 miners returned to work in the central and western Pennsylvania fields which produce the coal for the bulk of the steel manufacture. Many of these voted to remain idle until a contract was negotiated embodying their demands for wage in- . creases. The miners' action was reflected immediately in the Pittsburgh steel industries where the Carnegie and Shenango furnaces were banked. Union officials meanwhile were hopeful that the miners would return to work in large numbers tomorrow. President Roosevelt announced that he intends to ask Congress to raise the age of non-combatant military service to 65 years as a means of meeting any future threat of interruption of work in the plants, mines, or establishments owned or operated by the Government. Mr. Roosevelt said before the U.M.W.A. leaders ordered the miners back to work that the Government had taken steps to install machinery for the induction into the armed services of all miners subject to the Selective Service Act who absented themselves without just cause from work in mines I under Government operation.