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Show Mining and Financial THE business world Is beginning to take note of tho miners' strike at Bingham, and the consensus consen-sus of opinion resolves itself into the view expressed in this department weeks ago, namely, that the cost of the strike will be shifted ultimately to the order of which everyone is a member tho largest order in the world the Meek and Defenseless Order Or-der of Consumers. A very conservative conserva-tive estimate places the loss due to the strike for the first month at a million dollars. A little flirtation with figures demonstrates that the curtailment curtail-ment caused by the labor troubles in Utah and Nevada reduces the copper production of the United States between be-tween 15 and 20 per cent. As the blister blis-ter copper and matte in storage and transit are worked over into refined copper and sold, the time draws near when the big hole in the world's production pro-duction caused by the withholding of the 21,000,000 ipounds in Utah's mountains moun-tains and Nevada's desert will be painfully evident in the production reports. Expert opinion is to the effect ef-fect that the shortage will either send tho price of the metal above 20 cents a pound, to the sorrow of the consumer, con-sumer, or drive the consumer to the use of something else, to the sorrow of the manufacturer and the copper miner. In the first case the consumer will be taxed the missing million and in the latter contingency the loss will be shared by all who are connected with or interested in the copper Industry. In-dustry. Copper is a very useful and convenient conve-nient metal but it is not indispensable for many things in which it commonly is used. There is no record that Noah took any into the ark with him. The Indians and Eskimos managed to worry along without it. Every time tho price goes to an abnormal level fertile brains get busy with schemes to avoid its use. The telephone and telegraph companies are among the largest consumers. It has been found by their experts, stimulated, perhaps, by the cost of the metal, that an excellent ex-cellent telegraph or telephone wire can be made by coating a steel wire with copper. Driven Into a corner by a prolonged copper shortage, they might evolve a plan to send messages along railway tracks. Persistent in their belief that a raise of wages in the face of a strike would be a surrender to tho Western Federation of Miners, the Bingham operators, in some instances, are paying pay-ing much more than Is demanded by the strikers, to strikebreakers, in order or-der to "teach tho Federation a lesson." les-son." It appears from the quoted utterances ut-terances of the mineowners that they are not familiar with the evolution of the miners' organization in the last few years. The Federation is not, it Is plain to everyone familiar with fts history, the radical organization Avhlch fought (pitched battles with the mine-owners mine-owners at Bull Hill, Coeur d'Alone, Cripple Creek and Goldfiold. In the last two or three years the union has become very much "housebroke." In a decade, if present tendencies continue, con-tinue, the Federation of Miners will be as conservative as the Good Templars. Tem-plars. Instead of advising union men to "buy guns," as Ed Boyce did fifteen years ago, President Moyer is advising bis union to "buy mines" and develop them. The mineowners here have been Inclined to view the withdrawal of one demand after another by the Bingham tsrikers, until scarcely anything any-thing In the way of demands was left except the demand for a wage Increase, In-crease, as a sign of weakness. The unionists Bee in it a change in the policy of the miners' organization. iMany straws as big as 'bamboo fishing fish-ing poles point to an Internal revolution revolu-tion In the" ranks of tho Federation. For one thing, it has given Its assent to an affiliation with the Mine Workers Work-ers of America, the "pure and simple trades union of the coal miners. Again, it has authorized working contracts con-tracts for stated periods with the mineowners, which in itself is a sharp reaction from the old policy of striking strik-ing from sympathy. It is evident that the Federation has been learning "lessons." "les-sons." somewhere, and the mineowners of the various districts may claim some of the credit if they choose, but a more potent schoolmaster is to be found In a branch of the union itself, or, rather, a former branch, for the leaders of the old fighting clan, such as Haywood, have drifted out of the miners' union Into the Industrial Workers of the World, a strange and portentous product of the conflict between be-tween capital and labor. The Western Federation of today Is as tuttl fruttl to navy plug compared com-pared with the I. W. W., and the spirit that the Boston mine oporators are denouncing now as the animating principle of the Federation has in reality passed on to the Industrial Workers. The latter made their fight for control of the Federation at Butte, Mont., two years ago and were beaten. Ever since they have been dropping out of the older organization, leaving the control of It more securely in the hands of the conservative and non-revolutionary non-revolutionary members. These statements state-ments are not made in advocacy of the Western Federation. They are simple facts which should be known to the men in charge of the mines, for there is a possibility, if not an imminent immi-nent danger, that in destroying tne influence of the moderating Federation Federa-tion they may be playing into the hands of tho very people they think they are antagonizing by their antiunion anti-union activities. . Even though the Westen Federation Is all that has been charged by its antagonists an-tagonists hero, the substitution of tho Industrial Workers would be a sorry trade. The latter would bring back in accentuated form all the lawlessness lawless-ness of the early western mine strikes together with more subtle and vexatious vex-atious evils which cannot be enumer- (Continued on Page 13 ) MINING AND FINANCIAL. (Continued from Pago 7.) ated and described In this limited space. They were manifested in some degree at Goldfleld, Nevada, and they have been exemplified in n measuro at" Ely within tho last week. Missionaries Mission-aries of the new laber movement are working like beavers in Utah as elsewhere else-where tp extend their organization and if anyone believes that the rout of the Federation in the contest at Bingham would not bo seized by th m as an entering wedge for "industrialism." "industrial-ism." lie must bo ignorant of their tactics. |