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Show The End in Sight. j DENIED the sympathy of the rich j and well born and fearing the wrath of the common people of the country, President Baer and the other coal operators on Monday presented pre-sented a plan of arbitration to President Presi-dent Roosevelt. The act of yielding to any suggestion to end the strike through mediajon of a third party in itself was a confession of weakness by the operators. Last week they absolutely ab-solutely refused to consider any proposition prop-osition whatever, offering as a substitute sub-stitute for arbitration submission of individual in-dividual cases to the rotten courts of . eastern Pennsylvania. The president was insulted and lectured upon his duty to prevent lawlessness and protect pro-tect property in the troubled region; the boast made that if federal troops were sent thither to overcome the strikers, an immediate resumption of work would follow, because Mitchell's followers did not number more than a third of the unemployed. Every regiment of militia in the state of Pennsylvania was sent to the scene, a soldier for every scab holding out against his fellows and what resulted? Not as much coal moved as on the previous week, and only a spurt for half a day in tw o collieries. , It was clear that the' soldiers could not compel com-pel the miners to return to work. It was observed that the strikers maintained main-tained a quiet demeanor that left the soldier little to do but eat his beans, drink his coffee and escort the scab back and forth to his employment. Thus' did the Insolent boast of the operators return to burn their tongues. Mitchell and the miners held the sympathy sym-pathy of the people; the divine owners of coal property were execrated, denounced de-nounced from pulpit and pilloried in the press of the whole country. Baffled and yet unwilling to surrender surren-der to general sentiment against them; stubborn to that pitch which immolates labor upon the altar of ill-gotten capital, capi-tal, the operators directed another left-handed left-handed insult to the president in a proposal to arbitrate, providing the arbitrators ar-bitrators were selected from positions which they would name themselves. Instead In-stead of such being real arbitration, it is only a gold brick. The intention was to exclude from the board any representative repre-sentative of labor and the decision was to come from men whose positions in - ft ' i " life would lead them to give a verdict in favor of capital. One of the positions posi-tions selected was to be a judge' in the anthracite coal district. God help the miner awaiting a conscientious verdict from such a Pennsylvania judge! In such form came the proposition for arbitration from' the operators, behind it the desire to get out of the hole in which they were placed by the manly conduct of Mitchell and reverse popular popu-lar opinion against themselves should Mitchell refuse to abide the" decision of a tribunal of their own composition. They knew Roosevelt, but now they know Mitchell. In spite of the implied insult to himself, the president would have yielded to this gold brick proposition propo-sition if he could persuade Mitchell to chance the loaded dice. Anything to end the strike before the November election, was in the mind of the politician. poli-tician. Mitchell won by insisting that the president should have a free hand and by insisting that a representative of labor should be on the commission he named. He also insisted upon the selection of a judge outside the anthracite an-thracite region. Both were conceded, and it is Mitchell, and not Roosevelt, who is master of the situation. Among the names included is one not contemplated contem-plated by the operators. His position is that of a Catholic bishop. The sixth, arbitrator named by the president is Right Rev. John L. Spalding of Peoria. It will take some time after the fires are lighted in furnaces before the fire of resentment against the operators is subdued. Out here in this mountain country, free from all danger of a 'fuel famine, we could only offer sympathy and aid to the sufferers without yielding yield-ing to the wrath which needed only organized action to bring about revolution. revo-lution. How near the American people were to a crisis which would upset written law for the law of necessity, is told in the strong language used at public meetings in which timid men found voice and conservatives became radicals. The "strike may be off in a week, but the lesson of it will be engrafted en-grafted into laws which shall endure forever, or so long as man is allowed to enjoy the fruits of labor and have free access to the things which God created for man alone. Unless such become written law, history will be repeated. |
