labor unions, in 1904 the proportion of organized mine workers exceeded one half of the total number employed. Since 1898 terms of employment in the bituminous coal mines are periodically agreed upon between conferees of the conventions of organized mine operators and organized mine workers, holding sessions after the fashion of two houses of an industrial parliament.

TABLE 130.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE UNITED MINE WORKERS OF AMERICA, 1890-1904.2

The Industrial Commission says in a survey of the history of the miners' unions up to the end of the past century:

Labor organization among the coal miners has passed through extraordinary vicissitudes. The Welsh, Scotch, English, and Irish miners were well organized and maintained high wages, but in 1875, not owing to the presence of immigrants, but as a result of a strike against a falling market, their organization was entirely broken and their wages greatly reduced. Not until 1897, in the bituminous field, and 1900, in the anthracite field, was a reorganization effected, this time not of the original British stock alone, but also of the mixed nationalities from Southern and Eastern Europe. . . . While there have been serious problems in the organization of mixed nationalities, an equally serious problem which has confronted the organization of these immigrants has been the competition of the unorganized Americans of native stock. This was fully shown in the experience of the miners prior to 1897, when their organizations in Northern Illinois were defeated by the native Americans in Southern Illinois. In the first mining district of Illinois the per cent of Americans is only eleven, and in the seventh, in the Southern part of the State, it is eighty. Yet, it was these American miners in the thick and more easily mined veins of the Southern section

Frank Julian Warne: The Coal Mine Workers, pp. 120, 206, 212, 218. 2 Ibid., pp. 117, 120, 212, 218.

whose competition reduced wages so low that they were actually earning less than in the Northern districts. The success of the strike in 1897 consisted mainly in the fact that the Southern American-born miners were brought into the Union and placed on a basis of equal competition with the foreign-born miners. A similar condition at the present time confronts the mining organization of the four great States of the bituminous field in the competition of West Virginia, where the native whites of native parents number 571⁄2 per cent and the colored miners number 21 per cent of the total number of miners, compared with 20 to 48 per cent native whites of both native and foreign parentage in the other States. Prices and wages in West Virginia are 30 to 70 per cent below those under similar conditions in the other States. . . . The organization of 150,000 bituminous mine workers, over one half of whom are foreign-born of diverse races, is menaced more by the unorganized Americans of native stock than by their own internal divisions.'

In another part of the same report the history of the contests in Illinois is given in greater detail:

The jeopardy and defeat of the unions has been owing as often to the competition of unorganized Americans of native stock in new fields, as in the competition of the foreign-born. This is fully demonstrated by the experience of the miners prior to 1897, when they were defeated by the competition of Southern Illinois, and, since 1897, when they were jeopardized by the competition of West Virginia. Beginning with 1886. . . the local organization of miners known as the Federation of Miners and Mine Laborers acquired such strength that it was able to summon the operators of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois to annual conferences for the purposes of agreements regarding the scale of wages in these competitive States. . . During the entire period of these interstate conferences, from 1886 to 1893, it has been impossible for the unions to organize Southern Illinois. The miners in that section were predominatingly Americans. They were farm laborers who had turned to the mines as a source of ready cash. . . . Their rates per ton for mining coal were twenty-eight to thirty-eight cents, as compared with sixty-two to seventy cents in the Northern fields. . . . In order to protect the miners in the Northern, thin-veined districts, and permit their coal to come into the market at living wages, the union has forced the miners in the Southern, thick-veined districts to increase their earnings from the lowest in the State to the highest in the State. This is one of the necessities of the system of differentials in arranging scales of prices for different sections of the same competitive field, and it was exactly the evil of the former unorganized condition that the American

I

* Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. xxxv.-xxxvi.

...

miners in the Southern field had reduced their compensation so low notwithstanding the greater productivity of the mines, that they were earning less than the meager wages of the foreign-born miners in the Northern fields. . . . The present high wages of the Southern field are not, therefore, owing to a higher standard of living or superior capacity for organization of Americans as compared with foreigners, but are owing to the initiative and interference of foreigners, who, in self-protection, forced the Americans to a higher position than the one they were willing to accept.1

The Immigration Commission quotes the opinion of "the older employees"—"that in general the immigration of Southern and Eastern Europeans has been very disastrous to the labor unions in the coal-mining industry. In some districts the unions have been entirely disrupted, and old operatives assert that this was directly due to the coming of the later immigrants." The illustrations cited by the Commission in support of this claim prove the very opposite of it. In the strike of 1884 in the Connelsville coke region the Slav, Magyar, and Italian workmen joined the American and Irish strikers. The strike was defeated, but "the percentage of recent immigrants was relatively small"; no reason is given why the defeat should be attributed to that small number rather than to the weakness of the English-speaking majority. In 1890 the strike was again defeated, although "in this case also the immigrants joined the strike." In 1894 the men struck again. "The Americans, English, and Irish were leaders of the strike and the immigrants very generally joined the organization which had been effected only two weeks previously." The strike originally extended to seventy-seven out of eighty-five plants; after six weeks of striking ninety-two per cent of all ovens were idle. By that time, however, many of the strikers "were enduring severe hardships." Still the majority held out for two months longer, and a minority stayed out in all for five months. The strike was defeated. That was the end of the organization in that field.3

1 Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. 407–409.

2

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 332.

3 Ibid., pp. 332-334.

It is sought to fasten the responsibility for the defeat of these strikes upon the Slav, Magyar, and Italian strikers; "the American and Irish leaders" are said to have "found difficulty in restraining them from violence during the strikes." In general, it is remarked that "in strikes the recent immigrant members . . are often inclined to resort to violence and other methods that bring the union and its cause into disrepute."

In view of the recent developments in the McNamara case these protestations of "the American and Irish leaders" may be accepted cum grano salis. "The undesirable alien" is a convenient scapegoat to appease public opinion, which is not burdened with memories of the long ago. The terrorism of the Molly Maguires has a literature. Rioting is chronicled as an incident of almost every strike of importance in the coal mines for the last sixty years. The first great strike of which there is any record occurred in the spring of 1849 under the leadership of the Bates union.

"The strike was accompanied by violence. Miners, armed with cudgels, formed themselves into bands and marched down the Black Valley to collieries which were working, and by intimidation compelled the men to join their ranks."

In the strike of 1868 an effort was made by the strikers to draw into the contest all mine workers of the anthracite region.

They marched to the Mahanoy Valley and stopped the collieries there, then they advanced to the Schuylkill Valley and did the same there. Thus most of the Southern and Middle collieries were closed. They resolved then to continue their march to the Wyoming Valley and persuade the miners there to join their ranks. The employees of the Wilkes-Barre District joined them. Along the line of march they compelled all classes of workmen to throw down their tools and fall into line. The mechanics of Wilkes-Barre were forced to quit work and join the strikers; the same was done with the force working on the Wilkes-Barre jail at the time. The sheriff of Luzerne County addressed them and asked them to disperse, but to no purpose.

I

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, pp. 332–333.

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."1

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.

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