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Show E GREAT ANTHRACITE STRIKE. The world's record is filled with instances ere such an antipathy had grown up between 0 nations that only war and long-continued lodslied could cause either side to be governed anything like reason. Then a cooler judg-nt judg-nt was invoked and a settlement made and both ivers were given time to reflect how much bet-it bet-it would have been to have made the settle-nt settle-nt at first before the awful waste of life and asure. One thinks of these experiences which the rid has so often been supplied with when con-aplating con-aplating the great anthracite strike and the art burnings that have grown out of it, which ve increased the arrogance of the mine own-i, own-i, which have gone on until a delegation of the rkers has disgraced the country by insulting ( nation's chief magistrate for no reason exit ex-it that he, in good faith, sought to settle the Sculty. It looks now as though an adjustment II be made to bridge over the present crisis, but Till not cure the wounds that have been made take away the distrust and heartburnings that re been engendered, for both sides are mad ough and through. The mine owners feel t when they were paying good wages they were ailed by an organization that not only wanted ,r Pay, but wanted, in effect, to dictate to the ners how their business should be carried on, 0 should bo and who should not be employed I on what terms the work should be conducted. to the other hand, the laborers are nursing a ling that the owners broke their agreement to them, that their intention was to deprive !m of their fair proportion of the profits of the '1 mines, and that, inasmuch as the mine own- 1 combine to insure larger profits, it is their M to combine to make certain demands upon ltal. Tne country has been looking on in wonder lt such a state of affairs could be precipitated a time when the general prosperity of the lntry supplied to the owners of the mines a 11 Market for all their product, when the de- for coal made it possible for these owners flfe employment to all the laborers that places rk in could be found. "e wonder has been increased by the knowl- Se 1 the fact so clearly stated by President 6Vlt in his interview with the representa- t both sides in the controversy, that there a feature of the case vastly more important than the senseless quarrel between the owners and employees of the mines; that when hundreds of thousands of people have grown to depend upon a necessary product, the men who supply that product have placed themselves under a very solemn obligation to not, through a quarrel of their own, cease to supply that product. This applies alike to the capitalist and to the laborer, the more especially, when, because of such interference, in-terference, the ability to keep employed thousands of other dependent laborers is taken away. Notwithstanding Not-withstanding any present compromise that may be patched up, this claim of the public, which gives a market for coal, makes imperative the framing of a code to be interposed when angered capitalists and enraged laborers become at once a nuisance and a menace to the country's best interests. in-terests. If something of that kind cannot be put in force, the next cry will be for throwing off the tariff though there is no tariff on anthracite coal which will be a direct blow to labor, and that failing, the first demand will be for Governmental Gov-ernmental ownership. When that comes the capitalist will retire and live on the interest of the bonds he will get for his property and laborers la-borers will work for such wages as the Government Govern-ment decides to pay; and from that there will be no more appeal than a clerk in the postoffice can now make. With such a prospect before them, there should be a united demand for an arbitration code through which the settlement of strikes would be compulsory. |