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The Coal Miners of Ohio COMRADES: On Thursday morning, with fraternal good-byes to friends in Cleveland, I took the Cleveland & Pittsburgh train for Salineville, O., a mining town of about 2,500 inhabitants. Here is established a nourishing Group of earnest workers in the propaganda of the social revolution. Salineville is a strictly mining town, and when for any reason the mines close up work all other business is practically suspended. The town lies in a hollow along the banks of a creek, for three miles almost as straight as a shoe-string, the whole population living upon or contiguous to one single street. There had been a big thaw, and I had ample occasion to become acquainted with the proverbial mud and slush of a rough, unpaved mining town. The homes of the miners in this place are a little better than I have found them elsewhere, some of them owning their houses, but the great majority are tenants at will of the corporation which owns the earth and all it contains hereabouts. Of the 500 or 600 miners employed here they are divided into nationalities, as near as I could ascertain, about as follow : About one-half of them are Irish, the remainder is made up of Welsh, Scotch, English, and German in about equal proportions, with a few Americans thrown in. The "truck," or "pluck-me," stores are in full blast here. There are four of them, each belonging to a different mining company. Miners deal at these stores under compulsion, where open books keep the running account, which nearly always runs ahead of the wages paid to them. These "truck stores" are also the payoffices of the company, where on a certain day, once a month, the miners go to settle the "store account" and receive the balance, if any is left, in wages. This arrangement makes it quite handy for the mine-owners, who keep the store account and wages due all under one head, and manage by good business qualifications and shrewd management to make one generally offset the other. The Knights of Labor and Miners' Union, which are strong in Ohio, have, as usual, sought relief from the "truck store system" by legislation. Last year, at their behest and by the aid of labor politicians, a law was enacted prohibiting the collection of money due on accounts at these stores from being taken out of wages. The miners were happy. They were told that under this law the truck store could no longer fleece them by extravagant prices and adulterated goods. But alas! how soon was this "labor legislation" brought to naught. The coal companies speedily demonstrated their power to control the law. Formerly the miners dealt at these stores as a condition precedent to employment, but now, under the "labor law," the company presents the miner who seeks employment from them a "contract" which they must sign before they are employed. This "contract" binds the miner to the company's service in many ways, the chief of which is that he waives all claim to protection of the law with regard to the companies paying themselves out of his wages for accounts run up at the truck stores. Alas for labor legislation! Alas for "freedom of contract;" the "labor law," as proclaimed in the Pittsburgh manifesto of the International, only serves to deceive, and is when necessary simply evaded by those who control the bread and consequently the life of the worker. And the "free contract" is free in so far as the worker must sign it or starve! Those who have "saved" some money can, it is true, trade at other stores, but such action is regarded as a base ingratitude by the employers, who show their displeasure by refusing employment, and consequently destroying the ability of the miner to trade at all! But such ingratitude is rarely shown by the men since the employers keep them so poor that they have no cash, nor credit, save at the "pluck-me" stores. The miners tell me that they are swindled right and left in their accounts by overcharges, short weights, and adulteration. But these are our honorable, upright, Christian, enterprising businessmen, who run their concerns on "strictly business principles." Such is the morality of commercialism. The men tell me that many of them do not handle a cent in cash during a whole year! When the great "battle for bread" was raging in the Hocking valley last winter and the members of the Miners' Union of Ohio were each assessed to pay a certain sum per month to aid the strikers, the miners of Salineville and elsewhere among them had no money, and they paid their assessment in coal at the rate of one ton per month. As an illustration of the poverty of these workers where labor furnishes the fuel for the needs of the people, it was related to me that a miner, father of a family, when passing from his daily toil on the "coal bank" the store of a merchant to whom he owed an unpaid bill for groceries, etc., the business man accosted him and said: "That account is due a long time, why don't you pay me?" The miner answered: "You know how much I make and you know it is not enough to support my family on the commonest necessities of life. If you can show me any way I will be glad to do so." As the miner spoke he held his little 10-year-old boy by the hand, and the merchant, eyeing the child closely, said, "Can't you take your son into the mine with you? He can earn something, and in that way you can pay me." The miner shook his head, and as he walked away, sadly holding his little boy's hand and pondering on what the "businessman" had said, the tears coursed down his rugged cheek. He afterward took the child into the mine and paid the merchant's bill! Such is the morality practiced by commercialism and taught from the paid pulpit of the church. Capitalism demands its pound of flesh, even though it be taken from the heart of innocent childhood. The miners work eleven hours on an average, and average two tons per day, at 60 cents per ton. They are not allowed to work more than six months in the year on an average. This makes an income of 60 cents per day the year round, or not quite $200 for a year's work, upon which they must live and support a family. These miners tell me that when they dig two tons of coal, one ton is counted as worthless by the company, and they pay them nothing for it. The nut, pea, and slack coal averages one-half the out-put; the miner receives 60 cents for the "lump coal." This lump coal brings.- $3 per ton at wholesale in the market, for the mining of which the miner receives 60 cents, but the nut, pea, and slack, for which the miner receives nothing, is also sold by the company to the working class of our cities, who buy this nut coal by the scuttle at 10 cents a scuttle, paying $12 a ton for it, as the writer knows from personal experience last winter. In fact, the so-called unmarketable coal, for the digging of which the miners are not paid a cent, is sold by the company at a sum which pays the miners' wages, Government taxes, insurance, freight, etc., leaving the "lump" or marketable coal a clear wholesale steal in the hands of the labor exploiters! And yet the Pinkerton thugs, the militia, and armed murderers are employed by these labor robbers on any pretext to prevent the miners from obtaining a 10 or 15 per cent, increase on the ton. One corporation, the Salineville Coal Company, owes its miners two months' wages for work done over a year ago, and when the men struck for the pay, over a year ago, the company pleaded poverty, and agreed to pay it as soon as they made any profit, upon which assurance the men returned to work and have been working ever since. The company still owes the two months' wages, and from all indications will owe it forever. The generosity of the coal cormorants is shown in the fact that the heads of families can have free what coal they can use, but if the sons, even though they are grown up men, work in the mine and the father does not, why, the family is compelled to buy its coal. The life of these miners is beset on every hand with danger. Three persons on the average are murdered each year in the mines, and many are crippled for life, and still more contract painful rheumatism from exposure. The mine-owners are only interested in bringing coal to the surface; but if this routine is changed by the bringing of a crushed, mangled, bleeding, and dead miner to the surface occasionally, it is no loss or concern to the company. These so-called "accidents" which destroy life are pure parsimony and indifference of the bosses, who will not provide the necessary props to the roof, which would easily insure safety to the miner? In blasting the coal, the hazardous work is shown by frequent and permanent injuries to life and limb. The mine air is foul and never pure, and the place where the miner stands, kneels, or lays to dig all day is often covered with mud and water, the water often covering the "room" from six to twelve inches deep. To dip out this water requires half a day; the company only pays for coal. The following night the room fills with water again, and the miner must again lose half a day to dip it out. The miners tell me that twice a day, on going to work and returning through the mine entrance, they run the risk of being crushed to death by the falling roof, which the company will not go to the expense of propping and thus making safe. A miner who was murdered in this way two years ago was the only son and support of an aged father, who has since sued the company for $10,000 damages. It took a year to get to the trial, when the jury disagreed, and another year must roll around before it is tried again, when the jury will again "disagree," or, better still, the old, infirm man may be dead of starvation and exposure. This old man owed the truck store, at the time of the suit, $50, and the company's agent tried to persuade the old man to withdraw the suit if they would cancel the debt. The father indignantly rejected the offer, and in his anguish cried: "You miserable scoundrels, you want to pay for my murdered son the price of an old mule." But miners are cheaper than mules, nevertheless, as the company knows to its great profit. As might be expected, your correspondent found quite a dissatisfied lot of men in Salineville, and when the mass-meeting which our comrades had arranged there took place, it was to be expected that a large attendance would be present. The meeting was announced in Masonic hall, for which the proprietor charged the outrageous price of $13. This, however, was the only hall in town, and as a monopolist he was master of the situation, viz.: pay his price or go without. The Miners' Brass Band, composed of fifteen musicians, a fine-looking body of men, discoursed several pieces of well-executed music in the calm, clear atmosphere of New Year's day in front of the hall. At the time named quite a crowd had assembled. At the opening of the meeting I announced for discussion the Socialistic declaration that by natural right and human necessities the mine belonged to the miner, the tools to the toilers, and the product to the producers. Any other arrangement of affairs left the producers a dependent, hireling class, at the mercy of the nonproducers. The poverty of the miners was the same as all other workers — enforced and artificial. The parasites, the drones in the industrial hive, absorbed all the honey and made the industrious workers drudge and slave for them. Their attention was called to the fact that strikes, boycotts, arbitration, and voting could not adjust the trouble between capitalists and laborers. What was necessary was not to soften and palliate their wage-slavery (which would not be done), but its abolition. To abolish the capitalist and destroy his power to rob and enslave would be to place all capital and means of subsistence into the hands of the people for their free use. All could then voluntarily co-operate in the production and distribution of the wealth, and poverty and want would be unknown and impossible. This and much else was said in proof of the statement that the existing social system not only made but kept the producers poor, and there was no help for it until that infamous system was destroyed utterly. The first meeting was held in the afternoon at 2 p.m., the second the same evening at 7:30 p.m. The greatest interest was shown at both. As seen from the above facts, the bodies of these miners are already lost and damned, and yet for three months this town has been afflicted with the marching and countermarching of the Salvation Army. The Salvationists are trying to save for the next world the souls of these poor people, whose bodies have already been ruined in this, and they gain some adherents, too. Religion in this form comes cheap; you can take it on the sidewalk or elsewhere, as necessity or convenience dictates. Between the actual hell and the fear of a future one they keep the ignorant and superstitious in a great ferment. The Captain of the company is a young woman of 17 summers, which is quite an attractive feature. A Lieutenant, another young woman, has already become a Mary Magdalene, but unlike Christ, their master, they have not only cast the first but the last stone at her, and she is now an outcast. Here, as elsewhere, the churches are the partners of mammon. The Catholic priest tells his congregation to beware of the godless Socialists and Anarchists, and warns them against the evils of social revolution. In his speech here recently he said to them that when they become hungry they must go to the authorities first, and if they refuse to give, then take food, and if arrested they must not resist, but obey the authorities and go quietly to prison. "All things work together for good to them who love God," says he, quoting the scripture. Nevertheless, there is a most decided revolutionary spirit among the men generally; they all feel that something must be done and quite a number have the courage to say so, and a few are prepared to act. They all declare that the existing system is infamous, but their respect for law, for authority, both on earth and in heaven, as taught them by the press, politician, and priest, restrains them from taking decided action. The burden meanwhile grows heavier and more heavy, and it will ere long become unendurable, when, God or no God, law or no law, they will cast it off. PDF scan of the original the Alarm article: https://dds.crl.edu/item/54016 |