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Show SIGNS MAY MEAN BIG COAL STRIKE. Developments in Anthracite Field Indicate That Both Sides Are Planning for Emergencies. Is there to be another coal strike, and is there to be an increase in price such as that under which the country staggered a few years ago? To this query "Kayruond" of the Chicago Tribune, writing from Scranton. Pa., says: 'These are serious questions for the householder and manufacturer, and the worst of it is no one as yet is competent to answer them, either in the affirmative or negative. There are not wanting certain signs of a momentous struggle between the working miners and operators. The United Mine Workers' Association of America has been gathering gather-ing together its forces for a final struggle and the operators have been systematic in storing up a large stock of both bituminous and anthracite coal. "Contracts in the anthracite region expire on or about April 1, and it is significant that in the bituminous fields the agreements between the operators opera-tors and the men will terminate at the same time. This means if there is a death struggle, as now unfortunately is possible, the soft coals fields of Illinois and Indiana will be locked out at the same time as the hard coal mines of Pennsylvania, and for that reason, if no other, the strike of 1900, if it does come, will be a terrible struggle. "There will be no definite formulation of the demands de-mands of the workers until Dec. 14, although the nature of their position is pretty well understood by the long series of speeches made by John Mitchell Mitch-ell here in Pennsylvania, the last of which will be tomorrow. These demands, in brief, are: For the establishment of an eight-hour day, for official recognition of the union, and for a slight increase in wages for unskilled labor at all collieries. 'President Baer of the Beading company haa informed the leading operators from here and from the other two anthracite districts that he will not entertain the proposition of an eight-hour day, and j under no consideration will he consent to recognize the union, but that he is willing to readopt the j present schedule with some minor modification. If ; President Baer means what he says, and he is the kind of a man who usually does mean it, and if President Mitchell can hold his men together at the conference in Shamokin on Dec. 14, there necessarily neces-sarily will come a split next April, and the bituminous bi-tuminous fields surely will become involved in the disaster, thus doubling the misery and money loss of the strike which President Boosevelt settled so happily three years ago. j "I had a talk today.wjthT- D..Xichclk. 'pi--i.-,' ufcut of "District Xo. 1 of-the United Mine Workers of America. He expressed his views with the utmost ut-most frankness and made not the slightest .effort : to evade responsibility or make any secret of the sentiment of the working anthracite miners. There are in this Scranton district, over which he pre- , sides, as nearly as can be ascertained, 79,000 coal miners, including officers and othersv not ordinarily eligible to union, membership. Of the total employes em-ployes in this district, about 60,000 are members of the union and more than 50,000 wear buttons. "The miners' union is not recognized by the operators, and officers of the union found it difficult to go into the mines and examine the working cards of the men. They . therefore adopted the curioua device of a large button, renewed every quarter on payment of dues and now every union miner carries car-ries his button on his cap or shirt whenever he is at work, which not only identifies him to the officers offi-cers of the union but seems to have a good moral effect in making the men proud of their organization." |