AFTER THE ANTHRACITE STRIKE

Scanned from Public Opinion, October 30, 1902.

THE convention of the coal miners' union was unanimous in its acceptance of the president's commission to pass upon the questions at issue in the strike. Mr. Mitchell said after the convention had adopted the resolution providing for the resumption of work last Thursday: "I am well pleased with the action of the anthracite mine workers in deciding to submit the issues which culminated in the strike to the commission selected by the president of the United States. The strike itself has demonstrated the power and dignity of labor. Conservative, intelligent trades unionism has received an impetus, the effect of which can not be measured. I earnestly hope and firmly believe that both labor and capital have learned a lesson from the miners' strike which will enable them to adopt peaceful, humane, and business methods of adjusting wage differences in the future." His speech to the convention followed the same lines. There was some little opposition to ending the strike without an assurance that the men should be restored to their old places, but this was soon overcome.

The Pittsburg Dispatch (Rep.) thinks that "The feature for which this strike will be memorable is the concrete recognition of the public interest in such disputes contained in the manner of its ending. The coal operators, in their statement, explicitly asserted that they were moved from their demand of unconditional surrender by the greater interest of the people as a whole who were threatened with a famine in fuel if the struggle was prolonged. President Mitchell, in his address to the convention acknowledged the same compulsion of the public interest. In no other strike have the rights of the community been so palpably involved. Practical demonstration in this case showed that they were paramount and so convincingly as to force a settlement. The doctrine of individualism, that each party to the dispute had an undoubted right to do as he pleased, has received a severe shock. With this as a basis there should be less difficulty in evolving a system of adjusting labor difficulties which will protect the public and at the same time promote justice between the disputants."

"The triumph of arbitration," the Springfield Republican (Ind.) says, "is the great factor of the memorable strike. No union of capital hereafter will venture to refuse arbitration in a contest likely to gain general public attention. No union of labor in like manner will risk a strike which identifies it with opposition to this method of peaceful settlement. It has been, however, a triumph for compulsory arbitration rather than voluntary arbitration. There is nothing voluntary about the action of the coal corporations. It is an enforced concession on their part, and the power which compelled it has been that of an unorganized body of public opinion. The lesson of it all is obvious—compulsory arbitration." The Baltimore News (Inc. Dem.) admits this, but adds that "What degree of influence it will have upon the future of the relations between capital and labor will depend in a vital measure upon the success with which President Roosevelt's commission shall find itself able to grapple with and to settle the many complex and difficult questions that will come before it for consideration." The Portland Oregonian (Rep.) thinks that the public may be moved to demand compulsory arbitration, whether or not labor and capital want it. "Suppose,'' the Oregonian says, "some day there is another strike followed by equal public distress, and the president does not happen to be a Roosevelt, and is not disposed to imitate his example. Why, then the public welfare would suffer greatly for lack of compulsory arbitration. Suppose there was another Roosevelt; there might not be another Mitchell. Suppose there were another Mitchell and another Roosevelt; there might be difficulty in persuading the operators to arbitrate, and matters might proceed to a grim extremity we have escaped. Labor and its employer may not want compulsory arbitration, but it looks as if the general public needed it."

The Brooklyn Citizen (Dem.) calls attention to the fact that "The termination of the coal strike not involve any change in the relation of the coal monopoly to the public. This is the fact, above all other which the political allies of the trust wish to hide, and which can not be hidden from intelligent eyes. Were the trust subject to competition it would not be able. to divert to the shoulders of the public the burden an increased cost of production, consequent upon to granting of better terms to the miners. It would in that event have to meet the situation, as similar situations are met in the common circles of business by reducing dividends, contenting itself with a profit of, say a dollar and eighty cents per ton, where it is now exacting two dollars. Had it been the design of the men on strike to bring sharply to the public attention the difference between trusts and ordinary business enterprises, rather than to improve their own condition, they could not have proceeded more effectively, and this is perhaps the one service they have rendered to the country by their prolonged conflict."