On January 10, 1871, the Workingmen's Benevolent Association declared a general strike in all anthracite collieries in sympathy with the miners of the Northern field. Practically all collieries were shut down and remained so until May, when "a few shafts were started by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Company. Riots ensued. The military power of the State was called out and in a conflicit between it and the strikers, two of the miners were shot and several wounded. . . . Labor was utterly defeated in the contest."

In 1877 the great railroad strike tied up the anthracite coal mines. The miners of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western and of the Delaware & Hudson collieries joined in the strike. "Labor riots were the order of the day."'

This is the record of the anthracite region only. The battle of the Homestead strikers with the Pinkertons in 1892, the troubles in the metalliferous mines of Colorado and Idaho, the recent strike of the firemen on the Southern railways, and many other episodes in which none but Englishspeaking workmen were involved, (conclusively prove that violence in strikes is not a racial characteristic of "the recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.")

Since the United Mine Workers has won the support of these immigrants, who now form the backbone of that organization, very little is heard of strike riots. For the past fourteen years, as stated, terms of employment in the bituminous mines are peaceably agreed upon between representatives of organized mine operators and organized mine workers.

The United Mine Workers has so far failed in its efforts to gain a foothold in West Virginia and in the Southern fields. But its defeat is not attributable to recent immigrants. "Until 1897 the immigrant labor employed was not in excess of 10 per cent of the total operating forces." Consequently, the defeat of the strikes of 1894 Roberts, loc. cit., pp. 172-181.

2 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 7, pp. 146–147.

and 1895 could not have been brought on by recent immigrants. The next strike took place in 1902. "A majority of the mines were closed for a considerable period." The operators imported strike-breakers-Americans, as well as immigrants and the strike ultimately failed.'

Since that time West Virginia has been a non-union field. But it had been a non-union field also previous to the strike of 1902, when 57.8 per cent of all mine workers were native white of native parentage and 73.4 per cent belonged to the English-speaking races. Yet shortly before the strike of 1902, prices and wages in West Virginia were "30 to 70 per cent below those under similar conditions in the other States."2

On the other hand, in Alabama only 13 per cent of all mine workers are foreign-born, and only 10 per cent from Southern and Eastern Europe, while 26 per cent are native white of native parentage and 31 per cent English-speaking white, the other 59 per cent being negroes. Yet "a very small proportion of natives . . . are identified with organized labor . . . for the reason that in only one small district of the Southern field is organized labor recognized."3 A series of questions naturally arises: Why is organized labor not recognized in the Southern field? Why have the natives not organized? Why have they not won recognition for organized labor? There seems to be no chosen people endowed with special trade-union qualifications: there are well-organized mines. with a predominantly non-English-speaking force and unorganized mines manned chiefly by Anglo-Saxons.

The inability of the immigrants to understand the English language may have been an obstacle to organization among them in the early days when they were few. At present, however, when every European language is spoken in every mining field, there is no difficulty in finding a

I

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 7, pp. 150-151.

2 Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. 407–408.

3 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 7, pp. 142, 196.

sufficient number of English-speaking persons of each nationality who can represent their countrymen in union matters.

There are no available statistics of the distribution of union membership by nationality. It can be estimated, however, for the State of Illinois. In 1904, 51,167 out of 54,685 mine workers in that State, i. e., 93 per cent were affiliated with the United Mine Workers of America.2 According to the census of 1900, 78 per cent of the total number of mine workers in Illinois were of "English-speaking" parentage.3 Assuming that every one of the latter class was a member of the organization 15 per cent of the remaining 22 per cent, i.e., 75 per cent of all persons of Slav and Italian parentage, must likewise have been affiliated with the organization. In fact, the percentage of organized Slavs and Italians must have been higher, since their proportion among the coal miners of Illinois had increased from 1900 to 1904. Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that some of the English-speaking mine workers did not belong to the union, which would further add to the estimated percentage of organized Slavs and Italians. On the other hand, in Kentucky 99.5 per cent of all mine workers were of English-speaking parentage, and in Tennessee 99 per cent.4 But the proportion of union men among them was 21 per cent in Kentucky and 24 per cent in Tennessee. 5

The most significant test of the strength of the organization is its recognition by the Steel Trust:

The Slav in the mines is paid from 50 to 90 per cent more per hour than his countrymen working in the mills and factories of Pittsburg, at jobs requiring the same amount of skill and strength. In many cases the same company is compelled to pay these different rates for the same class of labor. The great steel mills and glass factories

The proportion of English-speaking persons among the Southern and Eastern European coal miners enumerated by the Immigration Commission varied for different nationalities from 30 to 75 per cent.Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 196, Table 122. See Appendix, Table XXVII. 5 Warne, ibid.

Warne, loc. cit., p. 117.

4 Ibid.

of the district are all non-union. The companies which own them also own many of the coal mines of Allegheny and Washington counties. These are all union mines, and the United States Steel Corporation, Jones & Laughlin, the Pittsburgh Glass Company, as mine owners, sign agreements with the unions which provide for an eight-hour day and a scale of wages almost double what they pay for the same labor in the manufacturing plants. Prof. John R. Commons has summed up, for the Pittsburgh Survey, a comparison of the men in the mills with those in the mines, in the following words:

"Taking everything into account-wages, hours, leisure, cost of living, conditions of work-I should say that the common laborer employed by the steel companies in their mines is 50 to 90 per cent better off than the same grade of labor employed at their mills and furnaces; that the semi-skilled labor employed at piece rates is 40 to 50 per cent better off; but among the highest paid labor, the steel roller and the mine worker are about the same.' "'I

(I

It should be borne in mind that the highest-paid positions, both in the mines and in the mills, are controlled exclusively by native Americans or by the old immigrant races, whereas the unskilled positions are practically all held by Southern and Eastern Europeans. In the semi-skilled positions, the English-speaking and the non-English-speaking workmen meet on common ground.) ( It thus appears that the activity of the union has secured the best terms for the Southern and Eastern Europeans, and a very substantial improvement for all employees where the Southern and Eastern Europeans are a factor in the labor situations, whereas in the highest grades controlled by the English-speaking races, the organized mine-workers have gained no better terms than those which the steel companies were willing to offer to the unorganized steel workers.

It is worthy of note that the Immigration Commission, while dwelling upon the failure of the United Mine Workers to extend its control to the bituminous fields of Pennsylvania outside of the Pittsburgh district, has passed in silence the signal success of the same organization in the anthracite coal fields, where the same nationalities are employed as in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania.

Leiserson, loc. cit., pp. 318-319.

The history of organization in the anthracite coal field begins as early as 1848. In that year the "Bates Union," so-called, was organized. It existed only two years. There was no organization in the anthracite coal fields until 1868, when the Workingmen's Benevolent Association was founded. It succeeded in organizing for a while 85 per cent of all mine workers. But in 1871, after an unsuccessful strike, it lost the Northern field, which remained unorganized for twenty-six years. In the Middle and Southern fields it led a moribund existence until 1875. For nine years there was again no organization. From 1884 to 1888 there were first two organizations which in 1887 consolidated into one under the auspices of the Knights of Labor, which was at that time in the heyday of its triumphs. But a disastrous strike which lasted from November, 1887, to March, 1888, put an end to the organization of the anthracite coal miners.

In 1897 the United Mine Workers undertook the organization of the anthracite mines. Its growth was slow until 1900, when it engaged in its first great strike which was won after all collieries had been practically tied up for six weeks.1 The strike of 1900 was followed by the great struggle of 1902 which was ended by the award of President Roosevelt's Anthracite Coal Strike Commission.

This brief survey shows that all organizations of the English-speaking workers were short-lived and seldom survived one unsuccessful strike. It is only since the advent of the Southern and Eastern Europeans that the union has taken a firm hold of the industry.

Dr. Roberts, reviewing the history of unionism in the anthracite coal industry, says:

John Graham Brooks, when he studied the Lattimer riots of 1897, found on the Hazleton Mountain over a dozen nationalities. He expressed the conviction that it was a hopeless task to attempt to form them into a labor organization. Paul de Rousiers, in his essay on Les Tentatives de Monopolisation de l'Anthracite, expressed a similar p. 184.

Roberts, loc. cit.,