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A lively contest for the election of a national
executive board member for Pennsylvania District
No. 16, is promised at the annual convention which
will be held this month. The district, which comprises
the Meyersdale and George's Creek regions,
has been represented for several years by Mark M.
Smith, of the Meyersdale region, and at each election
he has had a hard fight to hold his place.
Last year he was elected by but two majority.
This year the fight against him will be renewed.
'there are several candidates in the field and the
opposition to Smith will endeavor to concentrate
on one man.
• • •
Thomas Elliott, of Freeland, Pa., is the king of
anthracite coal miners. His net earnings for the
year past amounted to $4,000. He has always
worked as a gangway miner, and during the year
he has opened 1,000 yards of gangway and sent
over 4,000 cars of coal to the breaker. This would
yield over 14,000 tons of clean coal. Elliott has
spent thirteen years at this work, and has the
business down to a science. He has driven more
miles of gangway and earned more money than
any other miner in America.
* * *
The miners of sub-district No. 5, Eastern Ohio.
who held their convention last week, elected the
following officers: President, William H. Werker.
Mineral City; vice-president, A. R. Watkins, Yorkville;
secretary and treasurer, Lee Rankin, Pine
Valley; executive board. North End, Alexander
Stern, Barn Hill; South End. James Briggs.
Guenther. The district shows 16 new locals and
the membership has increased from 10,450 to
12.279. The treasury holds a balance of $5,000.
* * *
The threatened strike at the Exeter colliery at
Pittston has collapsed. All the men are at work,
although the company owning the mine has made
no concessions from the stand taken, that owing
to the dangerous character of the workings the
miners should remain below with the laborers until
all the coal cut was loaded into the cars. This
regulation is peculiar to this particular mine, and
has not been sought to be enforced in any other
colliery in the anthracite region.
• • *
The Dietz, Wyo., local union No. 2312. U. M. W.
of A., at its meeting on February 7, passed without
dissent a resolution expelling Robert Randall
who made a sensational attack on John Mitchell at
the recent Indianapolis convention of the mine
workers' organization. repudiating Randall's
charge that President Mitchell had "sold out" the
striking Colorado miners, and asserting the union's
confidence in Mr. Mitchell's ability and integrity.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 35
A delegation of miners and coke workers from
the Edenborn mine, of the United States Steel
Corporation, Fayette county, asked the United
Mine Workers' district officials to interest themselves
in settling a strike that began on February
17. About 600 men are idle and are not organized.
The strike was called to reduce the working
hours from 10 to 9 a day.
• • •
A special meeting of the Western Kentucky Coal
Operators' Association was held at Louisville on
February 21 to discuss questions which will come
up at the conference between the operators and
operatives. The miners of the Western district
of Kentucky will hold their annual convention
beginning March 7.
• * *
Superintendent Gillespie, of the Scottdale furnace,
has announced a voluntary increase in wages
of 10 cents a day for employes. The Scottdale
furnace is operated by Corrigan, McKinley & Co.,
of Cleveland, and employs 400 men. The new
wage rate is to go into effect in March.
* * *
The miners of the Provident Coal Co.. whose
mines are located in Belmont county, O., returned
to work on February 16 after a two-day strike
based on a difference of opinion as to measuring
the yardage of the entries. The strike affected
about seventy men.
» * *
Colored men are taking the places of foreign
laborers in the steel plants in and around South
Chicago. Employers find that as they are able to
understand instructions of their foremen more
easily than the foreigners, they are not so likely
to cause accidents.
* * *
About 200 miners, employed at the Bird Eye
coal mines, near Jellico, Tenn., are out on strike.
The question at issue is the alleged refusal of
the Louisville Property Co., operating the mines,
to extend recognition to the miners' union.
• • •
State Mine Inspector George Harrison, of Ohio,
has sent out warning notices that shippers of inferior
lard and cotton seed oils for use in mines
will be prosecuted hereafter whenever their product
fails to meet the legal test.
• • *
Two hundred miners, marching in their mining
clothes and torch caps, will be a feature of the
inaugural parade at Washington. March 4. The
miners will be anthracite men and will represent
Districts 1, 7 and 9.
* * *
E. S. McCullough, of Michigan, and William
Morgan, of Ohio, have returned to the Meyersdale
field and resumed charge of the miners' organization
forces.