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young correspondent who had had the hardihood to report the truth to his paper, and, significantly saying that the air of Jed was not conducive to to his safety, informed him: "The next train leaves at noon, and it will be more healthy for you outside of these precincts." Of course, the young correspondent obeyed the warning of the corporation's well-dressed pluguglies, and stood not upon the order of his going, but went. What a hue and cry would have been sent up had a number of labor men, engaged in a contest with employers to maintain a fair living wage for their wives and little ones, attempted to exercise the same tactics upon strike-breakers, or strike-breaking agents!

While there is no sufficient safety in any of the coal mines of this country, there are no mines in any of the other States in which protection to human life is so utterly disregarded as in the coal mines of West Virginia. This is clearly due to the fact that there is little or no organization of the miners in that State to demand the enactment and enforcement of the ordinary regulations for safety appliances. The correspondent of th Cincinnati Post brought out this point in these words: "The tribute that the operators pay the dead of Jed is that they were quiet, well-behaved, docile and had never thought of unions, and never asked for more wages. They were thoroughly subdued. . . . At Jed the miners receive 20 per cent less than union wages." Here is another feature of a non-union community, written from Welch by the same correspondent: "Whatever news there has come from the scene has been brought here by couriers. Mine officials gagged all other sources of news. So powerful is the corporation that its order that no word concerning the disaster be sent from Jed over the telephone or telegraph was promptly obeyed."

It is in this State that may be expected such mine disasters as that of Jed with its loss of eighty-three lives, that of Fayetteville in 1907 with its loss of eighty, and that of Monongah in the same year with a loss of eighty-one.

How an over-supply of docile and unresisting mine workers is kept up in these West Virginia mines is illustrated by a circular, bearing the following two letters on one sheet, which within the last few weeks was distributed to immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, New York harbor:

WANTED.-1,500 to 2,000 coal miners and coal miners' helpers, either experienced miners with their families, or green laborers to learn coal mining under competent instructors. Average earnings of experienced miners $3 to $6 per day. Average earnings of helpers from $2 to $3.50 per day. Common day laborers from $1.50 to $1.75 per day. No shaft mines; all drift mines located in the Monongahela Valley between Fairmont and Clarksburg, West Virginia, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and interurban traction lines. Height of coal seam, 8 feet. THE CONSOLIDATION COAL COMPANY.

STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, OFFICES OF THE COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION. MONTGOMERY, WEST VIRGINIA, February 21, 1912. Conditions so far as general safety is concerned are vouched for by the United States Bureau of Mines and the Chief of the Department of Mines of West Virginia.

I have investigated the conditions outlined in the above statement and find them true as claimed. I find that there are no labor troubles or difficulties in the Fairmont fields and that the statement of average earnings is correct.

I think the above offer of employment is a good opportunity for men with families seeking employment. The dwelling-houses are comfortable, and rent charges I find reasonable.

JOHN NUGENT, State Commissioner of Immigration, State of West Virginia.

The advertisement and the certificate of a clean bill of health are false upon their very face. It is well known that the miners in the best States in the Union do not earn anything like the wages here alleged by the Consolidated Coal Company to be paid by it to its employes. The company knows, as the State Commissioner of Immigration knows, that if fair wages and fair conditions obtained in West Virginia there would be no need of advertisements or indorsements, but that miners would naturally drift toward that State. They know also that once the poor misled immigrants are in West Virginia, and employed at the mines, they must in their unorganized situation accept any conditions which the companies seek to impose. They must work to live, at any wage, and at any risk. They have no means to go elsewhere.

And what a commentary was the killing of eighty-three miners upon the State Immigration Commissioner's declaration that the general safety of the mines is good, or that the Chief of the Department of Mines of West Virginia has so certified. In the presence of that terrible calamity at Jed, the State Immigration Commissioner must have experienced anything but satisfaction over his unjustifiable assertion.

No man in the organized labor movement ought to look upon the taking of life by a union member with anything but abhorrence, for it is not only inhuman but of the greatest injury to the cause of the working people. It can further be said that when in the sum total of our industrial struggle some poor, demented worker, enraged by the conditions with which the toilers are confronted, by the greed and avarice and brutality of the employing classes, resorts to violence, the world is justified in raising its hands in horror. This is all true, but labor is itself often horror-stricken at the wholesale slaughter of men and women as wage-workers as exemplified in this latest mine disaster as it was not long ago by the burning of hundreds of women in the shirt-waist factory of New York, in which deplorable affair the courts have declared that there is "no one to blame." Seeing such avoidable calamities, now occurring so frequently as to be only a minor matter for the daily press to chronicle, labor harks back to the thought of the sacrifice of men to the dollar, and it solemnly declares, with its critics, that "Murder is Murder.”

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INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS AND LABOR

Τ

CONDITIONS.

By JOHN WILLIAMS,

President, Amalgamated Association Iron and Steel Workers,

HE last decade has seen a great in dustrial advancement, but we have also witnessed a more proportionate growth of monopolies. A combination of business interests ought to be a blessing to humanity, and would be so if the promoters kept in view the welfare of the masses, but under a system of private gain or self appropriation at any cost it proves

to be a curse.

John D. Rockefeller, President of the Standard Oil Company, in a written statement submitted to the Industrial Commission, January 10, 1900, gave the following as some of the advantages of industrial combinations:

First-Command of necessary capital. Second-Extension of limits of business. Third-Economy of business. Fourth-Power to give the public improved products at less prices, and still make a profit for stockholders.

Fifth-Permanent work and good wages for laborers.

That the great industrial combinations have succeeded in commanding the necessary capital will hardly be questioned.

That they have succeeded in extending the limits of business is an acknowledged fact.

That they have mastered the principle of economy will be accepted without contradiction, so far as they apply to working conditions and decreased cost of production.

That they have the power to give the public improved products at less prices, while true, does not follow out in general practice.

That they make a profit for stockholders is evidenced by their immense earning power, and by the high prices at which they sell their product.

That they furnish permanent work and good wages for laborers is not borne out,

taking as a criterion the largest combination in the steel industry, the United States Steel Corporation. Not over 5 per cent of their men earn over $5 per day, 23 per cent receive $2.50 up to $5 per day, and 72 per cent $2.50 per day or less.

For common labor the average price in all their plants is about 16 cents per hour, computed on rate paid in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Birmingham, Ala. A majority of the employes work a twelve-hour day and 20 per cent of the 153,000 employes of the blast furnaces, steel workers, and rolling mills customarily work seven days per week. The hardship of twelve hour days and a seven-day week is still further increased by the fact that every week or two weeks, as the case may be, when the employes of the day shift are transferred to the night shift, and vice versa, employes remain on duty without relief eighteen or twenty-four consecutive hours, according to the practice adopted for the change of shifts. The most common plan to effect this change of shifts is to work one shift of employes on the day of change through the entire twenty-four hours, the succeeding shift working the regular twelve hours when it comes on duty.

Since the formation of our large industrial combinations there has been a marked increase in production, made possible, partially through the introduction of improved machinery, and machinery, and continuous operation, which in turn has increased the mental and physical strain of the workers engaged in the industry.

It was expected that the introduction of improved machinery would lighten the burdens of the toilers, and would be instrumental materially in decreasing poverty. This expectation has not been realized. Instead of making the burdens of the workers lighter, instead of decreasing poverty in the ranks of the workers, we find

that the gap between the rich and poor, between employer and employe, is becoming wider day after day, labor conditions are becoming more oppressive, and the struggle for existence more intense.

Among the workers the feeling of unrest is increasing daily, brought about by intolerable conditions which can not last. Yet we are wondering why so many of the toilers are looking to and advocating the ballot as the only means of redemption from industrial slavery.

The mere formation of combinations is no ground for complaint, providing their formation enables them to place the manufactured product in reach of the consumer at a reduced price. When, however, combinations fail to do this, but seek only to secure large financial returns at the expense of the consumer, and at the expense of labor, by increasing the manufactured product, and by reducing wages, it becomes a menace not alone to the workers, but to the country at large.

By reason of the vast improvement in machinery a laborer can now produce much. more than he could formerly under the old conditions, hence is entitled to a fair share of the increased product. As a rule he is not getting it. The consumer, too, is entitled to a fair share in the reduction of the cost of production. He is not getting it. The vast bulk of the profit realized through the introduction of modern machinery and continuous operation by the workers is confiscated for the benefit of a bare handful of men. This concentration of wealth, with its unequal distribution, its accumulation in the hands of a few, leaves a mass of wealth producers in poverty and neglect. A retrospective glance into the pages of history will demonstrate that this is one element that contributed largely to the destruction of mighty empires which have gone before, and is the rock upon which our own Republic will be wrecked, if ways and means are not adopted to check its onward course.

A comparison of labor conditions under our modern industrial system with those in existence before the era of large combinations shows conclusively that the conditions of the workers from an economic and social standpoint were much superior under the old method of independent operation. Under the present industrial system the workers

do not enjoy the same freedom, and do not have the same privileges accorded them as they did under the old system. It was the general rule under independent operation that the owner of the plant, he who had his money invested in the proposition, was the general manager of the concern, not theoretically, but practically. This enabled him to come into close contact with the men he employed. It was a common occurrence under the old system for men to spend their entire lives in the employ of one particular firm or corporation. Their long years of service made them feel as though they were a part of the concern, which in reality they were. They felt that the success of the company was their success, that the disgrace of failure was their failure, hence a perfect system of co-operation prevailed.

As illustrative of the feeling that existed between employer and employe the following is a case in point. A product of old Erin had spent his entire working life in the employ of a company engaged in the glass industry, and had grown old in the service. One of the owners occupied the position of general manager, having a superintendent to assist him in taking care of the physical equipment of the plant. On one occasion it became necessary to make a change in the superintendency. The new superintendent on assuming charge noticed the old gentleman already referred to, and felt that the weight of years rendered him incapable of giving the service that a younger man was capable of giving, hence the superintendent informed the old gentleman that after one week his services would be dispensed with. To the consternation of the superintendent he was told that he did not have the power to discharge him, in language if not elegant forcible, as he was a part of that concern. Feeling a little disturbed the old fellow went into the office and related the incident to the owner, when he was asked as to what reply he had made to the superintendent. He stated the conversation that had taken place, which elicited a hearty approval from his employer. It goes without saying that he was not discharged. In this case there was a responsive feeling between the employer and the employe, which is entirely lost under modern industrial conditions.

In direct contrast the following incident came under my supervision as to methods

that are sometimes employed by modern industrial combinations. A man in the prime of life, a skilled mechanic, went into a machine shop to apply for a position. Going to one of those in charge he inquired as to whether they needed men and was informed they did, but was soon assured that he did not have a chance to secure employment, as his grey hair indicated that he had spent a long number of years in the service, hence his usefulness was in a measure impaired. However, he was one of those men who can readily adapt himself to any condition that confronts him, and realizing that he could not get employment on account of his grey hair he repaired to a barber's shop. had his hair trimmed, and afterward dyed black, when he returned to the very same shop and secured employment. He is today giving useful service in the employ of one of the large industrial corporations and bids fair to continue doing so for a long tenure of years.

The majority of those who are financially interested in modern combinations are generally far removed from the center of activity, know little or nothing regarding the human side of the proposition, are entirely inaccessible to the employes, and depend for information entirely upon supernumeraries, who in many instances are more interested in the bonuses they receive than they are in the human problem.

Owing to the competition that exists between the various plants owned and controlled by industrial combinations, the rivalry to reduce cost of production has had the effect of pitting the management of the various plants one against another. This condition has been brought about by a system inaugurated for the purpose of operating plants at the least minimum cost. Information from the higher authorities is imparted to the superintendent that a plant in a certain locality is operating at a 10 or 20 per cent lower cost. In order that he can meet the conditions prevalent in this particular plant, he speeds his employes to the limit of human endurance, and in some cases accomplishes his end by reducing the working force.

Under the old method of independent operation each plant was separate and distinct in itself. The competition among the superintendents did not exist, hence the method of competition in this respect was

not in evidence, which in turn resulted that the workers enjoyed better and more humane conditions. The speeding process as we know it today did not exist. In addition the representatives of the men and those who were directly interested met around the table and thrashed out their differences. Under present industrial conditions propositions affecting employers and employes are not discussed freely and fairly, that condition prevailing only so far as it affects concerns who are still operating under the old independent method. Large industrial combinations will not deal with the representatives in any capacity, and when some of them who now refuse to discuss the problem that exists between capital and labor did deal with the representatives of labor they did not do so with the same characteristic candor that marked the conferences held under the old method of operation. This has been directly resultant in estrangement and explains the embitterment of the once cordial relations of employer and employe.

Nor is it alone in the matter of wages and hours of labor that the workers have been affected by combinations of capital. Their very opportunities for making a living have been largely circumscribed. Indeed it may almost be said that the very laws of supply and demand have been set at naught. Let me give you an example. Some years ago the busy little manufacturing city of New Castle on the western border line of Pennsylvania was aflame with excitement because some of its enterprising citizens had announced the formation of a company for the erection of a plant for the manufacture of wire nails, starting at the raw material and finishing at the nail itself. They built that plant, and hundreds of operatives came flocking into the city with their families, and the city grew as if by magic. The plant prospered and so did its employes. Many bought homes on monthly payments, and what were once farms became thickly settled sections of the workingmen's district of the town. This success in turn brought in new business houses; and prosperity was seen on every side. Then came the gentlemen's selling agreement between manufacturers of wire nails, and a system of allotments of production was made. New Castle mill worked so many days, made so many nails, and then

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