251

Domestic merchandise.

EXPORTS.

Per cent of domestic

products exported.

CONSUMPTION PER CAPITA OF

Corn.

$7 29 7.29

Per ct.

9.77

10.83

10.55

12.12

Lbs. 70.19 66.90 13.45 1.63 65.48 10.51 75.35 57.01 20.92 .94 73.24 12.88 78.40 65.98 22.50 .24 75.14 12.82 70.74 72.39 22.30 .98 78.96 14.10 74.13 67.44 16.88 3.60 71.23 11.10 76.10 65.47 20.80 79.37 70.03 32.54 76.95 70.69 23.60 71.67 70.75 25.34 72.63 68.97 19.73 77.07 71.23 25.29 78.12 67.74 35.16 83.25 65.73 40.18

82.63 68.47 37.38

75.31 67.23 31.82 77. 29.33 73.98 67.56 26.49 72. 68.96 25.86 72. 61.68 26.48 74.40 68.71 33.66 73.23 65.83 26.23

3.68 85.70 15.19 3.86 75.06 15.60 3.53 58.13 11.90 3.86 56.77 14.77 5.66 97.02 14.03 6.49 72.67 13.71 6.33 71.47 15.90 6.43 61.17 18.94 5.46 43.22 19.64 3.71 58.85 16.15 2.58 47.22 20.80 2.99 62.35 16.30 2.95 67.24 15.16 3.35 76.07 19.59 2.48 60.13 16.84 1.74 57.77 19.59 3.57 63.30 17.22 4.85 53.69 18.50 2.15 43.80 22.02 3.72 37.25 24.03 2.89 45.10 17.07 4.11 53.26 15.91 2.36 50.76 22.48

12.11

66.02 65.00

27.07

.45

63. 9.61 1.37 63.4 8.24 1.32 66.0 8.01 1.31 62.6 9.22 1.38

1.50 15.10

.44

1.51 16.08

.48

1.33 15.18

.31

1.12 14.95

(*)

8.04 1.31

CONSUMPTION OF RAW WOOL

POSTOFFICE

PUBLIC

1.00

SCHOOLS.

15.16

Per cent

foreign.

252

Early in January, 1897, the annual convention of the United Mine Workers of America was held in the city of Columbus, O., at which the question of miners' wages formed the leading subject of discussion. The continued decline in the wages paid miners for their work induced the convention to take positive grounds not only against a further decrease but also in favor of an advance in the scale then paid in the bituminous-coal districts, which covered a considerable portion of five states, with lesser areas in five or six others. The total number of miners in the entire area is not far from 375,000.

In June the prospect for a further reduction in the wages of coal miners in Ohio increased the unsettled condition and made it evident that a strike would be ordered against such a movement. On the 2d day of July, 1897, the circular announcing strike was issued by authority of the national executive board and district presidents of the United Mine Workers, which was as follows:

a

"To the mine workers of the country, greeting. Fellow-miners: At the last annual convention of the United Mine Workers of America, held in the city of Columbus, O., Jan. 12 to 16, 1897, after a full and careful review of the distressing conditions of our craftsmen, brought on by the continued reductions in our wages, in order to prevent any further reduction from taking place and to secure for us a living rate of wages that will enable us to live as Americans ought to, so as to realize from our labor at least a sufficiency to provide the necessities of life, it was determined that the scale of prices should be advanced to the following rates:

"Pennsylvania (Pittsburg district), pick mining, 69 cents per ton; Ohio, pick mining, 60 cents per ton; Indiana (bituminous). pick mining, 60 cents per ton; Illinois (Grape Creek), pick mining, 55 cents per ton, the balance of the state (Illinois) the mining rate of 1894. Machine mining to be paid three-fifths per ton of the price paid for pick mining, except in Indiana (bituminous). where the price shall be four-fifths per ton of the price paid for pick mining; other mining sections a corresponding increase in price that will place them on a relative basis.

"It was further agreed that the time for enforcement of the scale be left with the national executive board and district presidents to determine when it would be most opportune. Therefore, pursuant to the instructions of the national convention, the national board and district presidents met in Columbus on June 24-26 and decided that in their judgment the time was opportune on July 4, 1897, for the enforcement of the before-mentioned scale rates. Therefore, mine workers everywhere will take notice and govern themselves accordingly.

"Fellow-miners, the success and effectiveness of this movement will depend upon the unanimity and fidelity with which you observe and maintain the action of your national convention. The signs of the times, as pointed out by the press and by testimony of men versed in public affairs, are that business is reviving, that an upward teudency in prices of all commodities is apparent.

In the general business revival and industrial improvement which are earnestly proclaimed we ought to share, and if we do

not attempt to share we shall be false to ourselves and those dependent upon us, for remember that it has ever been 'that they who would be free must strike the first blow themselves' and that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.'

"Therefore, let our watchword be 'labor is worthy of its hire and mine workers are entitled to a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.'

"In conclusion we would urge upon the mine workers everywhere the necessity of constituting themselves into local committees for the purpose of seeing that action is at once taken to give effect and maintain the objects sought to be accomplished.

"The field of operations is large and it will be an impossibility for the national and district officers to attend to all points, consequently local leaders are urged to assume the responsibility and authority for the successful consummation of our desires.

"To insure success great care should be exercised by all that no breach of the peace occurs at any time or place or under any circumstances. Bulletins will be issued from time to time to keep you informed of the progress of affairs. "Signed by members of the national executive board and district presidents. "FRED DITCHER, "R. L. DAVIS,

"J. H. KENNEDY,
"HENRY STEPHENSON,
"JAMES M. CARSON,
"PATRICK DOLAN,

"Members National Executive Board.
"W. E. FARMS,
"W. G. KNIGHÍ,

"JAMES M. CARSON,
"PATRICK DOLAN,

"District Presidents.

"M. D. RATCHFORD,

"President National Executive Board. "JOHN KANE.

"Vice-President National Executive Board. "W. C. PEARCE,

"Secretary National Executive Board.' The number of men to be affected by the strike was given by President Ratchford at 150,000, in round numbers as follows: Ohio, 25,000; Indiana. 20,000; Pennsylvania, 50,000; West Virginia, 10,000; Illinois, 30,000; Kentucky and Tennessee, 10,000; Colorado and other states, 5,000.

With the exception of some mines in the states named, the mines comprising the union very promptly obeyed the orders of the executive committee and mining was practically suspended in the entire area of the bituminous-coal districts. On the 19th of July M. D. Ratchford, president of the executive board of the union, issued the following address, in which he set forth the grievances of which the miners complained and the demands they made upon the mine operators. He said:

"Many inquiries have been made by the press and public as to the causes leading up to our suspension, to which we make the following signed statement: Our suspension is not a choice but an alternative. It is the voice of an enslaved class urged to action by cruel and unbearable conditions, the protest of an overworked, underpaid people against longer continuing a semi-starved existence. This method of re-establishing a living rate of wages was not adopted until all other means had hopelessly failed. Conciliation looking toward a permanent, uni

form mining price to be jointly determined nas been repeatedly proposed by us, and as frequently rejected and even ignored by the employers. The spirit of the opposition was crystallized and summed up by a leading operator in joint conference, who threw down the gage of battle in the following significant language: 'Go on and fight; we are ready for you.'

"Notwithstanding the irritableness and unfairness of the above challenge, conciliation was not despaired of at that time, but was pursued until further and more convincing experience demonstrated the futility of our efforts, when we very reluctantly were forced to abandon them and resort to the last and only means at our command. In entering upon this action of last resort we were fully conscious of the vast proportions of our struggle and its effects upon the business and labor interests of the country, but having done all in our power to avert it, and exceedingly regretting its serious consequences, we do not hesitate to appeal to the nation for its verdict. The limit of endurance was reached when honest labor could no longer sustain itself. On the one side we were confronted by a heartless airay of employers, whose combined wisdom and wealth suggested no remedy other than continued submission to avarice and greed. On the other side we were met by the cries of nearly 1,000,000 men, women and children, appealing for their rights to the opportuni ties of life, and wages to sustain them compatible with economy, civilization and present industrial conditions. That wages have been reduced below the living point no one will deny who is at all familiar with th conditions surrounding the lives and earnings of the mine workers.

The following comparison of prices paid in 1893 with those paid at present tells the story: The great mining district of western Pennsylvania paid for mining in 1893, thin vein, 79 cents, and thick vein 65 cents a ton. The rate paid at present is, thin vein 47 to 54 cents a ton; thick vein, 28 to 30 cents a ton. During the same year the prices in Ohio and Indiana were 70 cents and 75 cents a ton, respectively. At present the price is 51 cents a ton or less in both states, with reduction offered, or at least contemplated, to 45 cents a ton in consequence of the low prices in western Pennsylvania. This ratio of fallen wages holds good all along the line, affecting every mining state almost equally alike. In the great Hocking valley district of Ohio the average wage per miner, in one of the largest mines, for a period of eight months, from Oct. 1, 1896, to June 1, 1897, was $60 per man, or $7.50 per man per month, gross earnings. From this amount the cost of mine supplies is deducted, leav ing the remainder with which to pay house rent, coal, etc., and support his family. At another mine in the same district the gross earnings of thirty-nine miners is shown by the written statements of the company to aggregate $223.98 for two weeks' labor, or an average of $2.87 per man per week for the same period. The deductions for company store, powder and rent, including some back rental, aggregate $619.029. The deduction for store alone, which bespeaks the total cost of supporting thirtynine families for two weeks, amounts to $179.05, or an average of $2.28 per family per week. Further illustrations indicative of the poverty and extreme suffering of the miners, and equally as heartrending, can be found everywhere.

"Ohio furnishes a fair example of the gen

eral condition of mining. I quote from the report of R. M. Huseltine, chief inspector of mines of Ohio for 1895, when the mining rate was 55 cents per ton: "Therefore at 55 cents per ton the daily wages will be found to be $1.32, or a total of $221.75 for the year's work, which will give to each miner an average of $18.48 per month.' This, it will be remembered, is exclusive of all deductions, and the mining rate was 4 cents per ton higher than the present price. The amount of increase in wages demanded, and for which we are now contending, is but 9 cents per ton over our former scale, together with a readjustment of machine mining which will place it upon an equal basis with pick mining giving to each his just proportion.

"Summing up the whole situation in a few words, this movement is nothing less than a spontaneous uprising of an enslaved people, who have determined to submit no longer to the cruel, heartless and inhuman conditions imposed upon them by unscrupulous employers, which have reduced them and their dependents to actual starvation. It should be said, in justice to a large majority of employers, that they are not responsible for this condition. It is due to the actions of a few who have cut prices far below the demands of the market, thus demoralizing trade and cutting wages indiscriminately, until a point is reached where men can no longer live by their thrift and industry.

"M. D. RATCHFORD, President. "W. C. PEARCE, Secretary."

The proposal to arbitrate the differences between the operators and the miners was favorably received on both sides, but an agreement could not be reached as to the terms upon which the arbitration should proceed. The miners demanded 69 cents a ton for mining coal until such time as the arbitrators should decide the controversy, while the operators offered 65 cents a ton pending the arbitration, and in case the arbitrators should decide upon 69 cents as the pay to which the miners were entitled the operators would make up in back pay such wages as the miners were entitled to under the award of the arbi

trators. If the arbitrators should award less than 65 cents the miners should work at a rebate until such excess should be refunded. Attempts at arbitration were therefere abandoned.

As a rule there were few outbreaks of violence. At points in Pennsylvania and West Virginia where the miners continued at work strenuous efforts were made by the operators to retain the men, while the strikers were equally determined to call them out and close the mines. The result was that meetings were held in which the working miners were appealed to to join the strikers who roamed about in large bands from one mining district to another advoeating the strike. In the federal court of West Virginia the Monongah Coal and Coke company, which had been bitterly complained of by leaders of the strike, applied to Judge Jackson for an injunction restraining the leaders from any interference with its men. The injunction was granted against Eugene V. Debs and his associates, and Judge Jackson, after reciting the allegations in the complaint, said:

"Upon consideration whereof the bill is ordered to be filed and process issued thereon, and a temporary restraining order is allowed, restraining and inhibiting the defendants or all others associated or con

nected with them from in any wise interfering with the management, operation or conducting of said mines by their owners or those operating them, either by menaces, threats or any character of intimidation used to prevent the employes of said mines from going to or from said mines, or from engaging in the business of mining in said mines.

"And the defendants are further restrained from entering upon the property of the owners of the said Monongah Coal and Coke company for the purpose of interfering with the employes of said company, either by intimidation or by holding of either public or private assemblages upon said property or in any wise molesting or interfering with or intimidating the employes of the said Monongah Coal and Coke company so as to induce them to abandon their work in said mines.

re

"And the defendants are further strained from assembling in the paths, approaches and roads upon said property leading to and from their homes and residences to the mines, along which the employes of the Monongah Coal and Coke company are compelled to travel to get to them, or in any way interfering with the employes of said company in passing to and from their work, either by threats, menaces or intimidation; and the defendants are further restrained from entering the said mines and interfering with the employes in their mining operations within said mines, or assembling upon said property at or near the entrance of said mines.

"The purpose and object of this restraining order is to prevent all unlawful combinations and conspiracies, and to restrain all the defendants engaged in the promotion of such unlawful combinations and conspiracies from entering upon the property of the Monongah Coal and Coke company described in this order, and from in any wise interfering with the employes of said company in their mining operations, either within the mines or in passing from their homes to the mines, and upon their return to their homes, and from unlawfully inciting persons who are engaged in working the mines from ceasing to work in the mines, or in any wise advising such acts as may result in violations and destruction of the rights of the plaintiff in this property.'

The injunction was the subject of merciless criticism by the strikers and their friends and was as vigorously defended by those who opposed them. Whatever may have been the merits or wisdom of the injunction, it intensified the feeling between the operators of the mines and the strikers, which culminated in a tragic affair near Hazleton, Pa., on the 10th of September, in which twenty-one marching miners were killed and forty wounded, some of them fatally, by a sheriff's posse. It seems that a band of marching miners, mostly Slavs, had been previously driven away from the Hazleton workings, after a sharp conflict, and were intercepted as they were on their way to the Lattimer breaker. The posse was under the command of Sheriff Martin and he claims his band was being roughly handled when the deputies were ordered to fire.

Previous to this a conference of the coal operators was held in the Pittsburg district on the 26th of July and an agreement was reached as to what wages they would pay for the mining of coal. It was claimed to have no reference to the strike, but it

undoubtedly did exercise considerable influence in that direction.

The agreement as adopted provided for cash payment of wages, 2,000 pounds to the | ton, check weighs on the tipples, miners to be credited with the full quantity of coal contained in the mine car, abolition of company stores, semi-monthly pay days, uniform price for pick mining in the thin and thick vein districts, and screens not exceeding one-half inch.

It also provided that in case of the violation of the provisions and terms of the agreement a penalty of 10 cents a ton on the total output of coal mined by the violator will be charged, which penalty is to be paid a commission subject to the right of further arbitration or appeal. Said penalty when collected is to be distributed among the signers of the agreement pro rata in proportion to the total amount of tonnage or output made by them during the year.

The commission is to be chosen annually and shall be known by the name of the uniformity commission. It shall be composed of nine members, the thick and thin vein operators having proper representation. The members shall be sworn to faithfully and impartially perform the duties of their office, and will be authorized and empowered to enforce the judgment and awards.

It shall also be empowered to subpoena witnesses with the same force and effect as a board of arbitrators duly appointed under the act of the assembly of the state of Pennsylvania relating to compulsory arbitration. The agreement shall not become effective unless it has been signed by 95 per cent of the operators on or before Jan. 1, 1898.

ment, if any fifteen operators shall be of the After 90 per cent have signed the agreeopinion that enough have signed to render it effective, a meeting shall be called in Pittsburg to declare it in force.

On the 10th of September an interstate convention of miners was held at Columbus, O., at which a resolution was adopted accepting the proposal of the Pittsburg operators. The vote was 495 for adoption to 817 against accepting the terms of settlement.

The delegates from Illinois, who had 250 votes, were unanimously against a settlement. Indiana and West Virginia voted solidly to accept the operators' proposition, but there were scattering votes among the Ohio and Pennsylvania delegates against it. The resolution adopted is as follows:

"Resolved, That we, the miners of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, in convention assembled, do hereby agree to accept the proposition recommended by our national executive committee, viz., 65 cents in the Pittsburg district and in all of the places in the above-named states where a relative price can be obtained, to resume work and contribute liberally to the miners who do not receive the advance, and where the fight must be continued to a bitter finish.

"Resolved, That the national officers, executive board and district presidents act as an advisory board for the purpose of providing ways and means for the carrying on of the strike where necessary; provided, however, that no district resume work for ten days, for the purpose of giv ing miners in other districts time to confer with their operators and get the price if possible."

The basis of the settlement was at the rate