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44 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
A recent edition of the United Mine Workers'
Journal contained the following editorial: "In
one year from now about every contract held by
the United Mine Workers will be on the eve of
dissolution. It behooves every mine worker to
prepare for that event. If they are prepared,
everything will go along peacefully, but if they
are lulled into a false security and permit themselves
to be caught napping they will regret it to
the day of their death. Attend the meetings,
devise plans, lay up a fund, in a word be prepared
for war, and you will have peace. The
Japanese war illustrates the principle of being
prepared, knowing your ground, the strength of
your antagonist, his weaknesses and vulnerable
points and having everything in readiness to meet
every situation as it arises. Now is the hour
and the opportunity. Are you awake to the situation
or will next April find you as the Russians
were found—unprepared, overestimating yourselves
and underestimating your opponent? The results
will be the same, so avoid them now and have
no cause for regret a year hence."
• • •
Warrants were issued on April 16 for the arrest
of two more members of the miners' examining
board in the Hazleton, Pa., district, on the
charge of issuing fraudulent miners' certificates.
District President Dettrey of the United Mine
Workers says his investigation has disclosed the
fact that more than 1,000 fraudulent certificates
have been issued and sold since January 1. The
case of John Schaleen, on which rests the validity
of the law requiring the possession of certificates
by anthracite miners, was argued before the superior
court at Pittsburgh on April 25. Schaleen
was employed as a coal miner, but did not have
a certificate from the miners' examining board,
having previously been employed in Illinois. A
jury found him guilty of a violation of the act
and he was fined $100. An appeal was then taken
to the higher court.
* * *
It is estimated that the sliding scale was directly
responsible for the addition of $3,500,000
to the earnings of the anthracite mine workers
during the year. During ten of the twelve
months of the year the mine workers received
advances in their wages amounting to from one
to seven per cent. In the month of December,
alone, the increase of wages, based on the operation
of the sliding scale, amounted to nearly half
a million dollars, and in January it was only a
few thousands less. It is estimated that the
total earnings of anthracite miners in 1904 exceeded
$80,000,000.
* * *
Charles P. Neill, anthracite sliding sca'e commissioner,
has notified President Nichols, of District
No. 1, United Mine Workers, that the price
of coal at tidewater during March was $4.75, and,
according to the award of the anthracite coal
strike commissioners, the miners were entitled to
an increase of five per cent, in their wages. This
is a decrease of one per cent, from February.
* * *
The miners of the Beaver valley section of the
Pittsburgh district have refused to ratify the
scale arranged for them at a conference between
the operators' representatives and President Patrick
Dolan and Secretary William Dodds, of the
Pittsburgh district miners' organization. The
scale was arranged on a basis of 32 cents per car.
The men had asked for 35 cents per car.
* * *
The advance in wages granted recently in the
Latrobe, Pa., field averages about 12 per cent., the
new scale being as follows: Mining room coal,
42 cents; driving headings, 49 cents; drivers, per
day, $2.40; laborers, per day, $1.60; leveling, 11 3-5
cents; drawing ovens, 95 cents.
* • •
Officers of Alabama district No. 20. United Mine
Workers, report that there has been no change,
recently, in the situation in that district. They
admit that no gains have been made by the
strikers, many of whom have gone to other localities.
* * *
By reason of having made a number of new and
large contracts, thereby necessitating a larger production,
the Pittsburgh & Buffalo Co. is preparing
to extend operations and will shortly employ about
100 more miners than at present.
• • *
The strike of the coal miners at the United
States Coal & Oil Co.'s plant at Holden, in Logan
county, W. Va., has been declared off. But few of
the old miners will be able to secure work.
The shareholders of the Dominion Coal Co. have
authorized the issue of $7,000,000 worth of 35-
year 5 per cent, bonds. Three millions worth of
preferred stock bearing interest at 7 per cent, will
also be issued to take up the present issue of
preferred stock, which bears interest at 8 per cent.