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Show I THE COMPANY STORE.' A ........ I (Written for The Intermountain Catholic.) I The above statement as sent over the wires by the Associated Press gives a fair insight as to the causes leading: up to perhaps the greatest strike ever recorded re-corded in the history of this country. We hope that every reader of the Intermountain Inter-mountain Catholic will study carefudy this article, and ask himself the ques- tion how long- before the coal miners and other miners of this state and her three sister states, Wyoming Montana and Colorado, will have cause to make the -same statement as is above given from the lips of a miner in the anthracite anthra-cite region where the great strike is now on. We have already had an object lesson, set us by our neighbor state, Wyomi" in which state there occurred a riot a j few years ago that not only cost this government over half a million dollars, but shocked the country by the loss of life and destruction of property. The company store' is the greatest curse that was ever put upon the laboring labor-ing classes by cold hearted, greedy capital. To bear this statement out we will briefly refer to the trouble mentioned men-tioned above, which occurred at Rock Springs, Wyo., a few years ago. The company store at Rock Springs was operated by and un?er a firm name. The miners were required to deal there. and miners dealing otherwise were soon found out, and some dissatisfaction found with their work. Next their discharge was given; even if the worker had just arrived at a point in the mine where his labor was about to be awarded by good ground that he ought to get his coal out and make good pay after, perhaps, working for weeks in wet, bad ground, where he scarcely made enough to buy the powder and tools he worked with. These men, when detected by the company com-pany store spotters, were immediately discharged and a Chinaman substituted substi-tuted in his place. If the Chinaman was detected in purchasing pur-chasing a fat "pig" from another store than the company's he vas immediately immediate-ly charged up with the pig, just the same as though he had bought it at the company store, the only difference being that the Chinaman paid twice for the same pig. Of course, the Chinaman China-man did not kick as hard as the white man, and being able to live on the in-Bides in-Bides as well as the outside of the pig. which the white man could not kIo, he was the most desirable miner as far as the company store was concerned. This kind of dealing vent on for a time, when, one bright morning, the "ignorant white miner" dressed himself in the best clothes he had, and before sundown of that day had destroyed every company house that housed a Chinaman; left over forty of the Chinamen China-men dead on the field, and the balance driven to the hills. Then' the federal governemnt was urgently requested to get trooDS on the spot without the slightest delay. It is needless to say that, the town was placed under martial mar-tial law, and later made a military post which, up toa short time ago, still remained. re-mained. The facts given above can be verified by referring to the report made by the government officials, .who were sent there to investigate, and also by the sworn statements of the Chinamen themselves who escaped during the riot. , , Utah nassed the eight hour law and received the deserved credit for being the first to do so. The law has worked so well that it has been recommended t)y the government inv2Sligators who were appointed to inquire into the Various Va-rious labor troubles and report any vuyieficial legislation that came within j - : their notice. Utah should now come forward and establish a law preventing the abuse of the company store. |