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 LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 STEWART S. HOWE 
 
 JOURNALISM CLASS OF 1928 
 
 STEWART S. HOWE FOUNDATION 
 
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 "OUR BAD WEALTH" SERIES, No. i. 
 
 "It is high time our bad wealth came to an end." — Emerson. 
 
 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES 
 AGAINST MINERS 
 
 OR 
 
 The Story of Spring Valley 
 
 An Open Letter to the Millujnair 
 
 ES 
 
 r.v 
 
 HENRY 1). LLOYD 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 BELFORD-CLARKK CO., i'L'BLLSHERS 
 
 1S90
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 HENKY 1). LLOVD, 
 
 1 8 go.
 
 ^^ 
 
 \^ 
 
 V 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAFTKR. PAGE. 
 
 I. Prelude of Starved Rock - - 5 
 
 II. Only a Modern Instance - - - 9 
 
 III. Who Hath Done This Thing? - - 13 
 
 IV. Booming the Town - - - - 22 
 V. Dooming the Town - - - - 47 
 
 VI. The Ghost of Starved Rock. Walks 
 
 Abroad ------ 53 
 
 VII. Buying Brethren Below Cost - - 82 
 
 ^ VIII. How to Make a "Free Contract" - 107 
 
 ^ IX. Appealing to the Governor - - 125 
 
 X. The Campaign of Slander - - 143 
 
 XI. "Feed My Lambs" - - - - 168 
 
 XII. Millions in It - - - - - 195 
 
 XIII. Spring Valley Only a Skirmish - 201 
 
 XIV. First Fruits ; What Will the Last 
 
 Be ? - - - - - - 215 
 
 XV. Part of the Moral, wuh Postscript 224 
 
 Appendix — What the Millionaires Said 
 for Themselves — The Replies of 
 the Miners and the Press - - 230
 
 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRELUDE OF STARVED ROCK. 
 
 Where the Illinois sweeps its placid way to 
 the Mississippi between the wooded bluffs of 
 La Salle, and over the sandstone which makes 
 many a picturesque shelf in the valley, stands 
 Starved Rock. 
 
 Rising straight from the water-side 125 feet, 
 it can be ascended only by a narrow winding 
 path from the shore. Like one of the mediae- 
 val castles which of old threatened but now 
 adorn the lochs of Scotland, Starved Rock 
 once pushed forth from all surroundings, proud 
 of itself as a sure refuge and defense. To-day 
 none but associations of ruin and defeat are 
 intertwined with the beauty of its crumbling 
 head. A fairer scene cannot be than that 
 which lies rolled out before those who clamber 
 to the top — the river, "winding at its own 
 sweet will;" its sedgy banks, the green and 
 
 (5)
 
 6 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 yellow grasses of the bottoms that stretch 
 along; the older banks of rock and blufifs a 
 mile apart, which mark where the mightier 
 river flowed in prehistoric days, when the 
 great lakes gave their waters to'the Mississippi 
 instead of the St. Lawrence. Farther yet, on 
 the higher level of these older banks, swells 
 away the upland of farm and village and forest. 
 Up the river are Ottawa, Utica, Joliet and 
 scores of other flourishing towns; down the 
 river are La Salle, Peru, and around the bend, 
 out of sight, is Spring Valley, once called the 
 " Magic City," more likely to be known hence- 
 forth as the " Tragic City," and to share with 
 Starved Rock the romantic interest of this 
 unhappy happy valley. 
 
 The Iroquois, mighty warriors of the Alle- 
 ghanies, unavailingly fighting east to keep 
 from going west under the compulsion of the 
 stronger race that has always been going west, 
 found themselves crowded into this fair land on 
 an unknown day in some unknown year centuries 
 ago. It was the hunting ground and living 
 ground of a band of the Illinois, a gentler people 
 than the savage Iroquois; but, as the whites 
 had done to the Iroquois, so the Iroquois did 
 to the Illinois. Go west! The last days of 
 these Illinois rose upon them gathered —
 
 THE PRELUDE OF STARVED ROCK. ^ 
 
 a remnant of one hundred men, women 
 and children — on the ample summit of the 
 rock, which rises as a natural castle from 
 the edge of the water. There was room 
 enough for them, and there was timberfor their 
 fires. From the broad river a hundred sheer 
 feet and more below no surprise or attack was 
 possible; the narrow pass upward on the side 
 of the land was a Thermopylae, where a hand- 
 ful could defy a host. There the Illinois stood 
 their last, the Iroquois gathered about. When 
 the besieged lowered their cups for water the 
 strings were cut; when they stole forth for food, 
 they never came back. The river of love in 
 sky, leaf and view, breeze and bird song, 
 which, like the rippling river of water, flowed 
 through the day, flowed in vain before the 
 cruel Iroquois. A few demoniac days of wrath 
 and agony, and the Iroquois stood upon the 
 wide top of the castle of rock, and there were 
 no Illinois — except the dead. It was war, and, 
 to the savage, war was right; but even his 
 heart felt something out of the ordinary in the 
 victory. It had been won, not by hand-to- 
 hand encounter, nor by brave assault, but 
 Ihrough the use, day after day, of an advantage 
 of position to deny food and water to a com- 
 petitor for the possession of land and home.
 
 8 • A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 With a touch of poetry, and perhaps aghmmer 
 of remorse, the Indians, as they told the story, 
 called the place Starv^ed Rock, and Starved 
 Rock the towered fastness will always be. 
 This was War. War paused here long enough 
 to give this cruel name to the shapely tower, 
 garlanded with green, and then left the valley 
 of the Illinois. Business came, and Business 
 hath its victories no less renowned than War. 
 At starved Spring Valley, nearb}-, the story of 
 a victory of Business is printed in the same 
 ghastly figures as that in which the Iroquois 
 found their success recorded the morninsf 
 when, no one opposing, they gained the top 
 of Starved Rock,
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ONLY A MODERN INSTANCE. 
 
 Great difficulties block the way of the thor- 
 ough investigation of the facts of any particular 
 case of the social problem by persons as ordi- 
 narily circumstanced, even when like you to 
 whom these pages are addressed they are stock- 
 holders, and, unlike you, are trying to find out 
 what their own directors are doing. It is hoped 
 that this communication — a part of which was 
 first printed in the Chicago Daily Herald — may 
 be of service not only to you to whom it is 
 specially addressed, " accessories before and 
 after the fact " of Spring Valley, but to all who 
 want to understand the " works and days " of 
 their brothers and sisters. It was agreed at 
 the National Convention of the American Fed- 
 eration of Labor in Boston, in 1889, that, as 
 their secretary put it, " Miners were worse off 
 than any other workmen in the country. " This 
 gives these results of several months' almost 
 constant study of their lot, at a place given 
 world-wide celebrity by their suffering in a 
 
 (9)
 
 10 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 peculiarly interesting crisis, some special value. 
 From one learn all. You cannot go over this 
 ground and not gain some insight into the gen- 
 eral condition of American labor, and its rela- 
 tions to capital, which were but given at Spring 
 Valley a little more light than usually falls 
 upon them. 
 
 I have selected the story of Spring Valley 
 for narration because I have come to know it; 
 not because there has been anything there in 
 your conduct as capitalists and corporations 
 specially worse than what has been done else- 
 where. On the contrary, I believe, from my 
 investigations, that the case of Spring Valley 
 is fairly representative of the relations between 
 miners and mine-owners throughout the coun- 
 try — and that is the worst feature of it all. If 
 Spring Valley were exceptional, we could dis- 
 miss it as a mere aberration of the commercial 
 conscience of some particularly depraved pot- 
 hunter, and let it go. But when, by reading 
 official documents like the reports of the Ohio 
 legislative committee of 1885 on the Hocking 
 Valley strike, the report of the congressional 
 committee of 1887 on the coal strikes in Penn- 
 sylvania, and other authorities, we come to 
 realize that Spring Valley is but one case out 
 of a multitude — but one pustule of a disease
 
 ONLY A MODERN INSTANCE. II 
 
 spread through the whole body — we begin to 
 get an idea of the seriousness of our social 
 condition. 
 
 The story of Spring Valley needs but a 
 change of names and a few details to be the 
 story of Braidwood, 111., where babies and 
 men and women wither away to be transmi- 
 grated into the dividends of a millionaire coal- 
 miner of Beacon street, Boston. It needs but 
 a few changes to be the story of Punxsutawney 
 — where starving foreigners have eaten up all 
 the dogs in the country to keep themselves 
 loyally alive to dig coal again when their masters 
 re-open the coal kennels; and Scranton, and 
 the Lehigh Valley, where the hard, very hard 
 coal barons of Pennsylvania manufacture arti- 
 ficial winter for twelve months of every year. 
 It needs but a few changes to be the story of 
 Brazil, Ind., where the Brazil Block Coal 
 Company locked out their thousands of miners 
 last year until their wives and children grew 
 transparent enough to be glasses through 
 which the miners could read, though darkly, 
 the terms of surrender which they had to 
 accept. It needs but a few changes to be the 
 story of the Hocking Valley, where Pinkerton 
 gunpowder was burned to give the light by 
 which Labor could read " the free contract"
 
 12 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 its brother Capital wanted it to sign — or the 
 story of the Reading colheries, where, as the 
 congressional committee of 1 887-1 888 re- 
 ported, the employer provoked the miners to 
 riot, and then shot the rioters " legally." The 
 story of Spring Valley needs not many changes 
 to be a picture of what all American industry 
 will come to be if the power of our Bourbons 
 of business, such as you have shown your- 
 selves to be at Spring Valley, develops at its 
 present rate up to the end of the nineteenth 
 century.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHO HATH DONE THIS THING ? 
 
 Four legal dummies, orfictitious " persons," 
 were the creators of Spring Valley. These 
 were the four corporations, the Chicago & 
 North-Western Railroad, the Spring Valley 
 Coal Company, the Spring Valley Town Site 
 Company, and the Northwest Fuel Company of 
 St. Paul, behind which you who were the real 
 persons are masked. According to any right 
 standard of morals and law, every one of you 
 who is a stockholder in those corporations 
 must bear his share of the responsibility for 
 what was done, just as each of you gladly re- 
 ceives his share of the profits. At the be- 
 ginning, Spring Valley and its miseries and 
 wrongs were the conception and achievement 
 of but one or two among the leading owners of 
 the railroad and the other companies. These 
 few did the planning, secured the approval of 
 the board of directors, and the active officers 
 of the railroad, let in " on the ground floor "the 
 
 influential men whose help they wanted, got 
 
 (13)
 
 14 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 the special freight rates needed to enable tne 
 " enterprise" to steal the business of its com- 
 petitors, bought the coal land, and invented the 
 various details of the scheme by which fortunes 
 for you and themselves were to be made out 
 of the public need for coal, the workingmen's 
 need for employment, and the misuse of the 
 powers of the common carrier. At the incep- 
 tion of the " enterprise," as Ali Baba would 
 have us call it, some of the directors and most 
 of the stockholders of the railroad, if not those 
 of the other corporations, could plead that 
 they had no actual knowledge of what was go- 
 ing on, and so no real responsibility for it. 
 But the press and other indignant protestants 
 when the iniquities of years culminated in the 
 " lock-out" made the whole matter, ending in 
 this strike of the millionaires against the miners, 
 a common scandal. But so far as the public 
 know, not one of you, the directors, not 
 one of you, the stockholders, in whose name 
 and for whose profit the campaign of starvation 
 andslander was carriedon, has disavowedor dis- 
 couraged it. You all seem to have accepted 
 unprotestingly your share of the guilt — and 
 gilt; and, if you have had any other anxiety 
 than that the millionaires should succeed in their 
 strike against the miners so that you might have
 
 WHO HATH DONE THIS THING? I 5 
 
 more gilt, you have never let the public be- 
 come aware of it. Not one of you, so far as 
 known, sent a word of sympathy, or a mouthful 
 of food, to the thousands who were being 
 ground to powder by your agents for your 
 benefit. Just who you are, accessories of the 
 original willing sinners, the people cannot 
 learn, for the names of the stockholders of our 
 public corporations are kept in closest secrecy 
 as one of the prerogatives of the private owner- 
 ship of public highways. The laws of the 
 State of Illinois require its railroads to keep 
 records in Chicago, in which the transfers of 
 stock are noted. Even that is not done by these 
 bundles of men — so powerful because so well 
 tied together. They think it of no ill omen to 
 themselves, who get their vast wealth from 
 control of the roads, given them by the law, to 
 set a public example of flagrant nullification of 
 law. The corporation, which the great polit- 
 ical economist Adam Smith predicted would 
 never come into general use, has grown to be 
 the almost universal instrument of modern 
 business. It has become greater than govern- 
 ment, and it shrouds its members in a secrecy, 
 under the dark protection of which they can, 
 with impunity, give rein to passions of power 
 and greed. They have the cloak of invisi-
 
 l6 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 bility, and they use it as men of prey and lust 
 would use the darkness of our streets if cities 
 put out their lights and went back to medi- 
 iEval gloom and crime. The public cannot 
 penetrate into the anonymity which protects 
 all of you who are responsible for Spring 
 Valley. It only knows the names of those 
 who were your " directors," among whom are 
 the largest owners, or representatives of the 
 largest owners, but does not know what part 
 they may have taken in the transactions de- 
 scribed in this book, nor to what degree their 
 responsibility is actual or constructive. This 
 is as lucky for those actually guilty, who are 
 lost in the crowd, as it is unlucky for those 
 who are discredited by being associated with 
 them. For the Chicago & North-Western Rail- 
 way the directors were : Messrs. Albert Keep, 
 Chauncey M. Depew, N. K. Fairbank, Will- 
 iam K, Vanderbilt, F. W. Vanderbilt, John 
 I. Blair, William L. Scott, Marvin Hughitt, 
 Horace Williams, John M. Burke, H. M. 
 Twomblcy, D. O. Mills, Samuel F. Barger, 
 Percy R. Pyne, A. G. Dulman, M. L. Sykes, 
 D. P. Kimball, and for the Town Site Com- 
 pany, the Coal Company, and the Northwest 
 Fuel Co. of St. Paul, Messrs. Scott, Saunders, 
 and Sheppard, among others. The Spring Val-
 
 WHO HATH DONE THIS THING? I'J 
 
 ley Coal Company, owning and mining the coal 
 lands ; the Town Site Company, buying farms 
 to sell as " city lots," were organized and are 
 owned and controlled by a powerful interest 
 — powerful both in ownership and authority 
 — in the Chicago & North-Western Railroad. 
 The same interest reappears in part in the 
 Northwest Fuel Company, of St. Paul. In 
 the annual report which you who own the 
 North-Western Railroad made to the stock- 
 holders and the public for the fiscal year end- 
 ing May 31, 1885, you said: "The company 
 has found it necessary to begin the construc- 
 tion of about seventy-five miles of railroad, 
 projected as a coal road, under the charter of 
 the Northern Illinois Railway, extending from 
 the coal deposits adjacent to La Salle, 111., to 
 Belvidere, on the Freeport line, where it forms 
 a direct connection with the lines of this com- 
 pany, for the distribution of coal in the State 
 of Wisconsin and throughout the Northwest. 
 The lines will be a great local convenience to 
 the company in reaching a supply of fuel by 
 the shortest and cheapest route for its own 
 consumption and for the wants of the general 
 public. The means for its construction are 
 procured by the issue and sale of the Northern 
 Illinois first mortgage five per cent, twenty-
 
 l8 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 fw'C year bonds at the rate of $20,000 a mile 
 for seventy-five miles, and the bonds are guar- 
 anteed, principal and interest, by the Chicago 
 & North-Western Railroad, the sole owners of 
 the property." This announcement the public 
 afterward saw was made good by the expendi- 
 ture of large sums — $207,802.82 in 1884-5, 
 $r, 1 20, 1 77. 47 in 1885-6, $72,1 I 2.78 ini 886-7. 
 The owners of the North-Western Railroad 
 and the coal company, in part the same per- 
 sons, made contracts with each other, that is 
 themselves, for the purchase of the coal and 
 for the rates at which it should be moved. 
 Whenever the question of coal freights between 
 northern Illinois and the Northwest was dis- 
 cussed by any meeting of traffic managers, 
 those representing the owners of the North- 
 Western road always made a fight to get the 
 best rates for the North-Western's coal from 
 Spring Valley. The road made the same 
 charge for the Western trade for hauling coal 
 from Spring Valley as from Chicago; that is, 
 it hauled the coal from Spring Valley to Chi- 
 cago for nothing. By the powerful help of the 
 managers of the road the product of Spring 
 Valley has made its appearance at all the im- 
 portant coal-buying points in the Northwest 
 at prices which made it morally certain to the
 
 WHO HATH DONE THIS THING? 1 9 
 
 » 
 
 unhappy competitors that its shippers got a re- 
 bate. Numberless circumstances have indi- 
 cated so close a relation between the railroad 
 and the coal company that the latter is habitu- 
 ally spoken of in the trade as the " North- 
 Western's coal mine," and always so among 
 railroad men. 
 
 A common personality runs through the 
 ownership of the railroad, the coal mine, the 
 town lots, and the fuel company's business. 
 Through this mutual element an identity of 
 interest was established for all the associated 
 capitalists of these enterprises, who represent 
 upward of $500,000,000 at the least. The 
 identity of interest has been practical, not 
 nominal. They have accepted the results, still 
 possess them, and are expectantly waiting for 
 more. Through the easy machinery of the cor- 
 poration, which is your kind of labor union, there 
 has been a concert of action, with a common 
 design, for a common object. The profits on 
 the sale of farms as city lots to laborers and 
 tradesmen, on the transportation of the coal, 
 on the use of it for the locomotives of the 
 road, on the buying and selling of it, on the 
 sales of supplies to the miners, have gone 
 to one or another of you to whom this letter 
 is addressed. You cannot share in the benefits
 
 20 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 of this co-operation without sharing its respon- 
 sibilities, even though you act through the con- 
 venient impersonality of the corporation. You 
 are the " Captains of Industry " in this enterprise, 
 and, if you accept the acts of your agents, they 
 are your acts. Your agent has appealed in 
 numbers of public statements to the public to 
 be the arbiter between you and the workingmen 
 and business men of Spring Valley, whose 
 harm he has wrought — and you have wrought 
 if you abide with him — for your business 
 gain. " With public opinion," said Lincoln, 
 " all things are possible; against it, nothing is 
 possible." Whether your agent has done 
 wisely to appeal to public opinion depends 
 altogether upon whether the things done for 
 you to the men he and you have persuaded to 
 dig your coal, buy your goods and real estate, 
 and accept the " good chance for a home" you 
 advertised, have been fair and square, kindly 
 and honest. There has been a profit on all 
 the various branches of the enterprise. The 
 company store and the land speculation have 
 made money. The railroad has reduced the 
 cost of fuel for its locomotives, and the coal 
 company has added to its plant out of its 
 profits, though it has made no dividend. But 
 whether your attempt to make money has been
 
 WHO HATH DONE THIS THING? 21 
 
 successful or not makes here not one iota of 
 difference. Public opinion has not yet rotted 
 down to the point of permitting rich men, men 
 skilled in affairs, to violate all their pledges to 
 poor and inexperienced followers, simply be- 
 cause profits have been unsatisfactory, nor 
 will it allow the capitalist to starve the laborer 
 to make larger profits.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 
 
 You in your dififerent provinces created this 
 enterprise, with its railroad, coal mines, land 
 speculation and fuel business in 1884, acting 
 simultaneously and re-enforcing each other. 
 Where Spring Valley is, there was then only 
 field and forest. The land you needed had to 
 be obtained from the farmer. You gave them 
 $35 up to $80 an acre, in very few cases more, 
 for land which you resold in lots for thousands 
 of dollars an acre. Where you bought only 
 the right to the coal underneath you paid them 
 sometimes less than$io an acre, seldom much 
 more, for rights for which $15 to $35 an acre 
 is gladly paid in neighboring localities by 
 other companies. 
 
 Town site companies are a familiar device 
 in the development of the money-making pos- 
 sibilities of the modern railroad man. They 
 are all about the same thing. They are made 
 up by insiders in railroad management. These 
 insiders take advantage of their knowledge as
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 23 
 
 to where new lines are to be built and where 
 the railroads mean to stop their trains, or they 
 use their power to say where they shall stop. 
 Knowing the one or commanding the other, 
 they buy up the land of the farmers who do not 
 know it, at prices far below their prospective 
 value. These farms, converted into cities, on 
 paper, and sliced up into diminutive metro- 
 politan lots, are then sold to credulous people 
 at fictitious prices created by every artifice of 
 advertising, of wash sales, of mushroom pros- 
 perity produced by all the means within the 
 power of railroad manipulations. When the 
 game of " terminal points," " new hotels," 
 " great manufacturing center, " " car-shop site," 
 " grand opera house," " investments by the 
 directors themselves," has been worked for all 
 it is worth at one point, the great men move on 
 to the next town, to repeat the same process. 
 
 While shrewd agents busied themselves in 
 buying up the lands of uninformed farmers, 
 maps were made of the " city " of Spring 
 Valley, by the Town Site Company, whose 
 only " improvements" consisted in laying off 
 the new metropolis on paper. All the mak- 
 ing of roads, lighting, grading, sidewalking, 
 and other needed work were left to be made 
 by the purchasers of its lots, when they
 
 24 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 wanted to use them. Those of you who 
 estabHshed the Spring Valley Town Site Com- 
 pany gerrymandered its boundaries so that 
 your coal mines, advertised by you to be the 
 "principal industry " of the town, lay outside 
 the town. 
 
 You thereby escaped your share of muni- 
 cipal taxation, and threw it on the working- 
 men and the tradesmen, who gave your prop- 
 erty all its value. 
 
 How did you of the coal company and the 
 land company sell this land, and how did you 
 draw in the workingmen and others to dig 
 your coal and buy your real estate ? In the 
 first number of the Spring Valley Gazette you 
 published the following advertisement. It 
 covered half a page with the biggest kind of 
 black type, and ran with changes as needed 
 in the paper for nearly four years until the 
 middle of May, 1889. The date of the follow- 
 ing is November 14, 1885: 
 
 A CHANCE 
 
 For making 
 Prcfitable investments 
 In tlie town of 
 Spring Valley, situated in the eastern part of Bureau County, 
 on the line of Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway 
 and the terminus of the Chicago and North- 
 western Railroad, offers extraordinary 
 inducements to every one who 
 may desire
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 25 
 
 A GOOD LOCATION 
 
 FOR 
 
 BUSINESS OR A HOME. 
 
 The principal industry upon which the town is now dependent 
 
 is its 
 
 IMMENSE COAL FIELDS, 
 
 Comprising about fifteen thousand acres, which are being 
 
 rapidly developed by the Spring Valley Coal Company. 
 
 Three mines are already in operation. 
 
 Within eighteen months at least 
 
 TWO THOUSAND 
 
 MIXERS WILL FIND 
 
 STEADY EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 The bright prospects for the place shortly becoming one of the 
 
 leading manufacturing towns in the State, with 
 
 Good drainage, 
 
 Plenty of good water, 
 
 Excellent building stone, 
 
 Brick yards, etc., and with the two lines of railroad to Chicago 
 
 and Milwaukee, and surrounded by one of the best 
 
 farming districts in the .State offers to all 
 
 w ho may 
 
 DESIRE A CHANGE IN LOCATION OF BUSINESS 
 
 A chance seldom found. 
 Building and business lots are offered at 
 
 LOW PRICES. 
 TERMS REASONABLE. 
 
 Eor further information, write or apply to the Vice-President 
 
 and General Manager Spring \'al]ey Coal Company, 
 
 Spring Valley, 111. 
 
 This advertisement and similar ones were 
 circulated all over the country in newspapers 
 and pamphlets. When it became known that 
 you, who owned the North-Western Railroad, 
 were to extend its tracks to Spring Valley, the
 
 26 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 miners who had hesitated to sell their homes 
 elsewhere and move in, the little capitalists in 
 surrounding towns who had hesitated to invest 
 their savings in the purchase of lots, hesi- 
 tated no longer. Where such men led, it was 
 safe for them to follow, and they followed. " 
 
 The Spring Valley (^^^^//c' of November 14, 
 1885, said: "What makes Spring Valley 
 different from other coal towns is the fact that 
 the contracts for the coal were made before 
 the fields were open. It is to supply the 
 Chicago & North-Western and the vast coal- 
 using country tributary to that system. The 
 coal company is the largest soft-coal corpora- 
 tion in the country, having a paid-up capital 
 of $1,500,000, The selling of lots began in 
 July last, and at the present time (July to 
 November) about 1,000 lots have been sold. 
 The price of lots ranges from $150 to $300." 
 According to these figures, which were prob- 
 ably furnished to the Gazette by the agent of 
 the town-site company to help the " boom," 
 the total sales in the first six months had been 
 about $200,000 for land which had cost less 
 than $20,000. 
 
 From the coal-mining places in Illinois and 
 the neighboring States miners who could move 
 did so. It was by the best of their class that
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 2/ 
 
 the skillfully prepared bait was taken. It was 
 not the lazy miners who took the trouble to 
 move themselves to the new industrial center. 
 It was not the poor workers who could not get 
 out of debt where they were — it was not the 
 thoughtless and intemperate, who had saved 
 no money with which to make the transfer. 
 The men who came to Spring Valley were 
 picked men — selected out of the whole number 
 of the coal miners of the country by their intel- 
 ligence, their thrift, their habits of industry. 
 These men read the statements published by 
 the Chicago & North-Western Railway, the 
 Spring Valley Coal Company and the Town 
 Site Company, and, seeing that the leaders of 
 the enterprise were of the best business talent 
 of America, and able, with their hundreds of 
 millions of capital, to carry out any enterprise 
 they undertook, decided, without a second 
 thought, " Spring Valley is the place for us 
 and our families." From Streator, La Salle, 
 Braidwood, Peru, from all the neighboring coal- 
 mining towns, miners who had saved money 
 enough to buy homes for themselves sold them, 
 and bought lots, went to work, and began to 
 build in Spring Valley to get the greater 
 advantages promised by the greater capital, 
 better equipments and more skillful manage-
 
 28 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 merit of the " captains of industry " there. 
 The announcements and advertisements of 
 these rich and powerful and experienced men 
 of affairs assured them of steady work, living 
 wages, and all the appliances of civilization. 
 It was not miners alone who were taken in the 
 net. Traders in every line of business in the 
 surrounding towns sold out, and reinvested in 
 Spring Valley. 
 
 Paragraphs like these, culled from the local 
 press, give a hint of the fervor with which your 
 lead was followed: 
 
 The Joliet Record, in February, 1886, said: 
 " In Spring Valley there are now three hundred 
 voters where six months ago were only a few 
 farms. One hundred thousand dollars have 
 since that time been invested there in business 
 houses, residences and tenements." 
 
 The Spring Valley Gazette said, on March 
 27, 1886: " No less than twelve new buildings 
 were begun this week." April loth: " Spring 
 Valley is booming." April 17th: " From the 
 Gazette office sixteen new buildings can be 
 seen in construction. Talk about ' boom; ' 
 the word is tame and feeble to express the 
 activity of Spring Valley." April loth: "Mr. 
 and Mrs. Fleming, of Sheffield, were in our city 
 this week and purchased several lots." April
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 20 
 
 26th: " One of Streator's heaviest capitalists 
 has $7,000 invested in Spring Valley real 
 estate." On October, 1888, the Gazette SKi<^: 
 " On Wednesday a number of Eastern capital- 
 ists, accompanied by Marvin Hughitt, general 
 manager of the North-Western Railroad, 
 were in town, and were so favorably impressed 
 with the ' Magic City ' that they intend to put 
 some money in it. Let her boom." 
 
 How successful the boomers were the trium- 
 phant changes in the advertisements in the 
 pamphlets, papers, etc. , show. A few months 
 after the appearance of the advertisement 
 given above a new one was prepared and took 
 its place. This was circulated broadcast in the 
 newspapers, filling a half page in the Spring 
 Valley Gazette, and also in a pamphlet spe- 
 cially prepared to boom the town, and dis- 
 tributed for that purpose throughout the 
 
 country. Here is the new advertisement: 
 "SPRING VALLEY." 
 
 • * *■ 
 
 The coming manufactur- ; ; The principal industry up-; 
 
 ;ing town of the State of lUi-; ; on which thetownisdepend-; 
 
 Inois, situated in Bureau; lent are its immense coal; 
 
 : County, at the terminus of; ; fields, comprising 40,000; 
 
 ; the Chicago & North-West- ; ; acres and five large mines al- ; 
 
 ; ern Rail way,and on the lines l ; ready sunk, which are being ; 
 
 ;of the C, R. L & P. and; ; developed by the Spring; 
 
 ; Burlington Railway. ; ; Valley Ccjal Company. 
 
 * -y; ^ * 
 
 LARGE INDUCEMENTS TO MANUFACTURERS 
 
 — GOOD EOCATION FOR A HOME.
 
 30 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 * ' 
 
 ; Other large mines in the 
 
 ; vicinity of Spring Valley 
 
 ;are also in operation. The 
 
 ; town has now a population 
 
 I of 4,500, and is rapidly in- 
 
 ! creasing. 
 
 * 
 
 * * 
 
 2,000 men are now em- 
 
 ;]iloyed in the mines of the 
 ; Spring Valley Coal Co., 
 ; and in less than two years 
 ; will employ from 3,500 to 
 : 4,000 men. 
 
 BUILDING A.ND BUSINESS LOTS AT LOW PRICES, 
 
 AND ON THE MOST REASONABLE TERMS. 
 
 The Good Drainage, Plenty of Water, Excellent Building 
 
 Stone, Brick Yards, Etc., together with the Three 
 
 Lines of Railway to Chicago and Milwaukee, 
 
 and surrounded with one of the best 
 
 farming districts in the State, 
 
 makes it a most desirable 
 
 place to locate. 
 
 For further information or particulars, address 
 
 the Vice-President and Gen. Manager 
 Spring Valley Coal Co., Spring Valley, Bureau Co., 111. 
 
 The changes are significant. The coal fields, 
 which at first covered only 15,000 acres, now 
 amount to 40,000. The coal had proved so 
 good and the operations of the mines so satis- 
 factory that 25,000 acres more of coal rights 
 had been purchased. The population, which 
 had been too small to mention in the first 
 advertisement, had now grown to 4,500, " and 
 is rapidly increasing." The three mines have 
 become five. The prophecy that " within 
 eighteen months at least two thousand miners 
 will find steady employment " has been verified, 
 and the new prophecy is put out that " in less
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 3 1 
 
 than two years the mines will employ from 
 3,500 to 4,000 men." 
 
 There were many ways of luring into this 
 paradise the workmen without the sweat of 
 whose brows you could not eat bread. There 
 have been all through the summer of 1889 
 hundreds of Belgian and French women and 
 children and a few men in Spring Valley who 
 have been kept from starvation only by kinder 
 hearts than their employers, and who were 
 enticed thither from their homes and employ- 
 ment in France and Belgium by false repre- 
 sentations made by an agent whose foot-tracks 
 his victims declare they have traced straight 
 to the company's office in Spring Valley. In 
 the Pittsburg Labor Tribune of September 28, 
 1886, we read: " Parties from Spring Valley 
 were in Decatur last week looking for 200 men 
 to go to work there." The advertisements in 
 newspapers and pamphlets circulated every- 
 where drew men from points as far away as 
 Iowa and Colorado to get " steady employ- 
 ment " and a " good chance for a home. " 
 
 These tactics of your agent, in befooling, 
 with false promises, honest and sturdy foreign 
 workingmen to come over to flood the labor 
 market of Spring Valley, are unfortunately no 
 new thing in American " business " methods,
 
 3^ A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 but they are all the worse for being old. The 
 " supply " of labor is in this way made to over- 
 run the " demand," and the sacred character 
 of the " immutable law of supply and de- 
 mand " is given an illustration which working- 
 men understand, even if political economists 
 do not. The " unchanging " law, when worked 
 in this way, increases the number of the cus- 
 tomers who buy goods at the " pluck-me " 
 stores kept by the company, makes wages low 
 by the underbidding of the unemployed against 
 the employed; it keeps the men poor, humble, 
 and submissive to all your regulations and exac- 
 tions. This method of regulating " supply and 
 demand" is not a native product of Illinois. 
 It is an importation from Pennsylvania. The 
 select committee of Congress which investi- 
 crated the labor troubles in Pennsylvania in 
 
 1888, say: 
 
 " Many thousands of surplus laborers are 
 always kept on hand to underbid each other 
 for employment, and thereby folate the men to 
 submit to whatever treatment the company 
 may impose. Squads of Poles, Italians, and 
 Huns many of whom cannot speak English, 
 throng the mines to compete for work. 
 * ■ * * The question will force itself, 
 
 Why are the mines overrun by these foreigners?
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 33 
 
 How do they get there? and by whose 
 agency? " 
 
 I visited many of these French and Belgians. 
 As a rule, only the women and children were 
 at home. The men had gone away to seek 
 work in other towns, and even in other States. 
 Very poor the homes were, and gaunt the 
 women and children. Clothing, food, bed- 
 ding, furniture, were all down to the lowest 
 level of a pitiful minimum. How had they 
 happened to come to America? A man had 
 come to them at Pas-de-Calais, and Courcelles- 
 les-Sens, etc., etc., and told them of the good 
 pay and the good times they could have at 
 Spring Valley. 
 
 He gave us a card, and, if we gave that to 
 the gentleman at Spring Valley, he would give 
 us the good work and the high wages." 
 
 " Were they glad they had come? " 
 Oh, monsieur, see how we live. It was 
 better at home! If we could only get back. 
 We did better at home." 
 
 I listened. Of course, there would be angry 
 words, vindictive outbreaks of indignation 
 against those who had so cruelly unhomed and 
 expatriated them for the sake of a little extra 
 profit. But there was nothing of the kind, 
 not even a flash of wrath. The poor people 
 
 3
 
 34 " A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 answered all inquiries gently and patiently 
 and intelligently, but never a harsh word 
 against their oppressors. They even laughed 
 as they talked. It was as if they felt it all to 
 be part of the inevitable ill fortune of life, 
 which they must bear as best they could. I 
 was amazed and humbled. It seemed to me 
 that, had I been thus made the victim of inhu- 
 man greed for " more," had I and my home 
 and my life been butchered — not " to make a 
 Roman holiday," but an American dividend 
 — I would have thought a lifetime too little 
 to give to a crusade of retribution. The 
 truth then first really dawned upon me, that 
 there is a sanctification which comes, however 
 unconsciously, to the victims of wrong and 
 injustice, and that it is the master, not the 
 slave, who receives the double curse of oppres 
 sion. 
 
 It was a brilliant success, this booming of 
 the town, and great was the profit of it. A 
 more brilliant stroke still was to follow, and 
 greater would be the profit of that, the doom- 
 ing of the town. 
 
 Those were bright days in Spring Valley, in 
 1885, 1886, 1887, when the soft notes of the 
 " boomer" called every one to " profitable in- 
 vestments," " steady employment," " good
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 35 
 
 chances for a home," and " special inducements 
 to business." People of all kinds were pour- 
 ing into the magic city. The Kev. John F, 
 Powers, in charge of a well-established Cath- 
 olic church at Peru, gave it up, and came to 
 Spring Valley to build up a new congregation. 
 Other clergymen and doctors and teachers 
 came, and workingmen of all kinds. Rents 
 were high, buildings could be rented for $i8o 
 a month that cost only $3,000 to build. Those 
 who bought lots could turn around immedi- 
 ately and sell them at a handsome advance. 
 The miners, under the promise of steady em- 
 ployment, bought your lots on monthly pay- 
 ments, and began to build homes, getting their 
 lumber and material of the company. The 
 miners had to buy their lots under arrange- 
 ments which forfeited all they had paid, and 
 the lot, too, if at any time they discontinued 
 their monthly payments, no matter how near 
 the end of their indebtedness they might have 
 got. This forfeiture could be declared by the 
 company without notice to the poor miner, 
 and without any legal proceedings in which he 
 might defend his rights. But the miners were 
 brave-hearted; they loved to have homes of 
 their own, and they made these razor-edged 
 agreements and went in debt for lumber, be-
 
 36 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 lieving all would come out right, since there 
 was to be " steady employment." 
 
 Upon inquiring among these trusting men 
 for copies of the deeds or contracts executed 
 between the seller and these simple-minded buy- 
 ers, I cannot find any. But I do find cases in 
 which the company sold lots without giving the 
 workingman who bought a shred of title to 
 attest their rights. Taking sometimes 33 per 
 cent, of the price in cash, it charged them with 
 the balance, and took part of their pay every 
 month to wipe it off. All that such buyers 
 had to show for their money and title were a 
 receipt and an entry on the books, and what 
 is an entry worth when it is in the books of 
 men who deal thus with poor and inexperi- 
 enced " brothers " ? Not one of you would 
 buy ten cents' worth of land in that way. 
 
 There were, at last, five thousand people in 
 Spring Valley; the main business street had 
 two rows of flourishing stores; there were two 
 places of worship, a public library and gym- 
 nasium, clubs and debating societies, Knights 
 of Labor assemblies, a court-room, two hotels, 
 and an opera house. Very intelligent men 
 the miners were — the picked men of the 
 industry. There were not a few among them 
 who could discuss the theories of Henry
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 37 
 
 George, Herbert Spencer, Darwin, with any 
 one. Strangers who visited the clubs and de- 
 batingf societies of the miners declared them- 
 selves astonished by their intelligence and 
 range of knowledge. These were days of hope 
 and growth. One cloud there was. The 
 miners, work their hardest, could not make 
 the wages they had been promised. The 
 mines were good, and of a kind miners liked 
 to work in, for they were free from water, and 
 no powder was required. But the earnings 
 of the men were barely enough to carry them 
 through. A man in a good place, with steady 
 work, could earn $45 to $60 in a month, 
 and more if he got into a particularly good 
 " pocket," but work was never continuous. 
 Sometimes it was a fall of rock in the road- 
 way; sometimes a lack of cars to take away 
 the coal; sometimes a suspension on account 
 of a dull market; sometimes a man's room or 
 place in the vein would be shut off by a new 
 road, and he would have to wait until another 
 place could be had. Sometimes it was one 
 thing, sometimes another; but the upshot of it 
 was that, mostly, when the miner came to settle 
 with the company for the preceding month's 
 work, he found that, after, paying for his oil, 
 and the sharpening of his tools, his rent or his
 
 38 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 monthly installment on the lot he had bought, 
 his monthly contribution to the doctor, and 
 his bill at the company's store, there was 
 nothing left. He had just made ends meet; 
 perhaps he was a little behind. Take it by the 
 year, doing well one month, idle the whole of 
 the next, the men could not make much more 
 than about $30 a month. That is to say, they 
 got for their lives and labor a scanty allowance 
 of food, clothing, roofing, but not enough; 
 and practically nothing of the many other 
 things which people must have who are 
 to keep up their health and strength — nothing 
 for their old age, and nothing to help them for 
 their duties as fathers and citizens. 
 
 The physical conditions under which the 
 Spring Valley miners work are better than 
 those in many other places, but they are not 
 easy. You for whom the coal is dug, either 
 for your dividends or your comfort, as you sit 
 before your glowing fires, are too far away 
 from the toil and trouble of the miner. They 
 spend ten hours a day in their caverns — pitch 
 dark — except for the flicker and glimmer of the 
 little lamp each carries in the front of his cap. 
 For months in the short winter days, when it 
 is not yet light at seven, and is dark by 
 half-past five, these men see daylight, only
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 39 
 
 on Sunday — once a week. They have to work 
 upon their knees, or lying on their side, or 
 stooping low, and sometimes are obliged to lie 
 flat on their backs while digging at the ceil- 
 ing. 
 
 This hard work in a room three feet or three 
 feet six inches high, hundreds of feet below the 
 surface, in the gloom of perpetual night, with air 
 to breathe got only by artificial and imperfect 
 ventilation, is the human price that has to be 
 paid on all our coal. You know this coal only 
 as light, heat, power, profit, comfort, a means 
 of longer life or greater wealth. To the miner 
 it is a black and obdurate enemy, a jailer that 
 imprisons him, shutting out his sunlight, the 
 fresh air of the hills and meadows, the sounds 
 of birds and the river; threatening him daily 
 with death or mutilation in strange and terri- 
 ble forms, and rewarding his faithfulest and 
 luckiest toil with less than the cost of subsist- 
 ence — if the cost of subsistence of the Ameri- 
 can citizen of this free and glorious republic, is 
 to include food, clothing, shelter, family life, 
 amusement, education, leisure, and old age. 
 
 Such subsistence as this is possible to no 
 miner, and becomes more impossible every 
 day. It is easy for the owner of the mines, 
 the stockholders, to juggle with their figures
 
 40 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 of capital, operating expenses, profit and loss, 
 to convince the public that they cannot pay 
 living wages. The poorest of these stock- 
 holders lives in a social world which to the 
 miner would seem a heaven. The contrast 
 between their " much," and the miner's "little," 
 puts all their bookkeeping to the blush. It is 
 this gulf between the lot of the employer and 
 that of the employe, all through our mod- 
 ern life which gives itspulseto the social ques- 
 tion. A lithe bookkeeping in the world can- 
 not write out the deficit which the working- 
 men's account shows in comparison with that 
 of the business men. In every city, the con- 
 trast between what is got by the brothers who 
 employ and the brothers who are employed, 
 speaks for itself. 
 
 None of the promises of steady employmenc 
 and good pay were fulfilled. As to the pay 
 Messrs. Gould and Wines, the latter secretary 
 of the State Board of Charities, the special com- 
 missioner appointed by the governor to inves- 
 tigate the trouble in these and the adjoining 
 coal regions, reported, August, 1889, after 
 careful inquiry, that the average was $31.62 
 per month, which they declared was " certainly 
 less than any laboring man ought to receive." 
 Take a concrete case which is worth all the sta-
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 41 
 
 tistics in the world: C W is a steady 
 
 German miner, who has had fifteen years' ex- 
 perience in the mines. He has been at Spring 
 Valley four years. When you gentlemen of 
 $500,000,000 invited him to come to Spring 
 Valley he was working at Coal City. He sold 
 the house and lot he had bought with his sav- 
 ings there, and bought a lot at Spring Valley, 
 paying at the rate of $1,400 an acre for what 
 cost you between $50 and $80 an acre, a 
 profit of about 2 ,000 per cent. His earnings the 
 first month were $13, and he has been " laid 
 off" by the company for weeks and months at 
 a time. His highest wages for any month in 
 the four years have been $65. I procured his 
 monthly statements of account with the com- 
 pany for the eight months ending with the 
 lock-out in May. His earnings for the entire 
 period were $230.07, an average of $28.76 a 
 month, and of this he actually received only 
 $28.56 in cash, all the rest being taken by the 
 company for supplies bought at the company 
 store. This man was absolutely temperate ; 
 he could not have been very riotous on $28 in 
 eight months. His wife told me that he had 
 never been able to make enough in Spring 
 Valley to support the family, and that she and 
 the eldest daughter had had to go out washing
 
 42 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 to keep them alive. He has eight children. 
 He was foolish enough, relying on the leader- 
 ship of the gentlemen to whom this letter is 
 addressed, to build a house, borrowing part of 
 the money. Your lock-out cut off the little 
 income he had. When I saw him his interest 
 was overdue, and he was awaiting in quiet de- 
 spair a foreclosure which would sweep away all 
 that remained of fifteen years' hard work and 
 savings. Yet this man and his wife told their 
 story without a word, look or tone of the 
 righteous wrath against you which I should 
 have supposed would consume their hearts. 
 
 How thrifty and good a man C \V is 
 
 I could see bv a little advertisement of his I 
 found in looking over the files of the local 
 paper. It was inserted when he first came to 
 Spring Valley, full of hope, and willing to 
 work at night at home after working all day 
 
 at the mines. It read: " C W will 
 
 receive orders for carpet weaving at his home, 
 — '■ — street." 
 
 Against such instances from real life and the 
 careful investigations of the commissioners of 
 the State, it is ridiculous for the coal com., 
 pany to put forward, as it has done, a state- 
 ment of the earnings of twenty-five men, 
 picked out of 2,500, as fair specimens of the
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 43 
 
 way in which the milHonaires have divided 
 with the miners.* 
 
 The statements which the company makes 
 monthly to its men are called "Miner's Ab- 
 stracts." Here is one of them obtained from 
 a miner. The man is not designated by his 
 name, but by a number — in this case 2,103 — 
 stamped on tin tags, which he puts on all the 
 loaded cars he sends out of the mine, so that 
 they may be credited to him. This abstract 
 needs no explanation. It shows, that, when the 
 company settled with "No. 2,103" "^ the 
 middle of March for the work done in February, 
 there was no money due him. He had earned 
 $23.13, which does not seem to be " at the 
 rate of $2.50 to $4 a day," but it was all 
 soaked up by the charges the company had. 
 against him for oil, tool-sharpening, fuel, and 
 the " store. " The company owed him $23.13; 
 he owed the company $23.13. They were 
 " even," and he had the priceless privilege of 
 
 * There is no way of making money out of these poor men too small 
 for their rich employers. They charged the miners last year a cent a ton 
 for sharpening their tools. On the annual production of 1,000,000 to 
 1,500,000 tons, this would yield the company $10,000 to $15,000 for the 
 services of blacksmiths, who could not cost, with all allowances for fuel, 
 shops, etc., more than $2,000 altogether. This was a profit of $8,000 to 
 $12,000 to the company on an investment of $2,000, and their poor men 
 had to furnish both the investment and the profit! This is an illustration 
 which will serve to make clear what is meant by " high finance," and why 
 it is that so many are poor, while a few are so rich. Before going back to 
 work after the recent lock-out, the men succeded in getting this charge for 
 smithy reduced one-half, but they still have to pay the company thou- 
 san4s of dollars a year, besides paying all it costs to sharpen their tools.
 
 44 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 delving again into the depths to see if he could 
 keep in that nicely balanced state of impecu- 
 niosity, so full of heartening stimulation and 
 encouragement to the free citizen. 
 
 MINER'S ABSTRACT. 
 
 SPRING VALLEY COAL COMPANY. 
 
 Spring Valley, III., Mar. 12, 'Sg. 
 Ck. 2,103. 
 
 Cr. 
 
 Tons 25. 14 $23 . 13 
 
 Yds. Entry 
 
 Days' Labor 
 
 Extra 
 
 $23.13 
 
 Dr. 
 
 Collections $0 . 25 
 
 House Rent 
 
 Cash 
 
 Powder 
 
 Tools 
 
 Smithing 0.26 
 
 Fuel 3.20 
 
 Oil, etc 
 
 Weigliman 0.26 
 
 Store 19.16 
 
 Sometimes several men work as partners in 
 one room in the mine, and send out their 
 joint product in the same cars and marked with 
 the same number. This number, or " miner's
 
 BOOMING THE TOWN. 45 
 
 check," as it is called, will in such cases repre- 
 sent the earnings of two or three men. I have 
 before me several such partnership numbers 
 with statements of their earnings for several 
 months. They show amounts of $127, $138, 
 $116, earned by four men; of $47, $60, $65, 
 earned by two men, showing average monthly 
 earnings of $24.33 each. The miners told me 
 that the large earnings reported by the mine- 
 owners as made by some of their men, are 
 shown by representing the amount of one 
 of these partnership checks to be the earn- 
 ings of one man. At the conference at Joliet 
 in September, 1889, between the miners and 
 mine-owners, under the auspices of the special 
 commission appointed by the governor of Illi- 
 nois, one of the mine-owners produced a 
 statement of this kind, seeming to prove that 
 his men were making very large earnings. But 
 it happened that some of the men present 
 knew the number, and were able to point out 
 that the earnings paraded as specimens of what 
 a miner could do, were in truth the combined 
 wages of several miners in partnership, and 
 they thus successfully exposed the misrepre- 
 sentation. 
 
 Still, these were days of hope and growth. 
 The miners knew that the opening years of a
 
 46 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 new mine were not its best; that there were in 
 this, as always in new enterprises, all sorts 
 of hitches, accidents and disappointments. 
 Things would mend, and they could afford to 
 wait, for the advertisements of the coal com- 
 pany promised them " steady employment," 
 and the great and good men who had opened 
 the mines and with others had built the North- 
 Western track to the mines " for a supply of 
 fuel for the road and the West and Northwest 
 tributary to it," were not triflers. 
 
 So after all, notwithstanding the trials and 
 disappointments, it was a happy community 
 which began, in December, 1888, to get ready 
 to celebrate Christmas, day of peace on earth, 
 and good will among men.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DOOMING THE TOWN. 
 
 The " boomers " were getting their Christ- 
 mas present ready for the miners, merchants, 
 parsons, teachers, workingmen, who had 
 added to their millions by coming to Spring 
 Valley. 
 
 On a December afternoon, without previous 
 warning, the miners in shafts Nos. 3 and 4 
 were told to take away their tools at the close 
 of the day, and not return, as that part of the 
 mine would be closed until further notice. 
 
 This threw about 700 men, one-third of the 
 working population of the town, out of work 
 for an unknown time at the beginning of winter 
 — men, too, who had been earning only just 
 enough to keep body and soul together, no 
 more. 
 
 Without a word of warning! There was no 
 strike, no whisper of strike; the men had 
 been working faithfully, digging the coal ac- 
 cording to orders, and taking the pay as agreed. 
 
 Thus the gentlemen of many millions sit- 
 
 (47)
 
 48 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ting under brilliantly illuminated Christmas 
 trees in jo}'Ous mansions in Chicago, Erie, 
 St. Paul, New York, by a click of the telegraph 
 make a present of midwinter disemployment 
 to one third of " their " town. 
 
 Without notice! This has a familiar look 
 again. It is the Pennsylvania plan, which is 
 being introduced into the industries of the free 
 West. Like the means, some of which have 
 been hinted at, by which the wages of the 
 miners were cut into and cut down, this unan- 
 nounced stoppage of work is one of the well- 
 worn practices of railroad and coal-mining 
 combinations of Pennsylvania to " break" in 
 the men. The congressional report on the 
 labor troubles in Pennsylvania in 1888 de- 
 scribes this Pennsylvania method. (Page 5-) 
 
 " Then, again, as no coal mine can be 
 successfully worked except full-handed — that 
 is, with a full complement of experts and 
 laborers — the railroads, which both mine and 
 carry coal, always retain an abundant supply 
 of holp on hand, which help they purposely 
 keep in ignorance as to when operations will be 
 suspended, and for how long. If the knowl- 
 edge of when they shall be required to work 
 short time or no time were not deliberately 
 withheld from the miners and laborers till
 
 DOOMING THE TOWN. 49 
 
 the last moment, they would doubtless seek 
 employment elsewhere." 
 
 In this way the dooming of the town began, 
 and we will see it unfolding step by step by a 
 perfectly planned scheme, just as clearly as we 
 saw the booming of the town progress by act 
 on act of unerring " commercial sagacity," to 
 the great profit of the " sagacious." 
 
 Why the men must quit work, they never 
 knew; why the " steady employment" promised 
 them so disastrously ceased, they were not told. 
 
 The Spring Valley Gazette giving the news 
 of the shut-down in its issue of January 3d, 
 gave no reason, but spoke of it as " tempo- 
 rary. " 
 
 Subsequent events have furnished a ghastly 
 commentary on its concluding remark: " It is 
 consoling to hear the more sensible men speak 
 with confidence of the ruling power here in 
 which they have implicit belief." 
 
 The generosity of the remainder of the men 
 still at work, induced them to share their work 
 with the unemployed, so that for the rest of 
 the winter three families had to live on the 
 wages that before had not been enough for 
 two. The promise was made by the com- 
 pany, that the suspension of work would be 
 
 but temporary, and that all should soon have 
 4
 
 50 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 full employment again. The whole popula- 
 tion staggered through that winter as best 
 they could. The company would not give 
 them work nor help, but it fed them with 
 words of hope, which kept them from going 
 elsewhere. The people asked for bread, and 
 you gave them paragraphs like these: 
 
 " The indications are that the output at the 
 mines will soon be increased. " — Spring Valley 
 Gazette, January 3, 1889. 
 
 " All the miners in this city are now having 
 full work — not full time, of course — but, if the 
 present kind of weather keeps on, they soon 
 will have." — Spring Valley Gazette, January 
 10, 1889. 
 
 " Spring Valley," said the Gazette of Janu- 
 uary 17th, " is merely taking a little doze, pre- 
 paratory to big, rushing business next fall," and 
 on January 24th, "The day is not far distant 
 when more business will be done in Spring 
 Valley than was ever before." 
 
 April 25, 1889, the Gazette announced that 
 the " Spring Valley Coal Co. had opened a 
 rail coal yard in Chicago," and that was hailed 
 by the desperate people as certainly good evi- 
 dence that " steady employment " was coming 
 again. 
 
 Four days later, the next stroke in the
 
 DOOMING THE TOWN. 5 I 
 
 Dooming of the Town fell. On Monday, 
 April 29th, the men in the m.ines were told, 
 that, when they quit work for the day, they 
 could take out their tools, as the mines would 
 be closed until further notice. In one after- 
 noon, again without previous notice, all the 
 miners of the town were deprived of their 
 livelihood. They had not struck; they had 
 not asked for any increase in wages ; they had 
 made no new demands of any kind upon their 
 employers.* Simultaneously with the closing 
 of the mines, the company's store was closed. 
 The company did not intend that any of its 
 groceries should help to feed, nor any of its 
 woolens warm, the people. No explanation 
 was vouchsafed as to when the mines would be 
 re-opened. The men were simply told to 
 take out their tools at the close of the day, 
 and not come back until they were bid. They 
 were locked out. It was a strike, but it was a 
 strike of millionaires against miners. It was a 
 strike of dollars against men ; of dollars which 
 could lie idle one year, two years, longer if 
 
 * Report on the Coal-Miners' Strike and Lock-Out in Northern Illi- 
 nois, by J. M. Gould and Kred. H. Wines, special commissioners appointed 
 by the governor, August, i88g, page 5. 
 
 "The present suspension," said the commissioners of the State, 
 "assumes more the form of a strike at Streator and Hraidwood, but of a 
 lock-out in the vicinity of l.a Salle, especially at Spring Valley, where the 
 miners were notified to take their tools out, and have not had any terms 
 offered them on which the company is willing again to employ them."
 
 52 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 necessary, and be dollars still, against men 
 who began to fade into nothingness the next 
 day. It was a strike of rich men against poor 
 men. It was a strike in violation of every 
 pledge, tacit and expressed, which these rich 
 men had given when they built their railroad, 
 and sold the land, and opened the mines, and 
 called in the men from other work far and near. 
 It was a strike which brought woe and want 
 upon innocent thousands for the sake of extra 
 profits on stocks ajid bonds. To " make more 
 money," disease and starvation were invited to 
 come to Spring Valley, and they came.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS 
 ABROAD. 
 
 The people who had been digging your 
 coal, buying your lots, supporting your dis- 
 employed, making business for your railroad, 
 began to starve at once. The men scattered 
 all over the country in search of work, and the 
 women with their babies took to the roads to 
 beg. Within a month the local papers an- 
 nounced that two-thirds of the men had left in 
 search of employment, and that it had been 
 necessary to make an organized appeal to the 
 people of the country for help. 
 
 At once the little items in the " local and 
 otherwise " columns of the Spring Valley pa- 
 pers showed by dozens how the people began 
 to feel the whip of want. 
 
 " Andrew Kerwick started off last week to 
 seek employment elsewhere." 
 
 " The Henning Hotel, run by Mrs. John 
 Dixon, was shut up by chattel mortgage fore- 
 closure Friday for $1,200 due the Spring Val- 
 
 (.■;3)
 
 54 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ley Coal Company for groceries out of the 
 company's store. " 
 
 " Rumors that ' Mr. So-and-so has closed 
 up' are getting numerous." 
 
 " M. L. Leffman has moved his store from 
 this city to Joliet. " 
 
 " All the freight trains have been taken off 
 the Chicago & North-Western Railroad enter- 
 ing this city but one." 
 
 " The mining situation looks very gloomy. 
 At the Joliet meeting the mine-owners showed 
 by their absence that they did not want to 
 discuss the question (with the miners). * * 
 An all summer's idleness is probable." 
 
 " Tuesday W. T. Plumb took down his big 
 watch sign, and packed up his stock of watches, 
 jewelry, etc., and shipped them to Tiskilwa, 
 whither he went the same day to open his new 
 store." 
 
 " Considerable firewood from over the river 
 [there was coal everywhere beneath them, but 
 they were forbidden to dig it] is being hauled 
 into town." 
 
 " Italian miners from this city have been 
 asking for help from people living on the south 
 side of the river." This only two weeks after 
 the shut-down, and there are no thriftier, more 
 faithful workmen than the Italians. They
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 55 
 
 could have saved if any workman could, and 
 the last thing any workman will do is to beg. 
 
 " Many Italians have left town for the iron 
 mines of Michigan," two weeks after the lock- 
 out. 
 
 " It is estimated that at least two-thirds of 
 the male population have left towMi to seek 
 work elsewhere." This was four weeks after 
 the lock-out. 
 
 " Tuesday, the Miners' National Progressive 
 Union sent wagons out from this city in all 
 directions asking for aid for the miners and 
 their families." This action by the associated 
 miners of the town — only four weeks after 
 the shut-down — shows how poorly paid the 
 whole body had been, how they had been 
 weakened by their winter of self-sacrifice, and 
 how quickly the siege of starvation made itself 
 felt. 
 
 During the dreadful months that followed, 
 when thousands of women and children and 
 the men, who could not get work, lived or 
 more correctly, starved on twenty-four cents' 
 worth of flour, meal, etc., a week, the public 
 never had the pleasure of hearing that one 
 dollar or one word of sympathy or regret 
 came from you. Consider such a case as that 
 of Mrs. Mike M . She has seven children.
 
 56 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Her husband, locked out. went as far away as 
 the coal mines of Missouri for work, but found 
 it at last at Stanton, in this State. During his 
 absence she felt the hour of her confinement 
 approaching. She sent for a doctor. He 
 refused to come. But baby came, although 
 the doctor wouldn't, and, in this hour of 
 supreme trial of womanhood, she was alone — 
 unless God was there. A kindly neighbor 
 came in later and helped her. As she told me 
 this, sitting sick and forlorn in a room in which 
 the furniture and wall paper seemed soaked 
 with misery and malaria, she was shaking with 
 ague. Her baby was a fortnight old, but up 
 to that moment she had had neither medicine 
 nor a doctor. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
 Paul Railroad sent supplies and medicines and 
 physicians to its suffering miners at Braceville, 
 but that is not your kind of political economy. 
 Not only did the company do nothing to 
 alleviate this misery, part of the tactics of 
 money-making, but, on the contrary, through 
 your spokesman, you threw public ridicule and 
 reproach on those who came forward to mend 
 the lives you had broken. In his public letter 
 tothegovernor of September 25th, your spokes- 
 man characterized the appeals which had been 
 made to the country at large for aid as " false-
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 57 
 
 hood and slander, perhaps without a parallel 
 in the industrial history of the country. " In his 
 letter to the Chicago Times of October 8th he 
 said, referring to Mayor Cregier's visit to Spring 
 Valley: 
 
 " And yet high officials in your city, men 
 who make laws as well as those whose duty it 
 is to execute them, can find time, under the 
 cloak of ' sweet charity,' to sanction the law- 
 less condition referred to when within sight of 
 their office windows, or within one ward of 
 your city, more genuine cases of destitution 
 and misery can be found than could be found 
 in twenty Spring Valleys." 
 
 This word " starvation " is obnoxious to you 
 and other gentlemen who cut off the livelihood 
 of working people by light-fingering the 
 " laws " of supply and demand. It grates on 
 your ears. You laugh at it over your weary 
 and heavy-laden dinner tables. You pooh- 
 pooh it when it gets into the newspapers or 
 the appeals for relief. You quiet your con- 
 science, and the generosity of others, by de- 
 claring that there is no want, that the people 
 have saved piles of money out of the munifi- 
 cent wages you have paid them, and that they 
 could all go to work to-morrow, and " earn $2 
 and $3 a day if it were not that they preferred
 
 58 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 eharity to work." This is a mightily impor- 
 tant point with you, and you maintain it with 
 a stiff upper lip. Everywhere this sort of talk 
 scattered by you through parlors, bank direct- 
 ors' rooms, counting-houses, and among your 
 acquaintances, has tremendous influence. It 
 buttresses you and your kind of " business" 
 men in their determination to believe that the 
 workingmen can neither do good nor feel 
 wrongs. It shuts many hands and pockets 
 ready to contribute to the relief which partly 
 defeated your attempts to make the people so 
 faint with want that their " supply " would 
 yield to your " demand." Success in making 
 the public believe the mystery that your work- 
 ingmen continue to have plenty to eat after 
 you have cut off all their means of buying 
 food is vital to you, and you know it well. 
 The public endures the things that are being 
 done all over this country to whole communi- 
 ties of workingmen, only because it does not 
 understand them. Even when they are ex- 
 plained, it cannot believe that the strong would 
 so ill use the weak. It has not come to see 
 that our market morality has overgrown all 
 other morality, and has brought men who 
 would be good but for business, down to the 
 depravity of believing that " the Golden Rule "
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. $9 
 
 is that any rule is right which puts gold into 
 their pockets. 
 
 There is one fatal flaw in your nervous talk 
 about these poor people preferring, as you 
 say, charity to work. They worked up to the 
 last minute you kept your mines open. It 
 was only when you drove them out that they 
 began to beg. If you had any sense of shame, 
 even any sense of humor, grim as it would be 
 here, you would not make yourselves targets 
 for public indignation and ridicule, by throw- 
 ing slanders so obviously untrue at the heads 
 of the people who came to Spring Valley to 
 get the " steady work " you advertised, and 
 who worked until you stopped them. 
 
 If the world had not learned by the experi- 
 ence of thousands of years how the oppressor 
 hardens his heart at the sight of the suftering 
 he creates, it would be impossible to under- 
 stand your cynical denial that any distress fol- 
 lowed your refusal of all work to the entire 
 community of 5,ooo people at Spring Valley. 
 No one but you who are fortified behind 
 hundreds of millions of dollars would dare to 
 deny it. No one but those who were to make 
 money out of it would want to deny it. Over 
 against these vain attempts to ignore the 
 palpable truth is the testimony of a cloud of
 
 60 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 witnesses, reporters of newspapers of all shades 
 of political and economic belief, clergymen, 
 mayors of the surrounding cities, the neighbor- 
 ing farmers, the editors of the local journals, 
 representatives of the State government, and 
 impartial observers who visited Spring Valley 
 to see with their own eyes the extent of the 
 distress in order that they might report upon 
 it to those who wanted to help the stricken 
 people. 
 
 " How can you tell when a family is in 
 want?" was asked of the wife of a merchant of 
 Spring Valley, who has done what she could 
 out of the ruin of her husband's business to 
 help those still more unfortunate. 
 
 " There's many ways of telling; although 
 some of these poor people would rather die 
 than let their wants be known. When the 
 neighbors see the little children of a family 
 hanging about the door, crying silently hour 
 by hour, they know well enough what's the 
 matter. There's never a bite in that house, 
 you may be sure." 
 
 The Chicago Daily Nezvs, in a telegram from 
 Spring Valley of June ist, said, a month after 
 the lock out : 
 
 The situation of the locked-out miners of Spring Valley has 
 been getting worse every day. What money they had is nearly
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 6l 
 
 spent. Friday morning a committee of miners was sent to 
 Chicago to solicit aid. The committee took along a circular 
 to present to the various labor organizations, making a strong 
 appeal for aid for starving families. 
 
 The paragraphs given above from the local 
 papers show how simultaneously the work 
 stopped, and the distress began. As early as 
 June 24th, a reporter of the Chicago Tribune 
 telegraphed from Spring Valley: 
 
 About 500 miners' families are being helped by the relief 
 committee here. Some of the families are dependent entirely 
 on the committee for support, and it is poor support they get, 
 for provisions come in slowly. Aid to the amount of $700 or 
 .$Soo has been received, which, divided up, would be only about 
 .$12.20 in seven weeks to a family, and a family averages six or 
 seven persons. But even this has long ago been mostly given 
 out. One-fourth of the miners in town do not know where 
 their next meal is coming from. 
 
 Shortly after the shut-down of the mines a relief committee 
 was organized, who sent sub-committees out in all directions 
 with wagons through the country seeking aid. In this they 
 were quite successful, the farmers contributing liberally day 
 after day and week after week. Besides the committee wagons, 
 private families have scoured the country for anything eatable. 
 A farmer living about seven miles north of town told your cor- 
 respondent recently that as many as seven and eight parties had 
 been at his farm begging in a single day, and that as high as 
 twenty had been there in a week. 
 
 The Boston Herald, in its issue of July 27th, 
 had a dispatch announcing that " Mayor Cre- 
 gicr of Chicago, Congressman Frank Lawler, 
 and other members of the relief committee had
 
 62 A STRIKE Of millionaires. 
 
 left Chicago with several car-loads of provisions 
 and supplies for the starving locked-out coal 
 miners of Spring Valley. There are about 
 2,000 idle miners in the district, making, with 
 their families, about 6,000 souls. The arrival 
 of the train there this afternoon was greeted 
 with great demonstrations of joy. Every- 
 where there were evidences of the most pinch- 
 ing poverty and destitution. Men, women 
 and children were most scantily clad in the 
 cheapest of materials, and there was a great 
 dearth of foot-gear among them. Their faces 
 bore unmistakable evidences of pinching hun- 
 ger. These people have been locked out 
 nearly three months, and are absolutely on the 
 verge of starvation." 
 
 Besides the tons of provisions, Mayor Cre- 
 gier brought with him a check for $1,562, 
 which he presented to TreasurerWilliam Scaife, 
 of the Miners' District Organization. 
 ■ " I come," the mayor said, " as the repre- 
 sentative of the people of Chicago, who never 
 hear of want without doing all in their power 
 to-relieve it. " 
 
 The Spring Valley correspondent of the 
 Chicago Tribune telegraphed, August 6th: 
 " By dint of close economy the miners manage 
 to get enough to live on. Many of their fam-
 
 Ghost of starved rock walks. 63 
 
 ilies have only flour and a little salt pork from 
 one week's end to another. Many of them do 
 not taste fresh meat from one Sunday to 
 another." 
 
 In an interview with a reporter at Spring- 
 field, of the Chicago Tribune, in July, Secre- 
 tary Wines said: " At Spring Valley in partic- 
 ular, the apparent destitution greatly impressed 
 me. There are no gardens there, and few cows, 
 pigs, or chickens. The town presents the ap- 
 pearance of a funeral. It is too quiet even for 
 Sunday. The miners there cannot be said to 
 be on a strike in the strict sense of the term. 
 They were ordered out before they had a 
 chance to strike." 
 
 The New York World oi Saturday, August 
 3d, printed the following special dispatch from 
 Spring Valley: 
 
 Her Twin Babes Died of Starvation. 
 
 [special to the world.] 
 Spring Valley, 111., Aug. 2.— One of the saddest cases of 
 destitution among the striking miners on record here came to 
 the notice of a World correspondent to-day. It was the case 
 of a mother, the wife of one of the locked-out miners, who lost 
 her two babes, twins, for the want of sufficient nourishment to 
 foster them. Being in the poorest circumstances, and living off 
 such charity as was given by the relief committee, she had the 
 misery of seeing her babes die of starvation while holding them 
 to her batren breast. 
 
 When the attention of Dr. John H. Ranch,
 
 64 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 • 
 
 secretary of the State Board of Health, was 
 called to this, he had only this to say: " That 
 it was a thing frequently found even in more 
 prosperous communities" — a singular product 
 of American prosperity. 
 
 In a special article in its issue of August 3d, 
 the New York World, under the headlines 
 " Dying to Escape Slavery — that's what the 
 coal, miners of northern Illinois are doing," — 
 said of the whole field: 
 
 " There have been scores of deaths among 
 young and old, since the strike; nearly every 
 one of them directly traceable to lack of food, 
 medicine, or medical attendance." 
 
 In their report to the governor, Messrs. 
 Gould and Wines say of the state of things up 
 to August: * 
 
 " It remains to speak of the suffering caused 
 by the strike. It is real and it is great. There 
 have been no actual cases of starvation. Miners 
 freely divide with each other, and it is warm 
 weather, when vegetables are plenty. But 
 there have been cases in which families have 
 lived for a longer or shorter time on vegetables 
 alone. There has been suffering, also, in sick- 
 ness, for want of medicines and proper medi- 
 
 * Report of the Coal-Miners' Strike and Lock-Out in Northern Illi- 
 nois, by J. M. Gould and Fred. H. Wines, special commissioners ap- 
 pointed by the governor, August, 1889, pages 22-23.
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 6 5 
 
 cal attendance. It needs no official investiga- 
 tion to prove that ten thousand men, who have 
 been idle for nearly four months, and who had 
 not much money or supplies laid away, but 
 who have families to support, must be by this 
 time in a condition verging on destitution. - 
 They do not parade their suffering; they conceal 
 it rather, especially from their employers, know- 
 ing that the operators rely upon this suffering 
 to bring them sooner or later to terms. The 
 miners in this district, as we have shown, were 
 receiving about $225,000 a month in wages, 
 which would (after deducting one-eighth) 
 amount, by the ist of September, to nearly 
 $800,000, which they have lost; they are that 
 much on the wrong side of the ledger. What 
 they had, they have been consuming; they 
 have been exhausting their credit; many of 
 them have mortgaged their homes. Whether 
 they have done right or wrong, this state of 
 affairs cannot last long. The supplies which 
 have been sent them, generous as they have 
 been, have been ridiculously inadequate in 
 proportion to the number of mouths to be fed. 
 These men do not want charity; what they want 
 is work and wages. If $7,500 a day in wages 
 was inadequate for their comfort, and they quit 
 work because it was proposed to give them
 
 66 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 less, will less than $7,500 a day in charity be 
 sufficient to supply their needs? And is there, 
 can there be, any hope of help to this amount, 
 for any length of time? The real necessity for 
 aid from outside has been acknowledged, at 
 least by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
 Railway, which has hired a physician for its 
 rniners at Braceville, and sent a supply of 
 necessaries for sick women and children, to be 
 given out by its agent, in accordance with the 
 doctor's recommendation." 
 
 On August iitha car-load of provisions was 
 sent to Spring Valley from Peoria. The New 
 York World described the occurrence under 
 the heading : " In Starvation's Grim Grip. " It 
 said : 
 
 " One thousand men and women in a starv- 
 ing condition tramped down from Spring 
 Valley to the Rock Island depot at midnight, 
 and waited hours for a car-load of provisions 
 which was on the way, accompanied by Mayor 
 Warner of Peoria, and members of the relief 
 committee of that city. The crowd went wild 
 with delight when they heard of this relief, and 
 paraded the streets with torches. The mayor 
 brought wnth him $400 in cash, and said that 
 Peoria would send ten more car-loads, if neces- 
 sary. Everybody, he said, had contributed,
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 6/ 
 
 even to the women who sell vegetables in the 
 city market. Part of the provisions were dis- 
 tributed at once. This makes the third car- 
 load of provisions that has reached Spring 
 Valley in thirty days. " Three car-loads in a 
 month for five hundred families ! 
 
 In the news items circulated by the asso- 
 ciated press was this one dated at Galesburg, 
 111., August 22d: 
 
 Five Spring Valley women, with infants in their arms, came 
 here to beg provisions and clothing for the families of miners 
 there. The mayor sent them to a boarding house. They will 
 not be suffered to beg, but a committee of citizens will canvass 
 the place for them. They represent the families of Spring Val- 
 ley strikers as in a very destitute condition, and say that the 
 women have gone out in companies to the leading cities of the 
 State to beg for their children. 
 
 The following paragraph which appeared in 
 the Sentinel, a weekly paper of Spring Valley, 
 August 31st, used stronger language about the 
 "misery" there than any of the preceding, 
 and the writer lived a daily witness of what he 
 described : 
 
 The fact that the wives and children of miners are dying of 
 starvation, right in the garden of the world and the center of 
 the "land of the brave and home of the free," is not a very 
 consoling spectacle for a Christian country to present to the 
 world. Then, when such suffering, destitution and death, are 
 the result of an attempt of coal operators, protected by a tariff 
 of 75 cents a ton on coal, to starve laborers into submission to
 
 68 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 a reduction of wages, the sight is one that should forever damn 
 the system and the soulless capitalist that it protects. 
 
 The New York World sent a representative 
 through the northern Illinois coal-mining dis- 
 trict, and in his letter of August 25th, he 
 describes what he saw at Spring Valley. 
 Among other things he says: 
 
 " As we passed the little cemetery, with a 
 plain stone here and there marking the resting- 
 places of those who had lived in better times, 
 I noticed that there were many freshly dug 
 graves, little mounds that told of recent burials, 
 and empty graves yawning for an occupant. 
 These evidences of the lock-out's fearful work 
 told a tale which could not be expressed in 
 words. They told of want of food, medicine, 
 medical care and nourishment! * * * 
 
 The site of the company houses at Spring 
 Valley is as inimical to the health of the occu- 
 pants as at Clarke and Coal Cities. The cor- 
 poration has selected, because of its cheapness, 
 the elevation which overhangs the Illinois 
 River, on which to erect the miners' houses. 
 The air of this spot is impregnated with mala- 
 ria, from which the residents are almost con- 
 tinually suffering. The death-rate of this town 
 is large, even when the mines are in operation, 
 and the sick-list is equal to that of a healthier
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 69 
 
 town five times its size. From a cursory ex- 
 amination, it is a low estimate to say that seven 
 out of every ten families are sick — seriously so. 
 Malarial fevers, diphtheria, cholera morbus, 
 ague and pneumonia form the bulk of the ail- 
 ments. When lack of medical care and medi- 
 cine is added to the unavoidable sickness, is 
 it any wonder that scores of men, women and 
 children have found a last resting-place in the 
 cemetery since the lock-out? # * * 
 
 There are 1,200 heads of families in Spring 
 Valley who have not had a stroke of work 
 since last May, and half of these families have 
 had nothing to eat except what the charitable 
 have given them. Salt pork, potatoes and 
 corn-meal, with a little tea and coffee, have 
 been their sole means of subsistence through- 
 out the lock-out. Such food is unfit for sick 
 and delicate women and children to eat, and 
 the cofifin is soon seen to leave the house. 
 * * * Yet these poor people did 
 
 not denounce their oppressors; did not heap 
 maledictions on the heads of those responsible 
 for their condition. * * * 
 
 " The policy of the Spring Valley Company 
 has been to always keep a surplus of miners 
 on hand, and employ more men than were 
 actually needed, so that the company would
 
 70 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 sell more goods at its ' truck ' store, rent more 
 of its houses, keep the men so poor that they 
 would be unable to resist the reduction in 
 wages, and create discord in the ranks when a 
 strike occurred. A grave moral responsibility 
 rests on the heads of the mine-owners, who 
 have inveigled married men to this barren 
 spot and now cast them off to starve with their 
 wives and children. # * * 
 
 " After dinner I took a walk with members 
 of the relief committee through the desolate 
 place. The family of Sylvester McDonnell 
 numbers fourteen, from grandparents to grand- 
 children, and they occupied two three-roomed 
 houses. They were drawn up in battle array 
 outside their home as I approached to talk 
 with their grandfather. They were in rags 
 and tatters, pinched faces and hollow cheeks 
 showing that the cupboard had often been 
 empty. 'I fought for the negroes,' exclaimed 
 the old man, ' and now I am fighting for my- 
 self and the folks. It's the principle of the 
 thing I am starving for. I am an American 
 citizen, and I claim the right to educate my 
 children as Americans should be educated. 
 We offered to go to work here for a year with- 
 out a cent if the company would only keep us 
 in clothing and food, send our children to
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. J I 
 
 school, and pay our rent if we didn't live in 
 one of their houses. They wouldn't do it, 
 and that shows we cannot live on the reduced 
 wages without begging or going into debt.' " 
 
 At about the same time, Father Hunting- 
 ton, of New York, of the order of the Holy 
 Cross, who devotes his life to work among the 
 poor, visited the mining regions on an errand 
 of mercy. He was greatly moved by what he 
 saw, and gave it eloquent and indignant utter- 
 ance. In an interview in the Chicago Ncivs, 
 he said: 
 
 " It is bad enough everywhere I went, but 
 it is worse at Spring Valley than elsewhere. 
 But even there the poverty-stricken inhabitants 
 are not like the poor I am used to seeing in 
 New York. There is no whining; the people 
 show intelligence and pride; even hunger has 
 not debased their feelings, as one might ex- 
 pect. I am used to scenes of want, but what 
 I saw at Spring Valley was different. It was 
 more pitiful than anything I ever witnessed 
 before. I went among the cottages. They 
 are nice, and are surrounded by pretty lawns 
 and gardens, but the awful poverty within was 
 shocking. * * * Sickness is in- 
 
 creasing, and the doctors told me the people 
 were so enfeebled by long privation and
 
 \ 
 
 72 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 anxiety, that an epidemic might break out at 
 any moment. Business is utterly dead. * 
 
 * * What is the outlook? Well, it is 
 
 black enough. The mine-owners profit whether 
 the mines are operated or not." 
 
 To a reporter in New York, Father Hunt- 
 ington said: 
 
 " I visited Spring Valley. In that town 
 there is already cruel destitution, and, unless 
 aid is sent them very soon, many will die of 
 want and the diseases induced by insufificient 
 nourishment. Even now there is an epidemic 
 of diphtheria among the children, and much 
 ague among the adults, which a few cents' 
 worth of quinine would have prevented, but 
 which could not be obtained. There are be- 
 tween five and six thousand persons in the town, 
 and 2,360 are on the relief list. The Company 
 has ordered the mines to be shut down for an 
 indefinite period, and the town will be wiped 
 out as effectually as was Johnstown by the 
 Conemaugh fiood. If the people of this coun- 
 try desire to avert what will be a national 
 calamity, they should help those miners of 
 Spring Valley at once. * * * My patriot- 
 ism, too, was outraged when I found that men 
 who had come from England, a so-called effete 
 monarchy, were compelled to labor under con-
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 73 
 
 ditions abolished in the country of their birth 
 
 twenty years before. I found in existence the 
 
 contract and the "truck" or store-order system, 
 
 together with monthly payments." 
 
 September 9th the Rev. John F. Power, the 
 
 Catholic priest of Spring Valley, wrote the 
 
 following letter in answer to an inquiry from a 
 
 friend in Chicago: 
 
 Spring Valley, III., September 9. 
 
 Dear Sir.— In reply to yours of the 7th, asking a statement 
 from me as to the condition of my people, I desire to say that 
 fully one-half of them are still dependent on outside charity for 
 the necessaries of life. Most of the men are away looking for 
 work. Some succeed at once, but it takes at least a month to 
 realize any cash to send home to wife and little ones. Mean- 
 while their families are in a precarious condition, even when 
 sickness spares them. I am going to appeal in person, in such 
 parishes as I can obtain permission, to the charitable for aid for 
 my congregation, beginning ne.xt Sunday in the cathedral parish, 
 Peoria. I have upward of 300 pupils in the sisters' school. 
 Besides maintaining the school, we must do what we can to 
 clothe the children coming on cold weather. This is why I go 
 abroad begging as the only alternative to closing the school 
 and sending away the sisters. John F. Power. 
 
 From then until the end of the lock-out 
 Father Power spent every Sunday in " going 
 abroad begging" in more prosperous parishes, 
 for the funds with which to keep the children 
 alive and the schools open. 
 
 The writer of this story went to Spring 
 Valley September 3d, to learn at first hand the
 
 74 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 facts of the destitution, and, as the result of 
 his observations, published an appeal for help 
 through the Chicago newspapers and the 
 Associated Press. In it he said: 
 
 " There is greater need than ever of help for 
 the starving men, women and children of 
 Spring Valley, in this State. 
 
 " There are thousands suffering there from 
 want of food, clothing, medicine and sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 " Most of these sufferers are children, and 
 most of the children are little ones. 
 
 " I have just returned from Spring Valley. 
 There, in this great and prosperous State, and 
 in the midst of harvest-laden farms and rich 
 cities, the visitor will see a cemetery of the 
 living. Instead of the light of health, there 
 shines in the eyes of the men and women the 
 phosphorescence of decaying strength, and 
 the children, fatally weakened by want, are 
 dying. 
 
 " There are families where adults and chil- 
 dren, grievously sick, are without medical at- 
 tendance or medicines, because there is no 
 money to pay for them." 
 
 September 29th, after a second visit, the 
 writer published a second appeal for relief, in 
 which he said:
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. /S 
 
 Among other means of getting intelligent and unbiased in- 
 formation as to the exact state of things I visited the Catholic 
 school and the public school, in which together there are over 
 600 children, and talked with the teachers and many of the 
 children. The sisters who teach in the Catholic school said 
 that their children gave unmistakable evide\ice of not having 
 sufficient food. They were paler than the year before, and they 
 could not study as well. Children would frequently fall asleep 
 at their desks from weakness. But so sturdy was their pride 
 and self-respect that it was almost impossible for their teacher 
 to obtain from them any acknowledgment that they did not get 
 enough to eat at home. Children who were unmistakably suf- 
 fering for want of nourishment would even refuse food when 
 offered them by their teacher, and in some cases the sister 
 superior said when food was taken by some such child, it was 
 immediately rejected by the stomach, showing how far the ex- 
 haustion of hunger had gone. One of the teachers in the pub- 
 lic school stated that on her way to the school in the morning 
 she would sometimes meet as many as a dozen of her class out 
 with baskets going to beg. As they saw her the little things, 
 ashamed, would try to hide from sight until she had passed. 
 In both schools numbers of the children were insufficiently 
 clothed, little boys and girls of the tenderest years having on 
 only some light sack or jacket, with no underclothing. It was 
 a cold, bleak day, but many were barefoot. How the people 
 have lived at all is a mystery. There have been during the last 
 four weeks ending September 25th five distributions by the relief 
 committee — all in goods, no money has been given out — and 
 the extent of this "charity" is sufficiently indicated by the 
 statement taken from the account of the committee that each 
 family of seven, and others in proportion, had received for the 
 entire period of four weeks flour, meat, etc., to the value of 
 $5.88, or 84 cents' worth for each person for the whole four 
 weeks. The mayor of the city, the editor of the Spring Valley 
 Gazette, the Congregational clergyman, Mr. Stringer, all the 
 physicians of the place, every one in fact stated without qualifi- 
 cation that were it not for the relief from without the people
 
 ^6 
 
 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 would have starved and would be starving. To live on such an 
 allowance is to live a life of slow death by starvation, and the 
 faces of the people, especially the little women and little men, 
 show it. The death rate shows it, and with the first touch of 
 cold and wet weather will show it in terrible shape unless kind- 
 lier hearts come to the rescue. 
 
 The undertaker, Mr. Dyer, who has had the largest number 
 of interments, had kept no account of them, but, speaking from 
 memory, said that during the last three months he had averaged 
 five a week, most of them children, and most of these cases of 
 diphtheria. Dr. Coveneyhas had thirty-five cases of this disease 
 in the last ^x"weeks. The local press, I was told, reported 
 seven deaths from diphtheria last week. There is a great deal of 
 malarial sickness among young and old. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the denials, official and other, it is true 
 that these poor people, women and children, have been refused 
 medicine and medical attendance. 
 
 I went to see Mrs. Dennis M . She was in bed shivering 
 
 with a chill. In her arms was a little child a few weeks old, who 
 had been ill for several days with inflammation of the lungs or 
 throat, she thought, but did not know. She had sent for Dr. 
 
 . He had refused to come. She then obtained an 
 
 order from the town supervisor to Dr. to go at the 
 
 expense of the county, as provided by law. The doctor re- 
 fused to go. The town supervisor then called upon him in 
 person. The doctor refused to go. I went to see the doctor, 
 and stated the deplorable situation of the mother and child to 
 him. He admitted the facts of the official order to him, and his 
 refusal, and added: "I haven't gone, and I won't go." And he 
 didn't go*. I gave the woman some of the money sent me by 
 
 * This statement having been challenged by the doctor referred to, 
 whose name will — with more mercy than he has shown the sick poor — 
 be omitted here, there was published in the Chicago Tribune the follow- 
 ing sworn statement by the town supervisor, Mr. O'Hara, showing that 
 orders given by him in person and in writing have been disregarded, and 
 the sick left unattended : 
 " State of Illinois, |_ 
 " Bureau County. )' 
 " James O'Hara, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he called 
 on Dr. in person, and requested him to visit Mrs. M -n, who had
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. TJ 
 
 Miss , and, when I visited Mrs. M the next day, she had 
 
 had a doctor and some medicine, and knew for the first time 
 what was the matter with her baby, which if it recovers owes 
 its life to the dear lady in New York. The father and husband 
 here was locked out last spring, and went away from home to 
 seek work, and has recently succeeded in finding employment at 
 Clark City. 
 
 I visited Mrs. Louis J . Her husband, locked out like 
 
 all the other miners, went away for employment, and is laid up 
 at Sparling sick with ague, having been able to do but three 
 days' work since spring. Of her four children three are ill with 
 chills and fever, one of these a baby in the cradle. The last had 
 
 croup the night before. She had sent for Dr. . He had 
 
 refused to come, and up to the time I saw her she had had 
 neither medicine nor medical attendance. 
 
 " Why don't the men go to work instead of living on char- 
 ity .? " I'here were once 2,500 miners there. As Adjutant- 
 General Vance states, there are now but 250 left. The rest 
 have gone. They have scattered themselves to the four quarters 
 for work. They have gone as far away as Wyoming, Kentucky, 
 Tennessee, Iowa and Missouri. A short time ago an agent of 
 the Union Pacific mines, at Rock Springs, came to Spring Val- 
 ley. He wanted forty men. Ninety presented themselves. 
 He took his pick, and left fifty men to seek another disappoint- 
 ment. Ihe men are leaving every day, as they get opportunity. 
 They often arrive at their destination to find that they ha\e 
 been deceived. They write back, the postmistress is told by 
 their wives, that they can sometimes barely make their board. 
 
 called at his house for an order for medical assistance, and that Dr. ■ 
 
 refused to do so; that the next morning he called on Dr. again, and 
 
 asked him to visit an aged couple, and again mentioned the case of Mrs. 
 
 M n, and that Dr. still refused to visit her; that on September 
 
 2Qth a Mrs. M — 1 — n called on him for an order to Dr. for medical 
 
 attendance; that he gave her the order, and it was ignored by Dr. , 
 
 he refusing to render her family medical attention. 
 
 " James O'Hara, 
 " Super < isor of Hall Town. 
 " Subscribed and sworn to before me this second day of October, i88g. 
 
 " J. B. Davidson, 
 " Police Magistrate for the City of Spring Valley, County and State afore- 
 said."
 
 78 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 A miner thus changing his place of work frequently has to buy 
 new tools, costing from $15 to $25. Still, the records of the 
 postoffice, which I saw, show that the men who are hunting 
 abroad for the means of life for the wives and children they have 
 left behind, to face, unprotected, the dangers of famine and 
 disease, are sending home from $125 to $200 a week in all. 
 
 County Agent Foley, of Chicago, who had 
 done a great deal to collect and forward relief, 
 received the following letter which continues 
 the deplorable record into the month of Oc- 
 tober, and throws light on the difficulties which 
 the men experienced in finding work else- 
 where: 
 
 Spring Valley, III., Oct. 4. 
 
 Mr. John Foley, Chicago. 
 
 Dear Sir: Yours of the 3d inst. at hand. The car-load ot 
 provisions sent by you the 2d has been received, and is being dis- 
 tributed to-day. 
 
 iMany of our men have gone in various directions in search 
 of work. Some who have gone in answer to the many adver- 
 tisements sent here for miners and others who have gone with 
 agents find that those places are not as represented, the condi- 
 tions being such that they could scarcely make their board, con- 
 sequently they would not be able to send their families any 
 assistance. There are now 476 families being supplied by the 
 relief committee. There are a great many cases of sickness, 
 mainly malaria and ague, and a few cases of diphtheria. The 
 medicine sent by Mr. Lloyd has done much to relieve this, as 
 heretofore it was a hard matter to procure medicines. The 
 coming cold weather will greatly add to the needs of all. 
 
 A. D. BouRKE, President. 
 Thomas Brady, 
 Secretary of the Miners' Union.
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 79 
 
 The Hon. Frank Lawler, one of the mem- 
 bers of Congress from Chicago, nobly gave 
 nearly his whole summer to investigating the 
 sufferings and wrongs of the miners of Spring 
 Valley, Braidwood, and other places in Illi- 
 nois, and eloquently and fearlessly appealed 
 for relief and for justice through the press, 
 public meetings and by personal solicitation. 
 If this was done " for political effect " so much 
 the better. It is high time the servants 
 of the people sought to win their favor by 
 serving them against the ruthless plutocracy 
 which is oppressing them. 
 
 " Thanks to the human heart by which we 
 live, thanks to its tenderness," the public 
 responded to the appeals for help with enough 
 food, clothing, medicine, and sympathy to 
 take off the sharpest edge of the distress, 
 though it did not give enough to save the 
 miners at last from a disastrous and humiliat- 
 ing defeat. 
 
 Why did not this evidence, volumes of which 
 have been laid before you by the daily press 
 of all parties and opinions, melt your hearts? 
 Has the bourbonism of the " divine rieht" of 
 buying cheap and selling dear become so fanat- 
 ical that you think you have a right to grind 
 up the very bodies of the poor for " six per
 
 So A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 cent, on the capital" — watered capital at that? 
 Have your riches and your use of agents 
 to deal with your employes and customers, 
 borne you so far away from the people 
 that you do really not believe that they 
 have hearts that can ache as yours can, bodies 
 that can suffer as yours can? Don't you be- 
 Heve that they love their wives and children 
 as you do yours? that their hearts sink as 
 yours would, when, without warning, they are 
 dispersed, penniless, into strange parts for 
 work, leaving wives and babies behind, per- 
 haps to starve? Don't you believe that want 
 of food weakens their bodies as it would 
 yours — that hope and success and sympathy 
 are as essential to their well-being as to your 
 " finer " natures? 
 
 If you don't like to lose one per cent, out 
 of your six per cents., how do you think it 
 makes poor men feel to have you cut off all 
 their income? If you like to take your wives 
 and children with you to the sea-shore or to 
 Europe, how do you think a workman feels 
 when you force him to tramp hundreds of 
 miles away from his family, leaving them to 
 charity, while he hunts for work, as if that, 
 too, were charity? Is it having three good
 
 GHOST OF STARVED ROCK WALKS. 8l 
 
 meals a day that has made you believe that to 
 live on twenty-one cents worth of pork and 
 meal a week is not " starvation " ?
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 
 
 The local press chronicled your lock-out in a 
 curt six-line paragraph, closing with the state- 
 ment that " the wages for the next year is the 
 question now to be decided." That was the 
 question, but it was not to be decided by the 
 ordinary and decent processes of bargaining 
 between two free parties. It was to be 
 decided by a commercial attack of the strong 
 upon the very lives of the weak. These were 
 to be made helpless, then asked to make a/r^v 
 contract. You who could live in luxury in- 
 definitely without giving employment took 
 employment away from the workman, who 
 must die without it. You took hope, too, 
 away. When you were boomers, you fed the 
 people on hope in lieu of the good wages you 
 had promised; but, when you changed this 
 role and began to play the Doomer, it was ne- 
 cessary for success in bringing down the people 
 that despair should be added to disease and 
 starvation. Dark hints were circulated from 
 
 (82)
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 83 
 
 headquarters as to what the millionaires had 
 done in other cases and would do in this. The 
 leader in this war on the workingmen, it was 
 said, had utterly destroyed one mining town 
 which had resisted his will, and he would do 
 so here to obtain what he wanted. Mean- 
 while what he wanted remained like the secret 
 of the sphinx — uncommunicated. " The Coal 
 Company," said the Spring Valley Gazette 
 of May 8th, " are as yet non-committal, and 
 have made no offer to the men." At a mass- 
 meeting of the miners June 1st, the resolutions 
 began with this preamble, which corroborates 
 the above: "WHEREAS, The Spring Valley 
 Coal Company, have locked us out since April 
 29th without having given us any information 
 why they did so." The coal company's office 
 gazed out upon the town, blankly through its 
 two great plate-glass eyes, and made no sign. 
 The workingmen wrote letters to the company 
 asking when and how they could get work, 
 but could obtain no answer. They offered 
 arbitration, but in vain. They sent committees 
 to the office, but were told that positive 
 instructions had been given that the men 
 should be dealt with only as individuals, never 
 again through representatives. 
 
 During all this time the only communication
 
 84 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 vouchsafed them was the serving of eviction 
 notices in July on all the families that were liv- 
 ing in the company's houses. 
 
 Though the eviction notices were served with 
 all the due legal formalities required, the evic- 
 tion did not follow. It is an open secret that the 
 then superintendent broke out into open rebel- 
 lion against the ruthlessness with which the 
 company was carrying out its policy. 
 
 Not long after he sold his stock, and left the 
 service of the company. Another reason for 
 the arrest of the policy of evictions was that it 
 was plain that public opinion was too much 
 roused to submit to it. The case of Spring 
 Valley had become a cause celcbre. Things 
 that had been done and could have been done 
 in the dark, it was not safe to do in the blaze of 
 publicity which now poured in there. 
 
 This news item from Spring Valley of July 
 22d, illustrates the methods used to terrorize 
 the workingman into submitting to the com- 
 pany's demands. It is a vivid picture of the 
 influence brought to bear upon the men, as a 
 preliminary to asking them to sign " free con- 
 tracts," and throws a flood of sunshine on the 
 kindly means used by "capital" to demon- 
 strate its " harmony of interest" with labor.
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 85 
 
 WII>L, EVICT rOLE MINERS. 
 
 Notices Already Served by the Sheriff — Probabilities of 
 Kesisatnce by the 3Ien. 
 
 Spring Valley, III., July 22. — To-night nearly 100 notices 
 to vacate have been served by the Spring Valley Coal Company 
 upon the idle miners, and about twenty-five more will be served 
 to-morrow. One week from to-day eviction notices proper will 
 be served. Two weeks from to-day Sheriff Henderson and an 
 armed posse of deputies will enforce the notices and turn all idle 
 miners out. There will doubtless be a total of about 650 per- 
 sons thrown out. The coal company says that the law will be • 
 enforced to the letter, while the miners will resist — some by 
 force some by legal means. Where the miners will go is a 
 mystery. But few have any money to pay their way to other 
 towns, and there are not enough empty houses in town to keep 
 them. The houses will be boarded up as fast as emptied. 
 
 From April 29th until August 23d your con- 
 temptuous silence in the face of all inquiries as 
 to the cause and prospects of the lock-out was 
 maintained — five heart-sick months for the 
 people of Spring Valley. Then the company 
 posted in its windows at SpringValley an offer to 
 them of thirty-five cents a ton, instead of ninety 
 cents, which they were receiving when the 
 mines were closed. The following is the notice 
 which was posted at the Spring Valley mines, 
 on Thursday, August 22, 1889: 
 
 Notice to Miners.— I am directed by the president of this 
 company to make the miners of Spring Valley the following 
 proposition, viz.: Seventy-five cents per ton for mining in the 
 third vein, with thirty inches of brushing and three men in a 
 room, from now until May i, 1890. I am also directed that
 
 86 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 men now occupying company houses, who are unwiUing to work 
 on these terms, or who do not begin to work on or before Mon- 
 day, September 2, prox., must vacate the houses occupied by 
 them on or before that date, or we will be obliged to proceed to 
 regain possession peaceably and lawfully. The president of this 
 company desires it to be further understood that we shall not 
 treat with any committee representing any organization in the 
 future, and that each man will have to seek employment for 
 himself and individually. 
 
 (Signed) The General Manager. 
 
 This offer was so worded that, to the unin- 
 itiated, it might seem an offer of seventy-five 
 cents a ton. The words " seventy-five cents 
 a ton " occurred in it, but there was a string 
 tied to them, in the shape of conditions, which 
 cost the miners forty cents a ton. The offer 
 was, in substance, " seventy-five cents a ton, 
 less forty cents worth of your work and time." 
 No one understood the true character of the 
 offer better than the men who would have had 
 to work under it, and no one has explained 
 it better than they did in a communication 
 which they immediately addressed to the public. 
 
 " Brushing," so often referred to below, is 
 the work of removing the rock above the 
 coal, so as to give head-room for the mules 
 and pit-cars. The company require that the 
 roadway be nine feet wide at the bottom, eight 
 feet wide at the top and about six feet high. 
 Of this space, from three feet to three and one-
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 8/ 
 
 half feet in height is coal, for removing which 
 the miners are paid the agreed rate per ton, 
 whatever that may be. Underneath the coal is 
 a layer of fire-clay, sometimes of very hard 
 sandstone, which the miner has to dig away, 
 without pay, and above the coal is solid rock, 
 which he has to dig away for head-room, with- 
 out pay, to the height of twenty-four inches 
 above the coal, and for a width of eight feet. 
 The company used to pay the miners- for this 
 " brushing" at the rate of $1.25 a yard, but 
 it has gradually shifted the burden of it on the 
 miners of doing it gratuitously. Before the 
 lock-out the company had put sixteen inches 
 of this unpaid work on them, and it has now 
 increased this to twenty-four inches. A con- 
 siderable part, also, of the work on the coal 
 vein itself is without compensation. The men 
 get no pay for the nut coal, which drops 
 through the spaces of the coal-screens, about 
 one-eig-hth of all mined. And there is in the 
 Spring Valley coal a seam of sulphur, one to 
 two inches wide, and a band of iron pyrites 
 varying from one to several inches in thickness. 
 The coal that breaks into " nut," the sulphur 
 and the pyrites yield the miners nothing but 
 unrequited toil. There are many other time- 
 consuming labors connected with coal-mining
 
 88 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 which cannot easily be described to the unin- 
 itiated, but all maybe summed up in the state- 
 ment that, of the ten hours spent hard at work 
 on the knees, or lying down hundreds of feet 
 below daylight, only about two-thirds produce 
 actual earnings to the miner. 
 
 This is the letter to the public explaining the 
 " offer " of 35 cents a ton : 
 
 Spring Valley, III, Aug. 24. 
 Editor of the Herald: 
 
 We wish, through the columns of the Herald iogwe. the peo- 
 ple of Chicago and elsewhere a proper idea of the proposition 
 of the company which was made to the miners here yesterday 
 morning; viz., 75 cents per ton, thirty inches of brushing and 
 three men in a place. Also that the men must treat indi- 
 vidually with the company, they refusing to recognize commit- 
 tees or any " board " acting for the men as a whole, which 
 practically means that all persons who have been active in their 
 endeavors to have some degree of justice done them will not get 
 any work here or anywhere else if they can hinder them. 
 
 Now, 75 cents per ton is a reduction of 15 cents, the pre- 
 vious price being 90 cents in the Spring Valley and La Salle dis- 
 trict. Thirty inches of brushing means at least 10 cents per 
 ton more, as we were previous to the lock-out paid $1.25 per 
 yard for this amount of brushing. 
 
 It has been stated in the press Ijy some one writing from here 
 (who is unknown to us) that previous to the lock-out the men 
 were working three in a place, which is not the fact. We simply 
 divided our work with those that had been thrown out of work 
 by the closing clown last December of mines 2 and 4. At no 
 time were we working three in a place together, but were 
 working two men, each man laying off two days in the week. 
 As will readily be seen, this was to each man a reduction of two 
 days in the week, or one-third of his time, and this was not un- 
 derstood to be permanent, but only until mines Nos. 2 and 4
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 89 
 
 would resume operations, as the mines, when running at their 
 fullest capacity, would not, and did not, give the men full work 
 with two in "a place. The forcing of three men in a place 
 would simply be dividing the work and wages of two men be- 
 tween three. Now, to sum up the proposition : In the first 
 place, there is proposed a reduction of 15 cents per ton, from 90 
 to 75 cents ; in the next place we are asked to take thirty inches 
 of brushing, for which we were previously paid $1.25 per yard, 
 which is equivalent to 10 cents per ton ; and last, but not least, 
 three men in a place, which, as we have shown, means a re- 
 duction of one-third of the earnings of each man, which is one- 
 third of 90, or 30 cents per ton, making in all 55 cents per ton 
 of a reduction. Now, this is a reduction of over one-half our 
 former wages, which were shown by the recent investigation 
 before the State board of charities to be an average of $28 to 
 $30 per month. 
 
 By way of properly seasoning this kind and considerata 
 offer, it is further stated in the proposition, that, if the men do 
 not accept these terms on or before the 2d of September, the 
 company will proceed to regain possession of their houses, 
 which, of course, means eviction, as none of the miners have 
 the means to move elsewhere. 
 
 This infamous proposition has caused general indignation 
 here, not only among the miners, but also among the business 
 men, who are denouncing the outrage in terms more forcible 
 than polite. The general manager has resigned the manage- 
 ment of the mines, and has also sold out his interest in the 
 company. His reason for doing so, it is said, is because of the 
 president's insisting on these terms, which the latter knows can 
 never be agreed to by the men, and also because of his intention 
 of importmg colored men to take the place of miners. 
 
 A. D. BouRKE, President of Lodge No. 26. 
 Thomas Brady, Secretary of Lodge No. 26. 
 Robert Wilson, Secretary of Relief Committee. 
 
 A few days before this " offer," the presi- 
 dent of the company had, by an ostentatious
 
 90 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 withdrawal, broken up a conference between 
 mine-owners and miners strugglirig- for an 
 agreement in Cliicago, at the Grand Pacific 
 Hotel. As he did so, he is reported by one 
 of the newspapers to have said : 
 
 " I will settle with my own men. I do not 
 care what this conference may decide upon. 
 I will pay my men as high a figure as they 
 may fix. Yes, I will pay them a higher scale 
 than any which may be adopted at this confer- 
 ence, that is, if I continue to mine coal in 
 Illinois. If I decide to resume the mining of 
 coal, it will be on a bigger scale than ever 
 before, and on an entirely different basis." 
 
 This was August i6th. The value of the 
 promise to pay " as high " as others, or 
 " higher," was illustrated within a week, by the 
 " offer" of August 23d. just described. This 
 has the unique distinction of being without 
 exception the lowest bid yet made for Ameri- 
 can labor. According to the estimate of their 
 previous average earnings, made by the special 
 commissioners of the State, it would have 
 yielded the miners about $10 a month — and 
 "find" themselves. According to your own 
 " statistics," it would have given them about 
 $16 a month, and find themselves. This offer 
 was stuck to, and repeated publicly a month
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 91 
 
 later, as the best you could do. Every one 
 knows well, that it was never supposed, even in 
 offering such terms, that they would be listened 
 to by the men. Public opinion will never 
 quarrel with your men for publicly branding as 
 "infamous" such a proposition, made after 
 the silence and lock-out of five months, with 
 every appearance of a purpose to add a new 
 terror to the apprehensions of the community, 
 in order to frighten them into selling you their 
 labor below the cost of subsistence. No one 
 but those who made this offer have ever had 
 the hardihood to defend it. Even the local 
 journals of Spring Valley denounced it. The 
 Gazette of September I2th, said : " The men 
 here are willing to do what the La Salle men 
 are, but the company wants them to accept 
 terms way below that. This the miners declare 
 they will not accept, and the sympathies of our 
 citizens are with them. The Spring Valley 
 Coal Company can certainly pay as high 
 wages as its competitors." 
 
 Stung into protest by this offer to the men, 
 and the threat to close the mines, the Spring 
 Valley Sentinel, which, with the Gazette, con- 
 stitute the local press of the town, had a plain- 
 spoken article in its issue of August 3 1 st. It is 
 of importance as showing, as the article in the
 
 92 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Gazette does, that the injustice done the miners 
 was so obvious that it had to be admitted by 
 local elements not specially friendly to them. 
 Speaking broadly, the business men and the 
 working men of our civilization are antag- 
 onistic to each other, and this is true in little 
 Spring Valley as in better known communities. 
 The business men and the working men repre- 
 sent different social classes, and different sides 
 of the bargains of industry. Their different 
 circumstances have given them different ideals 
 and philosophies of life. The busi-ness man aims 
 to make a fortune for himself, and, to reach that 
 solitary good, wants to go it alone. He must 
 have " competition," " individual enterprise," 
 laissez faire, etc. The working man knows 
 that solitary prosperity and the good of the 
 people are compatible only by being made one. 
 He is forced to seek the good of all as the pre- 
 liminary of good for himself, and he advocates 
 the policy of union, self-sacrifice of the indi- 
 vidual for the sake of all, social control. Per- 
 sonal inquiry among the merchants of Spring 
 Valley showed that in most cases they felt the 
 prejudices of their class against the working- 
 men and their ideas, although this prejudice 
 was often tempered by the kindest personal feel- 
 ings, and the tenderest commiseration for their
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 93 
 
 sufferings. The newspapers of Spring Valley 
 are supported by the advertisements and sub- 
 scriptions of the business class, including the 
 patronage of the coal company itself. That 
 these papers spoke out as they did, must be 
 counted the strongest possible evidence of the 
 oppressive unfairness of the action of the mine- 
 owners. 
 
 The article in the Sentinel was as follows: 
 
 THE SITUATION. 
 
 The present situation is anything but encouraging for Spring 
 Valley. The mines are closed down, and all the clerical force 
 laid off indefinitely. The general manager, who owns $350,000, 
 or one-seventh of the capital stock, offered to take the mines 
 and run them, and give the company fifteen cents a ton clear 
 of expenses.* This was refused by the president of the com- 
 pany. At Braidwood a settlement is about to be made at 87^^ 
 cents per ton. There is an offer of 82^ cents at La Salle, but 
 there is little hopes of a settlement here. The Sentinel would 
 be untrue to its convictions of duty did it not call attention 
 to the true condition of both sides of this momentous question. 
 It has been given put that this was the largest coal mining plant 
 in the United States, truthfully. The Town Site Company 
 have advertised and sold a large amount of real estate on these 
 representations. The coal company and the Town Site Com- 
 pany are practically indentical. Men came here and invested 
 all they possessed, knowing the facts, and believing in the asser- 
 
 * The president of the Spring Valley Coal Company, in a conference 
 with the miners about their wages, told them that they could take the 
 mines and run them, if they would pay him a royalty of only fifteen cents 
 a ton. This, to " prove" to the men that the company could not afford to 
 pay them living wages. Hut, when the superintendent, who was also 
 part owner, did what the poor miners had not the money, or nerve, or 
 knowledge to do — accepted the proposition, the president backed down 
 at once.
 
 94 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 tions that the coal company would be a lastmg feature of the 
 town. The business done here is transacted solely on the 
 money disbursed by the coal company. Men who are engaged 
 in business realize that to stop the mines, stops business. They 
 have waited for four months, and with the announcement that 
 another six months of idleness was in store for them, they 
 have become justly indignant; and are only waiting for a suit- 
 able opportunity to unload and seek other and more stable 
 fields of trade. That is one side of the situation. Let us see 
 if there are any extenuating circumstances. The gigantic coal 
 company has lost money here. They cannot pay last year's 
 prices and not lose more. The president of the company 
 makes a proposition which he claims is all he can do. He can- 
 not get men to accept it. After waiting a week, he says: " It 
 is not likely that operations will be resumed for six months or 
 a year." The people of all classes are shocked, and many are 
 panic-stricken. What shall we do? What does it mean? We 
 will tell you. For the business men of the town, six months or 
 a year more of idleness means bankruptcy ; for the working- 
 men who have depended on this industry for a livelihood, a 
 removal, living on charity or starvation. For the coal com- 
 pany it means a greater loss than has hitherto been sustained; 
 the opening of new mines, if work is ever resumed. And it 
 means a new population when the city is once more brought to 
 life. Now let the candid, intelligent reader judge where 
 justice and self-interest conflict, and then prognosticate the 
 future. The Sentinel has this to say: 
 
 Though the mills of God grind slowlj'. 
 
 Yet they grind exceeding small; 
 Though with patience he stands waiting, 
 
 With exactness grinds He all. 
 
 And believing in the truth of this, we say there is yet a future 
 for our city, and a prosperous tide of affairs yet to come. The 
 president may legally close his mines now, but if the governor 
 of this State and legislature do their duty as law-makers and 
 executives should, this state of affairs will be regulated, and the 
 rights of innocent parties protected. That there is something
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 95 
 
 radically wrong in the management of this affair we are satisfied. 
 The Union Coal Company, of La Salle, operating the same vein 
 of coal, and presumably has the same market, has a standing 
 offer of S2}4 cents. Braidwood operators have made an offer 
 ten cents in advance of our company's proposition. Its presi- 
 dent, in his letter to Congressman I. awler, recently i)ublished in 
 the Chicago Tiibiinc, takes the Chicago market as a basis and 
 says " if the good people of Chicago " will pay such a price for 
 coal, he will open the mines. Now, Chicago is not the Spring 
 Valley Company's market, and never was ; all last year he sold 
 coal to the North-Western road here at this point, Spring Val- 
 ley, for $1.42 per ton. Here is his market, and all along the 
 line of the North-Western road. Streator is a competitor for a 
 very small part of the coal trade at junction points only. These 
 facts, placed beside the refusal to lease the mines on a fifteen 
 cent royalty, are not consistent with his proposition. The sit- 
 uation is bad. The coal company has made a bad matter very 
 much worse. 
 
 The Gazette and the Sentinel expressed the 
 almost universal opmion condemning the offer 
 of the coal company to its men, and approving 
 their manliness in resenting it as an insult added 
 to injury. The Rev. Mr. Stringer said, in his 
 pulpit Sunday evening, October 27th: "When 
 the president of the company offered the men 
 seventy five cents per ton with thirty inches 
 of brushing and three men in a room, nobody 
 thought the men ought to accept it." All of 
 this is evidence from sources which through- 
 out have been far more partial to the employers 
 than to the men. 
 
 Adjutant-General Vance said, after visiting
 
 g6 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Spring Valley officially for the governor : 
 " There is a universal expression [among the 
 citizens of Spring Valley], that the offer of 
 seventy-five cents a ton for mining and thirty 
 inches of brushing, with three men in a room, 
 would be unreasonable, and an unfair remu- 
 neration to the miners, and the president is 
 charged with insincerity in making the offer." 
 With this offer of thirty-five cents a ton, 
 ostensibly seventy-five cents a ton, was coupled 
 the requirement that the men should abandon 
 their union. You do all your business through 
 a union, and by walking, or more correctly 
 sitting delegates, and through committees 
 of directors, and you keep a large staff of 
 "professional agitators " constantly busy on 
 your behalf in courts and legislatures and 
 stock exchanges. But because you are rich 
 and think you have the power, you determined 
 to take away the same rights from these poor 
 men. By this demand of August 23d, for the 
 surrender of their union, the men learned that, 
 worse than a reduction of wages, the destruc- 
 tion of their union had been decreed. This 
 meant the destruction of their power to make 
 a free contract, and to protect themselves 
 against violations of the contract when made. 
 It meant that the tasks, hours of work, the
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 97 
 
 pay, the personal liberty, the treatment at the 
 hands of overseers, settlement of disputes, 
 and other matters, which lay at the very 
 foundations of livelihood and rights, were to 
 depend on the will of the employer — harder 
 than that, on the will of the overseer. It 
 meant that the men were to be denied the 
 benefit of any gift of leadership — ahva)s too 
 rare — that might develop itself among them. 
 It meant that any man so gifted, who should 
 have the heart to speak against the abuse of 
 his fellows, who should have the brain to see 
 how they could make better bargains for 
 themselves, and the tongue to get the idea into 
 their heads, and to speak for them, should be 
 banished at the will of the employer. It 
 meant that the workmen could have work only 
 at the price of dumb submission and disunited 
 helplessness. 
 
 The employers, rich, remote, independent, 
 could bring their combined power operated 
 through an agent, to bear resistlessly on the 
 men, poor, dependent, anchored to the spot by 
 family responsibilities and lack of the means 
 to get away. The employers, although strong 
 enough to stand alone, were united together 
 in a union the wealth and discipline of which 
 were far beyond anything possible to the
 
 98 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 workingmen, and yet announced that they 
 were going to take away the same right of 
 union from their men. 
 
 The company's vein of coal is so thin that 
 the men have to work all day on their knees or 
 lying down, but you insist that in addition to 
 this they shall come on their knees when they 
 make their application for work, and not like 
 American citizens acting through a committee 
 or attorney, if that suits them better than com- 
 ing one by one. You have in the mines a 
 class of useful and docile animals in the mules 
 which stay in the depths for years, and some- 
 times never come back to the surface. You 
 always treat with them " individually." If 
 your plans succeed, it will not be long before 
 you will have the power to keep your miners 
 like your mules — down below from year's end 
 to year's end. There will be nothing left them 
 worth coming to the surface for, because, if 
 you can make them give up their unions, you 
 can make them give up everything. " Unite 
 or Die " said Franklin to the American colo- 
 nies. The unorganized workman, says Prof. 
 Thorold Rogers, cannot make a free contract. 
 John Morley, the great English statesman, 
 said recently to the miners of Durham : " We 
 all know what the labor union has done for the
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 99 
 
 working people. It has made men of them." 
 You, with so many millions you could not 
 count them if you counted all your life like 
 clerks of the treasury, instead of helping to 
 make men of your vvorkingmen, seek to dehu- 
 manize them for " more " millions. 
 
 The indignant refusal of the miners to con- 
 sider the offer of August 23d as anything 
 but a brutality was followed by the closing of 
 the company's offices in Spring Valley. A 
 special dispatch in the Chicago Herald of 
 August 26th, said: 
 
 Spring Valley, 111., August 26. — A telegram was received 
 here this morning from the president of the coal company 
 instructing his general manager to discharge all employes whose 
 services were not absolutely needed, and to reduce expenses to 
 a minimum preparatory to a six-months' or a year's shut-down 
 of the coal mines here. 
 
 Succeeding this came a dispatch of August 
 28th, which said: 
 
 Spring Valley, 111., August 28. — [Special.] • — The Spring 
 Valley Coal Company to-day discharged their entire general 
 office force for an indefinite period. Every move that is made 
 is indicative of carrying out the order to close down the mine 
 for a year or six months. The town is fast becoming deserted. 
 
 September 25th the offer of August 23d was 
 repeated in a long communication to the public, 
 printed in the appendix, through Governor 
 Fifer, and was accompanied by this solemn as-
 
 lOO A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 sevcration: " It is all the concession we can 
 possibly make to our men and maintain our- 
 selves in a competitive market." If this were 
 true, it would not excuse the company's treat- 
 ment of the men. But it was not true, as 
 your own spokesmen shall prove, and as can 
 be shown by three business facts which the 
 wayfaring man, though a fool, can read. At 
 the very moment this statement was made a 
 mine with precisely the same kind of veins, 
 quality of coal, etc., as yours, that at Locey- 
 ville, four miles away, was at work, paying its 
 miners the unreduced rate of wages you gave 
 before your lock-out — 90 cents a ton — al- 
 though it was far inferior in capital, equip- 
 ment, etc. , and so had to buy dearer and sell 
 cheaper than you. That is fact number one. 
 Fact number two is just as clear, and proves 
 that the coal company's statement, in five col- 
 umns of fine print, of September 25th (see ap- 
 pendix), was prepared to deceive the public 
 and prevent them from learning the truth, that 
 the lock-out was really an offensive movement 
 of millionaires to put down the livelihood of 
 poor men below the level paid by other mine- 
 owners, below the competitive level, below 
 what you really could afford to pay, and below 
 the cost of their subsistence. This fact, num-
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. lOI 
 
 ber two, was the resumption, close upon your 
 statement, of the mines at La Salle and Peru, 
 at prices more than double what you had of- 
 fered August 23d, and had declared Septem- 
 ber 25th were all that could possibly be paid. 
 These mines have the same coal and veins as 
 yours, but nothing like your capital, equip- 
 ment or market connections. Fact number 
 three is strongest of all, and comes out of your 
 own mouth. Within a month after declaring, 
 on September 25th, that your offer of August 
 23d was all you could give and live, you of the 
 coal company on October 24th, in the nego- 
 tiations carried on by Rev. John F. Power, 
 made your men an offer double that of August 
 23d, viz.: 82^ cents a ton, with an increase 
 of brushing of only eight inches, instead of 
 fourteen, and only two men in a room, instead 
 of three. In fact, this offer was considerably 
 more than double that which you had so for- 
 mally and solemnly declared a month before was 
 the best you could do and live. The increase 
 of eight inches of brushing takes off about only 
 3 to 5 cents a ton from the offer, leaving about 
 'J']y2 cents net, and you made some other 
 concessions, allowing for which, makes the 
 offer of October 24th considerably more than 
 double the " last ditch " proposition of only
 
 / 
 
 I02 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 four weeks before. The new offer was de- 
 scribed in a press dispatch of October 24th, 
 from Spring Valley, to the Chicago Tribune, 
 as follows: 
 
 This afternoon the following telegram was received from the 
 president of the coal company : 
 
 We are willing to pay 82>^ cents per ton for screened coal 
 and 70 cents per ton for run of the mine (rough and tumble); 
 also twenty-four inches of brushing, with two men in a room 
 and fourteen yards of coal face; no back rent to pay from May 
 1st to November ist, but we shall insist upon contracts being 
 signed, and no committees to treat with us. We are willing 
 that the men shall have all the unions they wish independent 
 of us. 
 
 Immediately upon the receipt of this, the 
 secretary of the Miner's Union forwarded the 
 following to the press: 
 
 WHY THE SPRING VALLEY MINERS WOULD NOT SIGN MR. 
 SCOTT'S CONTRACT. 
 
 Spring Valley, October 28. 
 Following are the resolutions adopted at a mass-meeting 
 held the 26th inst. which had been called for the purpose of 
 hearing read a. proposed contract which was drafted by Man- 
 ager Dalzell on the part of the company and James McNulty on 
 the part of the miners. It had been agreed at a previous meet- 
 ing by Mr. Dalzell and the miners, that, as the contract before 
 submitted by the company was objectionable to the miners, that 
 one be drafted as above, and Mr. Dalzell gave the miners to un- 
 derstand that the objectionable feature might be stricken out, 
 but that was not done, and the rules submitted to the meetmg 
 for the approval of the miners were, with few exceptions, the 
 original document. It appeared to the miners that undue ad-
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. IO3 
 
 vantage was sought on the part of the company, whereupon 
 the following preamble and resolution was adopted: 
 
 Whereas, The locked-out miners of Spring Valley have 
 used every endeavor to bring about a settlement, and have gone 
 so far as to surrender some of their rights as American citizens; 
 and, 
 
 Whereas, The terms offered the Spring Valley Coal 
 Company — viz.: 82)4 cents per ton, with twenty-four inches of 
 brushing — gives it advantages over all the mines in the La 
 Salle and other districts in northern Illinois; and 
 
 Whereas, The Spring Valley Coal Company has refused to 
 start its mines on these conditions unless we would surrender 
 the last vestige of our rights — the right of association; there- 
 fore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we the miners of Spring Valley, in mass- 
 meeting assembled, do hereby rescind all former propositions 
 to the company, and bind ourselves to accept no proposition ex- 
 cept that already submitted — viz., 82^4 cents per ton, twenty- 
 four ihches of brushing, working place of forty-two feet, with 
 two men in a place; all other conditions the same as last year. 
 
 This offer of October 24th, the men were ready 
 to accept had you not insisted that they should 
 still surrender their unions and sign an iron- 
 clad contract which bound them to all possible 
 disadvantages and bound you to nothing. To 
 save their union, without which they well know 
 they will in the end lose everything that makes 
 them free men, the miners kept up the forlorn 
 struggle a few days longer. But it was hope- 
 less. The importation of men from the Penn- 
 sylvania field was begun by the company, and 
 threatened to fill the mines with outsiders,
 
 I04 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 False reports were sent out through the news- 
 papers that the lock-out was settled at Spring 
 Valley, and in consequence miners began 
 flocking in and contributions for relief began to 
 slacken. The last day came, and the miners, 
 exhausted utterly, succumbed to the slow siege 
 of slander and starvation, and at a meeting on 
 November I2th, voted by secret ballot to give 
 up the struggle, to apply for work as " individu- 
 als," and sign the " contract" falsely so called, 
 which the company had drafted. The ranks 
 that had stood so heroically together for so 
 many months, broke. It was a race to see who 
 could get first to the office and enter servitude 
 on the Pennsylvania plan. 
 
 This oft'er by you of the coal company on 
 October 25th of more than double what you 
 had offered August 23d, and had declared, 
 September 25th, was all you could offer and 
 live, was an admission outright of the real pur- 
 pose of your doings. It was a confession that 
 you had created, or allowed to be created, all- 
 the misery of Spring Valley to increase your 
 profits by cutting down the wages of your 
 men below what you and others were paying, 
 and could afford to pa}^ This is what your 
 long letters to the governor, statements to the 
 public and interviews in the papers boil down
 
 BUYING BRETHREN BELOW COST. 105 
 
 to. All the clever columns of assorted statis- 
 tics, mystifying talk about competitive fields, 
 railway discriminations, "junction points," 
 jargon about " brushing " and slanderous 
 charges that the men would rather live on 
 charity than work, you having yourselves 
 taken away their work and made them beg- 
 gars — all simmer down to this: You made 
 commercial war on them, their wives and 
 children, to add to your millions at the risk of 
 misery, disease and death to them. The pay- 
 ment by the competitors all about you of double 
 what you offered, your own offer of double 
 what you repeatedly assured the public was all 
 you could pay, indicates your dreadful pur- 
 pose to buy your brothers " below cost." 
 
 It was for this these poor men were seduced 
 into leaving homes and employment elsewhere 
 to settle in " your town ; " that they were 
 snared in the meshes of land purchase on 
 monthly installments without a title, making 
 the purchase of a home a means of slavery 
 instead of the refuge and support it should be. 
 It was for this the labor market was over- 
 stocked by bringing in superfluous miners 
 from Belgium, France, Italy, and all parts of 
 America ; that one-third of the mines were 
 shut down in December, and the rest in April,
 
 I06 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES 
 
 without notice; that having promised " steady 
 employment," your agent refused for five 
 months to give the arbitrarily disemployed 
 men any explanation or any chance to work 
 at any price; that he then offered them less 
 than half what neighboring mines, poorer 
 than yours, are paying; that he refused to 
 arbitrate; that he would not receive the men 
 when they came offering to work at the prices 
 paid elsewhere, which he had sworn in public 
 you would pay and better; that he dragged 
 the men about from conference to conference 
 at La Salle and Joliet and Chicago for a com- 
 promise which he had no thought of making; 
 that he demanded the abandonment of their 
 union by men who, without union, were but 
 brittle sticks to be broken by you one by one 
 at your pleasure. It is for this that the homes 
 of the poor have been broken up, and the 
 men, leaving wives and children to face the 
 terrors of starvation, have been driven forth 
 in heartbreak to seek work where a million 
 unemployed were tramping ahead of them.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A " FREE " CONTRACT. 
 
 The arrangements under which the miners 
 went back to work for you are called " con- 
 tracts. " 
 
 It is of the essence of contracts that they 
 should be free; and to be free, they must be 
 the voluntary agreements of equal parties, 
 made without duress, and with a full under- 
 standing of all the obligations assumed and 
 imposed. The means taken by the " party of 
 the first part " to prepare the minds and bodies 
 of the " parties of the second part," at Spring 
 Valley, to accept the terms of the iron-clad 
 printed contract offered them, were of a kind 
 not to be found recommended in any of the 
 law books. They were such as these: 
 
 Months of disemployment and of intimidat- 
 ing; refusal to give explanations why work 
 had been stopped or when it would be re- 
 sumed; the application of the torture of famine 
 and of compulsory exile; systematic slander 
 
 and misrepresentation through public and 
 
 (107I
 
 108 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 private channels; threats that the idleness 
 might be prolonged for years; the public and 
 repeated menace that other workingmen would 
 be brought in to take their livelihood away 
 from them, by force, " If it takes all the power 
 of the State to do it," said the figure-head of 
 tlie millionaires ; the terrifying assertion that 
 the pay was to be reduced from 90 cents to 35 
 cents a ton; threats of evictions and of for- 
 feiture of all the earnings invested in the pur- 
 chase of lots and building material bought 
 from the company on the installment plan. 
 
 These were the influences used to prepare 
 the men to make a " free " contract. 
 
 When the men broke their ranks, and ran to 
 the company's office to " settle," they stood 
 in a long file, hundreds of them passing one 
 by one before the clerk's window to " sign." 
 The paper given them, the " contract," was two 
 pages, foolscap size, of fine print. They had 
 no time to read it. Not one of them would 
 have dared to ask to be allowed to read it 
 before signing at the risk of finding his name 
 on the black list when he came back. It 
 would have done none of them any good if 
 they had read it. They couldn't have under- 
 stood its full scope, its provisions, carefully 
 conned over by and woven together at their
 
 A " FREE " CONTRACT. IO9 
 
 leisure by shrewd business men with the help 
 of the best legal advice, embodying all the 
 latest decisions of the courts in the phrasing of 
 the different clauses. If they could have 
 understood it, they couldn't have got it 
 changed. Oliver Twist asking for "more" 
 was nothing of a spectacle in comparison 
 with a miner who should dream of suggesting 
 some alterations to suit him in the "contract " 
 he was about to sign. Imagine him, the 
 " free" party of the second part, his clothes 
 hanging limp over the cavities in his person 
 caused by seven months enforced idleness, 
 his wife and children at home waiting for 
 what he will bring, the relief contributed by 
 the public stopped by the news that work has 
 begun. Imagine this " citizen " standing up 
 to the five hundred million dollars which looks 
 out at him over the counter through the super- 
 cilious eyes of the clerk. Try to fancy his 
 saying : " This contract suits me, all but this 
 and that ; make that so-and-so, and we will 
 call it a bargain! " 
 
 Of the men who scrambled over each other 
 to get to the windows to" sign," a great many 
 could not read at all ; a great many, being 
 French, Belgian, Italian, German, Polish, 
 could not read English. No one read the
 
 no A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 contract to them ; no one explained it. As 
 fast as they could sign their names or make 
 their mark, they passed on. 
 
 As each one came up he gave his name. 
 The clerk, before presenting the " contract " 
 for him to sign, it was observed, always glanced 
 down to his desk. " What's your name? 
 Brown? " Looks down. " That's all right. 
 Brown; put your name here. Now, then, next!" 
 
 Here is one of the faithfulest members of 
 the relief committee in the line. " What's 
 your name? Bourke, you say? I'll see," 
 Looks down. " B-B-B-Bourke. Ah ! yes, 
 Bourke. I haven't any contract for you. You 
 will have to see the superintendent. Next." 
 
 It is the " black list "which lies on the clerk's 
 desk. Bourke of the relief committee is on the 
 list. He will get no work. He will have to 
 go far from Spring Valley before his waiting 
 wife and children get any earnings of his for 
 the purchase of food He is a " free " man — 
 free to leave, free to hunt work, free to go into 
 exile. 
 
 Here is the so-called contract. It binds the 
 company to nothing but that while it keeps 
 the man at work it will pay him so much a ton. 
 The miner is bound to work usually from May 
 to May, in this case from December to May,
 
 A " FREE CONTRACT. I I I 
 
 but the company is not bound to ^ive him 
 work. The miner cannot discharge the com- 
 pany for any cause, but they may discharge 
 him whenever they see fit. The miner makes 
 his payment, which is in coal, to the company 
 every day, but the company makes him wait 
 two weeks to six weeks for every dollar it owes 
 him. However starveling may be his wages, 
 the miner has to bind himself to join no com- 
 bination to better them. If he even smiles 
 upon any such combination, it is under the 
 penalty of losing all the company owes him 
 for work, and the company is the judge 
 whether or not he has smiled an insubordinate 
 smile. Meanwhile, the company may join 
 any conspiracy it choosesto put down the wages 
 of the men, or put up the price of coal. If the 
 pit boss is a tyrant, and oppresses the miner, 
 as he has hundreds of ways of doing, the 
 miner has the privilege under the " contract " 
 of appealing for redress to this pit boss who 
 has wronged him. The miner who knows 
 that all of his associates have under compulsion 
 signed away their right to defend him by the 
 only power that could help him, the power of 
 the union, and that he stands in the darkness 
 of the pit simply as an individual, is not likely 
 to antagonize the petty despot of the mines.
 
 112 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 But if he has the rare courage to do so, and gets 
 an adverse decision, he has one privilege more. 
 He can appeal from the pit boss to the superin- 
 tendent, whose appointee the pit boss is. 
 
 All of which amounts to this: that the miner, 
 the weaker party, agrees to leave all disputed 
 questions to the decision of the other party, 
 opposed to him in interest at all points. No 
 wonder the workingman has to be locked out 
 and starved before he feels " free " enough (of 
 food and manhood) to make such a bargain. 
 
 MINER'S ANNUAL CONTRACT. 
 
 This Agreement, Made this day of A. D. i8. . 
 
 Between The Spring Valley Coal Company of the first 
 part, and of the second part. 
 
 Witncsscth, That the said party of the second part has agreed, 
 and by these presents does hereby agree, to enter into the em- 
 ployment of the said party of the first part, as a miner of coal 
 
 to commence on the day of A. D. i8. ., and 
 
 continue therein until the first day of May, A. D. i8. ., and to 
 abide by, adhere to and observe the rules and regulations set out 
 and printed on the back hereof, numbered from one to eleven, 
 inclusive, and which are hereby made a part of this contract, to 
 the like extent as if herein written. 
 
 The party of the first part hereby agrees to pay the party of 
 the second part, for each and every ton of screened coal mined 
 by the party of the second part, delivered in pit cars at the face 
 of the coal, after being weighed, passing over a screen, the bars 
 of which shall not be more than seven-eighths (J^) of an inch 
 apart, as near as the same can be made, and the width and 
 length of which shall not exceed the dimensions of the screens 
 
 now in use by the party of the first part, the sum of cents 
 
 per ton of 2,000 pounds, and for each and every ton of 2,000
 
 A FREE CONTRACT. I 1 3 
 
 pounds of the run of the mine or for unscreened coal, the sum 
 of cents per ton of 2,000 pounds. 
 
 The said party of the second part further agrees to and with 
 the party of the first part, that the price herein agreed to be 
 paid by the party of the first part for all coal mined in the so- 
 called Third Vein of the mines of the party of the first part, 
 whether the same shall be screened or unscreened coal, shall be 
 in full consideration to the said party of the second part for 
 keeping his room, or working place, in good working order, 
 including twenty-four (24) inches of brushing, which brushing 
 must be done the full width of the roadways. 
 
 The said party of the second part further agrees to assist the 
 pusher or driver employed by the party of the first part in start- 
 ing the loaded cars from the face of the coal for such distance as 
 may be necessary, provided such distance shall not exceed ten 
 (10) yards ; also, to take the empty cars from the first parting 
 or switch, to the face of the coal. 
 
 The said party of the first part hereby reserves the right and 
 privilege, however, of closing the mines at any time, and of dis- 
 charging any miner for cause, including the party of the second 
 part, as the superintendent, or person in charge of the mine for 
 the time being may think proper ; but the party of the first part 
 agrees that in case steady and continuous work cannot be fur- 
 nished the party of the second part during the life of this agree- 
 ment, that such work as may have to be done, shall be fairly 
 divided with and apportioned to said party of the second part, 
 on the basis of all the men so employed at and during such time. 
 All payments hereunder to be made monthly on regular pay 
 day, and in compliance with the rules and regulations above 
 named, and pay day is hereby fixed for and on the Saturday 
 nearest to the 15th day of each month, when and at which time 
 all wages or moneys that may have been earned during and in 
 the calendar month next prior to such pay day shall be paid, less 
 all moneys owing said party of the first part on any account 
 whatever. 
 
 It is hereby expressly agreed and understood by the party of 
 the second part, that should he become a tenant of the party of
 
 il4 A STkikE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 the first part during the term of his engagement, then in case of 
 the termination of this contract, either by his discharge from the 
 employ "of said first party, or in any other way, the term of such 
 tenancy shall at once cease and be determined without notice, 
 and he will vacate the premises so occupied by him, upon verbal 
 notice of the agent or superintendent of said first party, written 
 notice to quit being hereby expressly waived, and on failure so 
 to do shall be deemed guilty of a forcible detainer of such prem- 
 ises, and that he will not be entitled to demand or receive any 
 part of the wages due him for labor performed (should the 
 party of the first part so elect) until such premises are vacated, 
 and the keys thereof delivered at the office of the said first party. 
 
 And the party of the second ]art further agrees that he will 
 not stop work, leave the employment of the said party of the 
 first part, or join or become a party to, either directly or mdi- 
 rectly, any strike or combination for the purpose of obtaining, 
 or the intent of which is to obtain from, or cause the company, 
 party of the first part, to pay their miners an advance of wages, 
 or pay beyond what is specified in this contract. Nor will 
 he in any manner aid, abet or countenance any such strike, com- 
 bination or scheme whatever, which has for its purpose anysuch 
 object or design, during the time specified in the first clause of 
 this contract. And if the ?aid party of the second part at any 
 time shall violate any of the provisions of this contract in this 
 regard, he shall thereby forfeit all claim for coal prior thereto 
 mined and not paid for, and the said first party shall be fully re- 
 leased from all liability on account of this contract, or any labor 
 performed by the said party of the second part. 
 
 /;/ Witness Whereof, the said parties have hereunto set their 
 hands and seals, the day and year first above written. 
 
 THE SPRING VALLEY COAL COMPANY. 
 
 By [SEAL.] 
 
 Agent and Siipenntsndent. 
 
 Witness: 
 [seal.] 
 
 (sk^.ned in dl'plica'ie.) 
 
 Read ^le /'Allies and Regulations on the Other Side.
 
 A "FREE ' CONTRACT. II5 
 
 RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE SPRING VALLEY COAL 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 Adopted for the Purpose 0/ Regulating Mining and Other Em- 
 ployment in and About their Coal Mines. 
 
 I. — Every employe of the Company will be required to lie 
 ready for duty when the whistle blows for work, every morning, 
 and will be expected to perform a full day's work in his respect- 
 ive line of employment, unless the foreman of his department 
 orders less time to be worked. Engineers are strictly forbidden 
 to lower any miner or underground laborer into any pit after 7 
 o'clock a. m., without orders from the Pit-lioss or person in 
 charge of the pit head. 
 
 IT. — No suspension of work shall take place during working 
 hours, except in case of actual necessity; nor shall any miner be 
 absent from his work during working hours without leave from 
 the Pit-Boss, except in case of sickness or other unavoidable 
 contingency that would prevent him from working. 
 
 III. — Any employe feeling aggrieved in any respect, must 
 present his claim to the Pit-Boss in person. If they fail to ad- 
 just the matter in a manner satisfactory to the employe, it may 
 be referred to the Superintendent (if either party desires), whose 
 decision, upon the hearing of both sides of the question, will be 
 final. In case, however, the complaint arises from personal 
 grounds between the Pit-Boss and the miner, the Superintend- 
 ent, at his option, may change the miner to some other shaft. 
 
 IV. — Any employe who may have been discharged by the 
 Company, or who, with the consent of the Company, may have 
 left its service, shall receive all arrearages of pay due him at 
 once. The Company will consent to their employes leaving their 
 service without previous notice, provided such employe has con- 
 formed to the terms and conditions of this contract with the 
 party of the first part, and the rules and regulations governing 
 the working of the mines. 
 
 v.— No person will be allowed to interfere in any manner 
 with the employer's just right of employing, retaining and dis- 
 charging from employment, any person or persons whom the
 
 Il6 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Superintendent or Pit-Boss having charge of the mines for the 
 time being may consider proper ; nor interfere in any way, by 
 threats and menace, or otherwise, with the right of any employe 
 to work, or engage to worlv in any way, and upon any terms, 
 and with whom he may think proper and best for his interest, 
 or the benefit of his family. 
 
 VI. — No employe will be permitted to fill his place by an- 
 other man without the consent of the Superintendent. 
 
 VII. — Every employe will be paid once a month at regular 
 pay day, all wages or moneys he may have earned during and in 
 the calendar month next prior to such pay day, after deducting 
 any indebtedness which such employe may owe to the Company, 
 or which the Company, with the consent of such employe, may 
 have assumed to pay to any other person. 
 
 VIII.— On the side where coal is not mined in a miner's 
 place, the corner of the wall shall not be more than three (3) 
 feet from the face of the coal, and shall extend six (6) feet from 
 the corner along the face. The gob wall must not be over five (5) 
 feet from the face, and must extend six (6) feet from the pack. 
 On the side where coal is mined, the corner of the pack must 
 not be over two (2) feet from the face of the coal ; the pack and 
 gob to be built in the same manner as above ; the pack and road 
 walls to be built of brushing rock only; the gob and packs to be 
 built to the roof. It shall be the duty of every miner working 
 in the mines, provided there is a sufficient supply of props, as 
 required by law, to keep his room or working place in said 
 mines in good order and repair, as specified above ; and any 
 sucli miner who shall willfully, carelessly, or negligently suffer 
 them to get out of such order or repair, as above specified, and 
 who shall not upon request immediately put the same in repair 
 in the manner required by these rules, the Company may put 
 such places in repair at the expense of the miner in de- 
 fault, and may retain the amount of such expense from 
 the next or any future payment to which said employe 
 would otherwise be entitled, until fully reimbursed for such ex- 
 pense. And in case a room or working place should close, 
 when the miner has complied with the above requirements, then
 
 A "free" contract. 117 
 
 it shall be the duty of the Company to put the same in good 
 order and repair at its own expense ; if it is found impossible to 
 stow all rock in the gob and a part must be loaded and sent out, 
 the part sent out must be fire-clay, and not brushing rock. 
 
 IX. — No miner who has left the employment of the Com- 
 pany, whether voluntarily or by discharge, will be entitled to 
 receive any arrearages of pay due him for labor performed, 
 whether on the regular pay day or during the interval preced- 
 ing pay, until he shall have put his room or working place in 
 perfect working order, as required by his contract with the Com- 
 pany. All miners leaving said employment will be required to 
 procure the certificate of the Pit-Boss that they have complied 
 with the requirements of this rule, as aforesaid, before making 
 application at the Company's office for final payment. 
 
 X. — Any tenant of the Company, upon leaving its service, 
 whether voluntarily or by discharge, will not be entitled to re- 
 ceive any part of the wages due him for labor performed, until 
 he shall have vacated the premises occupied by him (shoukl the 
 Superintendent or other person in charge of the mines for the 
 time being so elect), and presented the keys of the same at the 
 office. 
 
 XI. — The miners may, at their option and expense, employ 
 a Check Weighman, whose duties shall be to see that the coal is 
 weighed correctly by the weighman employed by the Company ; 
 provided that the party so employed shall be a miner in the em- 
 ployment of this Company, and in good standing at the time 
 he may be selected for the position. 
 
 Under this contract a man may forfeit his 
 pay for the whole of one month, and up to the 
 third Saturday of the next month. The com- 
 pany makes the law, and is the sole judge and 
 executioner, allowing no appeal. 
 
 The third of the rules which form a part 
 of the contract makes the miner who feels
 
 Il8 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 aggrieved appeal " in person " to the pit boss. 
 When the men's union was recognized, 
 their remedy was quite dififerent; much more 
 likely to preserve the rights of the weaker 
 party. Under the union, the miners, when 
 aggrieved, made their complaints to a com- 
 mittee of their own number, called the pit 
 committee. This committee stood between 
 the boss and the complainant, and behind the 
 committee stood the union of all_^ the men. 
 The difference between this kind of a hearing 
 and that when the miner stands alone, with 
 nobody behind him, and asks for justice from 
 the pit boss, behind whom stands $500,000,- 
 000 and the power of dismissal, eviction, ban- 
 ishment and the black list, does not need to be 
 pointed out. 
 
 Only the company's pleasure limits the com- 
 pany's power under these rules to forfeit any 
 arrearages of pay due the miner if he leaves 
 before the end of the year for which he has 
 signed. No matter how extreme may be the 
 emergency which calls him away, if the com- 
 pany chooses to say no to his application for 
 release, he can only go by breaking his con- 
 tract. If he breaks his contract he may lose 
 as much as six weeks' wages, or about one- 
 sixth of the actual income of the year. If he
 
 A "free" contract. 119 
 
 must go, and the company chooses to force 
 him to break the contract, he has no redress; 
 its decision is supreme. 
 
 The possibilities of putting extra work and 
 expense on the miner, under the eighth and 
 ninth rules, are limitless. The pit boss is the 
 sole judge. When the union was the medi- 
 ator between the company and the organized 
 men, the company would never attempt to 
 shift the " deadvvork " of the mine on the men, 
 unless it wanted to precipitate a strike by the 
 whole body. Now that no power can inter- 
 vene, the company has but to say to the miner, 
 Do this. Do that, and he must submit. There 
 has been a steady increase year by year in the 
 amount of labor on the roadways, and other 
 deadwork once paid for, which the company 
 is requiring the men to do without compen- 
 sation. The company used to pay for all the 
 " brushing;" it now compels the miners to do 
 twenty-four inches of it without pay. This 
 shifting of burdens will be accelerated since 
 the union has been ruined. The men who 
 must do so much more unremunerated work 
 in making the roadways, taking out the rock, 
 etc., will have proportionately less time for 
 earning money by mining coal. 
 
 This " free " contract puts the workingman
 
 120 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 under a yearl} bond. It makes him agree to 
 abide for a year by a scale of wages fixed as 
 summer, the dull season, is coming on. The 
 winter is over. The demand for coal in May 
 is at its minimum. Prices of coal are at their 
 lowest, and the wages for the whole year are 
 made proportionate to this ebb-tide price. 
 The yearly bond of the contract says to the 
 miner: You must forego any advantage that 
 might come to you in the more active months 
 of the year. If supply and demand vary, you 
 are not to profit by it. No matter how high 
 coal goes, nor how much our profits increase, 
 you must remain bound to work for this 
 minimum wage. We may " strike " the public 
 every week for higher prices; you must agree 
 for a full year not to strike for any change in 
 wages. And by the ingenious system of keep- 
 ing back each month's pay until the middle of 
 the next month, the employers always have on 
 hand at least one twenty-fourth of the miner's 
 whole annual income, to be forfeited if he talks 
 even in his sleep about asking for" more." If 
 these are free contracts, it is a singular thing 
 that it should be so difficult to get the miners 
 to make them. They protest against them in all 
 their conventions and conferences. After six 
 months of idleness and famine at Spring Valley,
 
 A FREE CONTRACT. 121 
 
 the men stood out four weeks longer in their 
 misery, and that of their famihes, in the hope 
 that they might escape the " free contract." 
 They were whipped into signing it, just as 
 truly as the Southern slave was whipped to his 
 tasks, and more cruelly. 
 
 The bald truth is that this yearly contract is 
 slavery. It is slavery in yearly installments. 
 Put together, year by year, it is a slavery for 
 life. The miners, in submitting to it, and we, 
 in allowing them to submit to it, degrade their 
 manhood, and that of the republic. Slavery, 
 in no matter how small a spot, among a free 
 people, is like a spark in a cargo of cotton, a 
 leak in a ship. It cannot be so insignificant 
 that it does not imperil the whole. The miners, 
 to a man, ought to resist this slavery, and the 
 public should sustain them in doing so at any 
 cost. Relief given these men in such a strug- 
 gle would not be " charity ; " it would be an 
 investment for the defense of the liberties and 
 the homes of the whole people, all of which are 
 in peril, if any are in peril. Our forefathers 
 had the wit to see and act on this wise scheme 
 of mutual self-interest ; have not we? Ourcon- 
 stitutions, laws, revenues, expenditures, public 
 policies at home and abroad, are all operated 
 by the help of the votes of workingmen who
 
 122 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 are thus subjugated all over the country to 
 the will of the lords of industry. Are these 
 votes likely to go to the benefit of the public 
 which unconcernedly sees them denied their 
 rights, or to the benefit of those who hold them 
 under the yoke ? 
 
 Spring Valley at the city election in April, 
 1889, cast 949 votes. 
 
 The poison of these servitudes among the 
 people works up and back into the liberties of 
 the rest of us just as surely as the pestilence of 
 the slums creeps through the drainage of the 
 city into the palace. 
 
 In defense of these contracts, it was urged 
 by a newspaper at the county seat, the Prince- 
 ton Tribune, that under them the miners " bind 
 themselves to work until May ist, just as the 
 company binds itself to furnish a certain 
 amount of coal " to railroads " at a stipulated 
 price, until May." The comparison would 
 compare if the railroad got its contracts for 
 fuel out of the coal company by refusing it all 
 transportation at any price, as the coal com- 
 pany refused its miners work, until it surren- 
 dered and" signed." No court would uphold 
 such a compulsory arrangement as a contract, 
 and the workingmen ought to have the same
 
 A "free" contract. 123 
 
 rights to protection under the law of contract 
 that the rich have. 
 
 Such arrangements are not contracts. They 
 are servitudes, imposed by force and fraud 
 upon those who do not consent, but submit by 
 compulsion. The interesting question forces 
 itself at once to the front whether, if the miners 
 have not been working under contract, they 
 are bound to treat the wages they have received 
 as payment in full. They have against those 
 who have taken the proceeds of their labor a 
 valid and ought-to-be legal claim for the unpaid 
 difference between what they have received 
 and what they ought to have received. The 
 enforcement of these claims will be perfectly 
 feasible the moment the people make them- 
 selves really what they are now theoretically, 
 their own rulers, and have in the courts, legisla- 
 ture and executive chambers servants who 
 will work for the people instead of doing 
 tricks for privilege. If the millennial day ever 
 comes when those unjust men are mulcted to 
 restore to the people what they have filched 
 from them, they will deserve no pity. The 
 penalty will be a light one for their offense in 
 playing a false part, betraying those who 
 trusted them. If they want to make contracts 
 that will hold both sides, let them make con-
 
 124 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 tracts that are contracts. The courts are every- 
 day releasing business men from contracts that 
 are held to be no contracts, because of misun- 
 derstanding, inadequate value given, improper 
 pressure, duress, variance with public policy, 
 and so on indefinitely. Is this law of contract 
 for a class only? Are only the well-to-do and 
 the strong to have the aid of the courts?
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 
 
 When you of the Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany broke silence after the lock-out had 
 lasted more than five months, and made your 
 intimidating offer of thirty-five cents a ton, as 
 explained in full in the preceding chapter, the 
 city officials, business men and miners of 
 Spring Valley made the following appeals to 
 the governor of Illinois: 
 
 Spring Valley, September 9, 1889. 
 To the Hon. Joseph Fifer, Gozienior of Illinois. 
 
 Sir — We, the Mayor and Common Council of the City of 
 Spring Valley, and the coal miners and business men of Spring 
 Valley, desire to submit for your consideration a few facts con- 
 cerning the mining industry in this valley. 
 
 Spring Valley is the center of a mining area of 40,000 acres 
 of the best coal lands in Illinois. The Spring Valley Coal 
 Company owns the coal rights in this vast tract of land. The 
 town site of the city of Spring Valley was also owned by a 
 Town Site Company, controlled by the coal company, but it 
 has been sold at high prices to persons settling in the city. 
 There were four mining plants operated here by the coal com- 
 pany until December, 1888. The company owns most of the 
 houses occupied by the miners, and runs a "Company Store," 
 at which they are to trade. Coal mining is the only industry 
 on which the town depends for existence, there being no facto- 
 
 (125)
 
 126 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ries and no stores save such as deal in supplies to the com- 
 munity. 
 
 On December, 1888, shafts Nos. 2 and 4 were shut down, 
 throwing out of work about 1,000 men. I'heir comrades, know- 
 ing that the men and their families thus turned into unexpected 
 idleness in the dead of winter, would starve, divided their own 
 work with them. For the rest of the winter every miner laid 
 off one day in three in order to give part work to all. This 
 lasted into ApriL Then the community, exhausted by the 
 strain of supporting three men and their families on the earn- 
 ings of two men, received its final blow. April 29th, without 
 previous notice of any kind, all the miners were told to take 
 out their tools and leave the mines, which they did. In one 
 afternoon their livelihood was taken from them, and since then 
 no work has been clone in the Spring Valley mines. 
 
 The results are these : The entire mining pojiulation here is 
 without work, without income, without food enough to main- 
 tain a bare existence, and without clothing and fuel to meet the 
 approaching fall and winter. Women and children are sick and 
 without medical attendance, medicines, nourishing food or 
 proper nursing. Wet weather is coming, to be followed by 
 cold, and our people can no longer go barefoot, imclad and ill- 
 fed, as they have been doing. Hence our needs demand prompt 
 and vigorous attention. 
 
 According to the company's officials, the men, when mining, 
 receive $43 a month each on the average. According to the 
 men, the average wage per month was about $30 each. This 
 was when ninety cents per ton was the rate paid for mining. 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company, some time since proposed a 
 reduction in wages equivalent to about fifty-five cents per ton. 
 In detail the proposition was this; First, to reduce the rate 
 from ninety cents per ton seventy-five cents — being fifteen cents 
 per ton off; second, the men to do thirty inches of" brushing " in- 
 stead of sixteen inches, as formerly, being fourteen inches brush- 
 ing additional, equivalent to ten cents per ton reduction; and 
 lastly, three men to work where two had formerly been em- 
 ployed — a proposition in itself involving a loss of nearly one-
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 127 
 
 tliitd tlie earnings of eacli man. The whole reduction by this 
 proposition would be not less than fifty-five cents per ton. 
 Whether the men, when working at ninety cents per ton, got 
 $43 per month, as figured by the company, or $30 per month as 
 figured by the men, it is apparent at once that the proposed re- 
 duction of fifty-five cents per ton would reduce their w^ages more 
 thai! one-half, or from $43 to about $20, or from $30 to about 
 $14' per month. Ordinary intelligence suffices to show ihe im- 
 possibility of a family living on from $14 to $20 a month. 
 
 It is" to be remarked here, that, while these heavy reductions 
 in wages were proposed, no suggestion of reducing the rents of 
 miners living in company houses, was made ; nor were any re- 
 ductions made in the prices of coal or of goods sold miners at 
 the company's store. On the contrary, on the 18th of July, the 
 miners, being unable to pay their rent, were served with five-day 
 notices that their rent was in arrear, and " that in default of the 
 payment by them of the rent so due within the time aforesaid, 
 their right to occupy said premises would cease, and proceedings 
 would l)e instituted for the recovery of the possession of said 
 premises in pursuance of the statute of this State. (Signed) 
 The Spring Valley (Joal Company." 
 
 We most respectfully point out to you that the men at Spring 
 Valley are not strikers, but are the victims of two lock-outs, one 
 last December and the other in April last. We point out, too, 
 that the men came here on invitation of the company, and many 
 have bought or built homes expecting to have work with which 
 to support their families and to pay the mortgages they were 
 compelled to assume in order to secure their homes. Instead 
 of work and wages, however, they have had months of enforced 
 idleness and starvation, and the city and mines of Spring Val- 
 ley have been virtually abandoned by the men who promoted 
 the Spring Valley Company, and who laid out this city and in- 
 duced the people to come here to settle. We ask : Is it right 
 for capitalists to buy up thousands of acres of land, lay out 
 towns, open mines, employ thousands of laborers, and induce 
 many thousands more to settle in their towns in the expectation 
 of work, and then to shut down the mines, stop wages, and
 
 128 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 drive an entire community to idleness and destitution ? Is this 
 right ? Do the people of Illinois sanction industrial organization 
 and business methods such as these ? 
 
 Again we were told in the fall of iS8S that the success of 
 the ticket on which you were nominated for governor meant 
 work and wages. The presidential campaign in 1888 was 
 fought with appeals to workmen and promises of prosperity. 
 
 Where, we ask, is the prosperity promised us ? It is proper 
 to point out in tliis connection that we are reduced to a condi- 
 tion of destitution, notwithstanding tliese promises. Such 
 being the condition, we ask you to consider the situation and to 
 devise such measures for the relief of the miners as to you seem 
 proper. We would suggest: 
 
 1. A proclamation calling our needs to the attention of the 
 people of the entire State, and asking contributions of food, 
 clothing and money, and pointing out that, while some of the 
 mining difficulties have been settled, those in Spring \'alley yet 
 remain. It should be emphasized that the settlement of strikes 
 elsewhere in the coal region has caused the public to slacken in 
 their contributions for relief in the mistaken belief that the 
 Spring Valley difficulty was included in the agreement. This is 
 an error. The men are still out of work, and the situation at 
 Spring Valley is worse than it has been elsewhere. 
 
 2. Place the adjutant-general of the State in charge of a 
 suitable organization for the collection and distribution of the 
 food and clothing needed here. 
 
 3. Recognize the situation of the Spring Valley miners as an 
 emergency demanding instant action on your part to relieve the 
 people, and use for that purpose any special fund of money at 
 your disposal. Surely there must be means within your control 
 to meet such an emergency. 
 
 4. Come to Spring Valley and personally investigate the 
 needs of the people here, and supervise the measures you inaugu- 
 rate for their relief. The devastation of the flood at Johnstown 
 induced Governor Beaver of Pennsylvania to give his per- 
 sonal attention to the relief of the sufferers there, and it is per- 
 tinent to ask whether a community of 5,000 persons in Illinois
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 1 29 
 
 in the throes of starvation for months is not a catastrophe 
 demanding as prompt and thorough action from the government 
 and the people as the disaster at Johnstown. The people at 
 Johnstown were drowned. Plere are living victims to starva- 
 tion. We ask, therefore, that you will personally inspect this 
 battle of 5,000 miners with destitution; and we believe it will 
 spur you to instant action. 
 
 5. Finally we ask you to submit to the Legislature, which 
 should be convened in special session, an inquiry into the con- 
 dition of the coal industry in this State, to the end that legis- 
 lation may be framed adequate to afford permanent relief for 
 the laboring masses engaged in that industry. 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 H. DUGGAN, 
 
 Mayor of Spring Valley. 
 CoxxoR Keli.v, 
 Patrick Flood, 
 Thos. Linsley, 
 Patrick J. O'Briex, 
 Joseph Roberts, 
 Thos. Gavin, 
 William Proctor, 
 V. H. Weis-senberger, 
 
 Aldermen of Spring Valley. 
 Spring Valley Miners, in Mass 
 
 Meeting Assembled: By, 
 A. D, BouRKE, President. 
 Thomas Brady, Secretary. 
 M. J. Covenv, M. D. 
 H. Roederer, Baker. 
 J. H. Steadmax, Butcher. 
 W. J. Nolan, Grocer. 
 Jan Budnik, Saloon. 
 J. Hercer, Mang. Co-oper. Store.- 
 Jos. Salzer, Dry Goods. 
 Michael Stanton, City Clerk.
 
 I30 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 The business men's letter was as follows: 
 
 Spring Valley, III., Sept. lo, '89. 
 To the Hon. Joseph Fifer, Governor of Illinois. 
 
 Sir — We, the undersigned business men of Spring Valley, 
 respectfully represent that we came to the city of Spring Valley 
 and invested our means in business here relying upon the prom- 
 ises and prospects of the Spring Valley Coal Company to do a 
 large coal mining business — such a business, in fact, as would 
 employ large numbers of miners and laborers, who, with their 
 wages, could buy our goods and maintain our estal^lishments. 
 
 We further represent that for nearly five months past the 
 mines in Spring Valley have been shut down, and the working- 
 men of this city to the number of nearly 2,500 have been out 
 of work and out of wages with which to buy our goods. 
 
 The result of this is that our business is prostrate, and must 
 continue prostrate until the miners are given work and are put 
 in position to buy goods as formerly. 
 
 If the present state of affairs continues, the business men of 
 this city will be driven out of business by insolvency and almost 
 complete loss of trade. 
 
 We, therefore, earnestly ask of you a personal investigation 
 of the mining difficulties in this place, and that you take all 
 measures in your power to effect an early settlement of these 
 troubles and the resumption of work in the Spring Valley 
 mines. Respectfully submitted, 
 
 Berkstresser & PoRTERFiELD, Grocers; R. D. Buchan, 
 Clothing, etc.; James 1'hom, General Merchant; John A. 
 BuRCHAM, Glassware; F. E. Mason & Co., Agricultural Imp.; 
 G. E. Reed, Furniture; J. C. Sitterly, Livery; A. A. Cady, 
 Grocery; Wm. Andrew Smith, News Depot; J. C. Pinkley, 
 Druggist; G. M. Burrs, Boots and Shoes; John Solann, 
 Saloon; James Powers, Grocer; Thos. Cheeseman, Jeweler; 
 George Hoffman, Bakery; E. G. Thompson, Druggist; John 
 Foester, Boots and Shoes: John Donlan, Shoes and Boots; 
 S. M. Horner, Hotel; T. C. Kohin, Principal of Schools; 
 Jacob Wahl, Saloon; John McMahon, Sample Room; Mrs.
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 131 
 
 A. Davis, Confectionery; J. J. Osborne, Hotel and Restau- 
 rant; Stanton Bros., Sample Room; Jos. Niemshik, Cigar- 
 maker; Wm. Klingberg, Merchant Tailor; J. J. Callahan, 
 Clothier; Mrs. R. Heep, Hardware, etc.; Bernardo Pera- 
 DOTTA, Saloon; Martin Delmagro, Groceries; I. J. Jagod- 
 ziNSKi, Grocery; Joseph Riva, Grocery; L. Frank, Clothing. 
 Hennebry Bros., Clothing; Jos. Salzer, Dry Goods; John 
 Pick, Sample Room; W. M. Murray, Drugs; M. Slowey, 
 Groceries. Geo. Sittler, Sample Room; P. Kelley, Sample 
 Room; James Hicks, Sample Room; John Diesbeck, Sample 
 Room; L. R. Dean, Furniture. 
 
 An anxious article on " The Present Situa- 
 tion," in the Spring Valley Gazette oiM^y ist 
 of this year, shows that both the business men 
 and the miners have reason to fear that " the 
 ruling powers " intend to carry the Dooming 
 of the Town into another twelvemonth to force 
 another cut in wages. The 1st of May is the 
 day for making the contract for wages for the 
 year, but when " his " men try to find their 
 Captain of Industry they can only learn that 
 he has gone east " on business." What is to 
 become of them is evidently no business of 
 his. The Gazette says: 
 
 The 1st of May has arrived, and what will be done remains 
 still unsolved. Last Friday afternoon a petition was signed by 
 several hundred of the miners, and forwarded to the head of the 
 company, asking him to come out here to try to effect a settle- 
 ment. A petition was circulated among the business men in- 
 dorsing the miners' request. They have received replies that he 
 is east on business, and will not be back until aijout May 15th. 
 
 At the same meeting wherein the foregoing
 
 132 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 memorial was adopted, the following resolu- 
 tions were also offered and unanimously adopted 
 by the miners: 
 
 Whereas, The proposition made to reduce our wages is 
 both unjust and unreasonable, as we could not make a bare sub- 
 sistence by the hardest work on the terms offered; and 
 
 Whereas, It has been sufficiently demonstrated that there 
 is no reason or necessity for such a great reduction as that which 
 the company offers. Therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That we decline to accept the proposition of fifteen 
 cents a ton of a reduction, with other terms which will aggre- 
 gate fifty-five cents per ton of reduction. Be it further 
 
 Resolved, That we are ready and willing to resume work on 
 the conditions governing the settlement at Streator and other 
 places in this district where a settlement has been made, namely, 
 seven and one-half cents per ton of a reduction and last year's 
 conditions. 
 
 On motion, Messrs. Brady, O'Hare and Gil- 
 letsky were appointed to see Mr. Dalzell and 
 report the above resolutions. His reply to 
 the committee was that he would not treat with 
 any committee or recognize any organization; 
 that he would treat with the men individually. 
 Commenting on this, the Chicago X>rt//;/iV^w5 
 
 of September 13th said: 
 
 The appeal of the locked-out miners of Spring Valley to 
 Governor Fifer, is deserving of the prompt attention of that 
 public officer. The plain statement of the cruel treatment which 
 they have received from the Spring Valley Coal Company, must 
 arouse indignation in every mind. The company built a city, 
 selling much of the property at a large profit to merchants and 
 miners, whom it induced to settle there. The one reliance of 
 the city was on the mines, 5,000 miners went thither under the
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 1 33 
 
 promise of obtaining work. Now the mines have been shut 
 down, and Spring Valley is ruined. 
 
 These locked-out miners deserve the help of the State and of 
 all the citizens. They have not struck for higher wages or even 
 against a reduction of their wages. They have been betrayed 
 by a soulless corporation and left to starve. By the authorita- 
 tive action of the governor, this infamous crime against labor 
 should be branded publicly. At the same time the victims 
 should be rescued from starvation. 
 
 The people of Spring Valley must be given help. A rich 
 man has sinned against them. Let the rich now relieve their 
 wants. 
 
 Instead of going in person, in response to 
 the appeals of the people of Spring Valley, 
 Governor Fifer sent his adjutant-general to 
 Spring Valley to investigate, and gave the 
 matter afterward no further attention. 
 
 The report made to Governor Fifer by Adju- 
 tant-General Vance of his investigation is one 
 of the curiosities of the literature of American 
 self-government. If such callousness to the 
 sufferings of the people, such undisguised 
 anxiety to shield members of an upper class 
 from the exposure of their misdeeds, such 
 cynical contempt for their victims, had been 
 exhibited by an agent of the French court of 
 Louis XVI. sent into the provinces before 
 1789, to investigate the reports of a distress 
 among the tenants of the seigneurs, it would 
 have excited little surprise, although it would 
 certainly have figured in the pages of Taine as
 
 134 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 a supreme illustration of the cxw^Viy o'i Vancien 
 rciriiiie. But when such a document comes, 
 cold and calculated, from the official representa- 
 tive of a free American commonwealth, we 
 can only lose ourselves in puzzling out what 
 poisonous influences they may be which in one 
 century have made it possible for a public 
 servant to put forth, and the public to receive, 
 utterances so completely hostile to all the 
 sacredest principles and sympathies of repub- 
 lican democratic liberty and happiness. The 
 legend of Marie Antoinette's inquiry why the 
 poor of Paris did not eat cake, since they 
 could not get bread, is well matched by Adju- 
 tant-General Vance's report at Spring Valley. 
 " There is a general paralyzation of all business 
 interests and trades, except those dealing in 
 luxuries." The hardness of heart which could 
 throw a taunt of this kind, officially, at a peo- 
 ple suffering as bitterly as the evidence from 
 all sides given heretofore proves that Spring 
 Valley was, is an infallible index of a want of 
 hardness of head. 
 
 Adjutant-General Vance was not happy in 
 the task set him of making an investigation of 
 the state of affairs at Spring Valley. His true 
 place was that which he filled during the 
 summer, when, at the head of the State militia.
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 1 35 
 
 with loaded guns and fixed bayonets, he 
 marched and countermarched through the 
 towns of the coal regions, by order of Gov- 
 ernor Fifer, for a chance to shoot working- 
 men. The report of Adjutant-General Vance 
 is as follows: 
 
 To His Excellency, Joseph IV. Fifer, Coventor of IUi)iois. 
 
 Sir — In compliance with your instructions, I proceeded to 
 Spring Valley on the 17th inst., arriving there at 9 o'clock 
 p. m. On the morning of the i8th I called upon Mayor 
 Duggan, and informed him that I had been sent by your Excel- 
 lency to ascertain the exact condition and to verify by personal 
 observation the representations made to you as to the suffering 
 condition of the people at Spring Valley. During the day the 
 opportunity was afforded me to meet and converse with a large 
 number of citizens upon the situation and to ascertain their views 
 in reference to the alleged suffering in Spring Valley. My in- 
 quiries were more particularly made with a view to ascertain the 
 condition as to the destitution, starvation, suffering, sickness, 
 and general sanitary condition. I requested the mayor to point 
 out the most prominent cases of destitution, or to have the 
 supervisor of the township, who is ex-officio overseer of the 
 poor, do so, as I would prefer to base my representation of the 
 situation to you upon personal observation. The citizens with 
 whom I conversed were representative of the population of 
 Spring Valley, and included physicians, druggists, police, 
 butchers, mechanics, miners, merchants, professional men, and 
 business men generally. 
 
 The general sentiment expressed by these persons was that 
 the memorial presented to you, and signed by many of them, 
 was a misrepresentation as to the condition in reference to 
 destitution, starvation, suffering, and sickness; that without any 
 consultation or concert of action on their part, the memorial 
 was prepared and submitted to them for signature. Some 
 persons said they were qpposed to the memorial as a whole;
 
 136 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 that no such a condition existed as was represented; that there 
 was no starvation, destitution, or sickness worthy of mention, 
 but that they had signed the memorial because, if they refused to 
 do so, they would be boycotted in business. Others seemed to 
 take a different view. While they freely admitted the exaggera- 
 tions in reference to starvation and destitution, yet they urged 
 that there had been a necessity for charitable work, and that 
 this necessity would probably exist for several weeks after the 
 miners have resumed operations. 
 
 Physicians stated that there was very little sickness at this 
 time, and their business was much lighter than usual at this 
 season of the year; their cases were mostly of a malarial char- 
 acter, and only six cases of diphtheria in a mild form were under 
 treatment when I left Spring Valley. Druggists stated that 
 they had fewer requests for medicine from persons unable to pay 
 for it than at any time for several years, and in no instance had 
 they refused drugs to persons unable to pay for them. There 
 is evidence of a sentiment of hostility toward both mine- 
 owners and miners among citizens not engaged in these pursuits, 
 for the reason, as stated by them, that neither of the above 
 classes at Spring Valley seem to have made much effort to come 
 to an agreement or to compromise their differences. There is 
 a vmiversal expression that the offer of 75 cents per ton for 
 mining* and thirty inches of brushing with three men in a room 
 would be unreasonable, and an unfair remuneration to the miners, 
 and the company is charged with insincerity in making the 
 offer. There is an equallj strong conviction upon the part of 
 many who should be competent to judge that the mines cannot 
 be operated profitably at the prices demanded, and that men living 
 upon charity should show a disposition to concede and a willing- 
 ness to compromise out of the present difficulties. There is a 
 growing sentiment there that men who will live upon the charity 
 of a generous public rather than to work even at wages they 
 deem inadequate for their own support are unworthy of 
 the sympathy bestowed upon them. 
 
 * Equal to 35 cents a ton net.
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 137 
 
 From the best information I can obtain and from personal 
 observation, I do not believe the population of Spring Valley 
 will exceed 2,500 persons at this time. There is a general 
 paralyzation of all business interests and trades, except those 
 dealing in luxuries. 
 
 Nineteen licensed saloons are doing business at this time, and 
 are apparently well patronized * notwithstanding the depression 
 in business generally. At Spring Valley there are three veins 
 of coal ; the upper and lower veins are about three and one- 
 half feet in thickness ; the mining is done by hand, and is paid for 
 by the ton. The middle vein, ranging from four to six feet, 
 with an average thickness of over five feet, is mined with 
 machines, and the men operating them are paid by the day. 
 There is apparently a strong prejudice existing between the men 
 working in the middle vein and those working the other veins. 
 The men workmg the middle vein did not cease working last 
 May, because there was no reduction of their wages, and 
 because they were satisfied; but the men operating the other 
 veins demanded of them to quit work in sympathy with and in 
 support of their contest with the company, which was refused. 
 Since then the men working the middle vein have been termed 
 "blacklegs " by the others. The relief committee of the miners' 
 union is at this time composed of fourteen persons, with repre- 
 sentatives from each nationality. Mr. Hill is president, Mr. 
 Brady secretary, and Mr. McNulty treasurer. I was informed 
 by this committee that it met every morning at ten o'clock. All 
 cases of suffering and sickness are reported at this meeting. 
 The committee informed me that it furnished medicines and 
 delicacies for sick persons, or the money for their purchase when 
 
 * L. W. B., the very intelligent correspondent of the Chicago Inter 
 Ocean, fast and faithful organ of the State Government General Vance 
 represents, was at Spring Valley a few days before the adjutant- 
 general. Here is what he says about the saloons which General Vance 
 declared to be so "well patronized : " 
 
 THE PLACE IS ABSOLUTELY DEAD. 
 
 Even the saloons are quiet. There were forty-three of these before 
 the lock-out. There are now only nineteen, and they are quiet as the 
 grave, except one near the hotel. I heard a good deal of noise in this 
 one, but found that the merrymakers were some young men who are 
 clerks in the company's offices. No one else has money to spend.
 
 138 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 they were supplied with funds. The committee informed me 
 that they issue provisions every Saturday from their supply 
 store. The issues are made upon the basis of a value of 21 cents 
 to the head of a family and 14 cents each for the women and 
 children. This committee commenced receiving money and 
 relief supplies May 29th, and had received in cash up to Sep- 
 tember 19th, $2,368.67. Cash on hand that date, $239.31. 
 The supplies reported received are from miscellaneous sources 
 to the value of about $Soo; three car-loads of provisions from 
 Chicago, valued at about $1,000 each, two car-loads from Peoria ; 
 from Sheffield, one ton of flour and otiier supplies ; from Chi- 
 cago, four barrels of meat and fifteen barrels of flour. The 
 committee reports that they are supplying aid to 405 heads of 
 families ; the total number of persons is 1,704, of whom there 
 are 901 English speaking, 189 Poles, 339 Erench, 93 Germans, 
 loi Italians, and 72 Swedes. The committee states that these 
 persons will not be self-supporting for at least one month after 
 the mines resume operations. There are at least 200 of the miners 
 that live at Spring Valley who are working at Loceyville, Ladd, 
 and other points, all within a few miles of Spring Valley. This 
 committee states that it has (except to six persons) refused to 
 issue supplies to those who work in the middle vein, for the 
 reason that they do not think they need relief 
 
 The relief committee denies that it has advised men not to 
 go elsewhere for work as a committee, and that, if advice of this 
 kind has been given, it has been by individuals of their own 
 volition. From the best information I could get from the 
 citizens and relief committee, I do not believe there are to exceed 
 250 idle miners in Spring Valley at this time. Advertisements 
 are posted in Spring Valley calling for 500 miners at Streator; 
 fifty at Yoimgstown, Ohio; 200 at Centerville, Iowa, and sixty 
 at Sandoval, 111. An agent of the last-named company was in 
 Spring Valley, but could secure no men. I have seen a letter 
 from the office of the Secretary of the Miners' Union at Spring 
 Valley to the Chenoa Coal Company which says: " Now, if you 
 would guarantee me that men could make $2.50 per day, or you 
 make them up to that, I would send you twenty-five good men.
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 139 
 
 if you would build them houses to live in, as all the single men 
 is about out of here. There is agents here every day paying 
 men's fare to go to all parts of the country to dig coal, so you 
 see it will be hard to get men if they can't make $2.25 or $2.50 
 per day." 
 
 In the above I have given you an accurate report of the ex- 
 pressions and views of others, and of the situation as I found it. 
 I believe that there should be an organized system of relief 
 established by the citizens of Spring Valley outside of those en- 
 gaged in the mining industry, for the benefit of women, children, 
 and sick persons only, and continued until the necessity for or- 
 ganized charity had ceased. I ascertained that there had been 
 no action taken by the township or county authorities in their 
 official capacity to relieve any want and destitution that may 
 have existed. Respectfully submitted. 
 
 Joseph W. Vance, Adjutant General. 
 
 The slur about the miners preferring to Hve 
 on charity instead of work is paraded with 
 an eagerness which bhnds the "general" to 
 the fact that his own statement further along 
 that " there are not 250 idle miners in Spring 
 Valley," where there had been 2,500, proves 
 that these people did not prefer charity to 
 work. He pauses with evident relish on the 
 statement " that nineteen licensed saloons are 
 doing business at this time, and apparently 
 well patronized." His anxiety to defend the 
 cruel oppressions of the people by showing 
 that the wretchedness is due to the viciousness 
 of the poor prevents him from seeing that he 
 has himself furnished the disproof of his own
 
 HO A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Statement. It is impossible that 250 miners, 
 idle ones at that, should be able to keep nine- 
 teen saloons "apparently well patronized." 
 The report is couched throughout in language 
 studiously calculated by such phrases as those 
 about preferring charity to work, the prosper- 
 ity of dealers in luxuries, the extensive patron- 
 age of the nineteen saloons by the 250 impe- 
 cunious miners, the non-existence of the alleged 
 destitution, and so forth, to create the impres- 
 sion that Spring Valley had no grievances but 
 its own wickednesses, and no need of other 
 relief than reform. But the lack of head again 
 upset the structure of the lacking heart by 
 concluding with a recommendation for an or- 
 ganized system of relief to be " established by 
 the citizens of Spring Valley, outside of those 
 engaged in the mining industry." This rec- 
 ommendation is made apparently for the sole 
 purpose of implying a slander against the 
 Miners' Relief Committee, against whom no 
 open charges are attempted to be brought, but 
 its only effect was to undo all the elaborate 
 effort of the preceding parts of the report to 
 show that no need of relief existed. 
 
 This report throws no light on the condition 
 of affairs at Spring Valley. Any intelligent 
 reader can make from the evidence given in
 
 APPEALING TO THE GOVERNOR. 14I 
 
 this book a much clearer and fairer statement. 
 But that such a document, in face of all the 
 facts, should have been submitted to the gov- 
 ernor by a high official of the State, should 
 have been received by him, and without 
 rebuke or correction, despite its open incon- 
 sistencies of statement and ugliness of temper, 
 should have been given to the public as the 
 only contribution the representatives of the 
 people could or would make to the relief of 
 Spring Valley, is a social fact of immense 
 import. It shows how high class hatred runs 
 between the rich and the people in America. 
 It shows that the downfall of the republic has 
 gone so far that the people have lost their 
 hold on their rulers. These are not afraid to 
 flaunt openly their contempt of the people, 
 and to display unreservedly their subservience 
 to the real power that governs the American 
 people — the money power — the power of the 
 few comparatively millionaires and corpora- 
 tions who do the thinking and leading in courts, 
 markets and legislatures for the 250,000 per- 
 sons who, according to Thomas G. Sherman, 
 in his article on " The Owners of the United 
 States," in the Forum of November, 1889, 
 already possess this country. No one who knew 
 that on one side of the Spring Valley case,
 
 142 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 there were a dozen and more of the greatest 
 milHonaires owning America, besides two or 
 three very powerful and very impudent and 
 very disloyal corporations, and that on the 
 other side there were only a few thousand 
 outraged citizens, would have dreamed that 
 any governor would allow even a tone of sym- 
 pathy for " the people " to escape him officially. 
 It is safe in America for " rulers " to treat the 
 people with contempt; it is not safe for them 
 to thwart the plans of the money-power, not 
 even if they are plans to rob and murder the 
 poor. The money-power can prevent the 
 nomination, election or confirmation of any 
 official obnoxious to them. The people have 
 no power in politics except to choose between 
 two sets of candidates, selected by the myste- 
 rious forces of the caucus, and both wanting 
 office only to do the work and get the boodle 
 of the money-power. Why should a governor 
 or his adjutant-general care for the people? 
 They will beg for their votes like" Coriolanus " 
 in Shakespeare's play, but only that, like 
 Coriolanus, they may get the power with 
 which to betray them and the republic.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 
 
 Not content that these hapless people had 
 been thus drawn into an ambush of starvation, 
 and driven upon the wasting summit of a 
 new and broader Starved Rock than that of 
 the Indian legend which shadows the Illinois a 
 few miles beyond Spring Valley, youhave taken 
 every means to rob them of the help and sym- 
 pathy of the public. The siege was made one 
 of moral as well as physical starvation. A 
 stream of false information was poured into 
 the ears of the country. Everything the min- 
 ers said was garbled, all that they did misrep- 
 resented. To such an extent was this carried 
 that it is literally true that not a single state- 
 ment on any crucial point has been made by 
 the company that was not misleading to the 
 public and unjust to the men. 
 
 To alienate public sympathy, which was 
 defeating the attempt to starve these men, 
 your agents have dwelt with ceaseless itera- 
 tion on the willingness of the men to live on 
 
 (143)
 
 144 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 charity instead of work, although almost all 
 left their homes in search of work. You have 
 stated repeatedly, as you did in your letter of 
 August 24th, that you had offered the men 
 $1.75 and $2 a day to work in your middle 
 vein, and ingeniously made the unsophisti- 
 cated public believe that your men refused it 
 and preferred to live on charity rather than 
 work. You omitted to state that your middle 
 vein could give work to only fifty or one hun- 
 dred men, only two or four out of every hun- 
 dred you discharged, to all the rest of whom 
 you refused all work. Nor did you state that 
 the men offered to work there, but you would 
 not listen to them because they came in com- 
 mittee. One of the latest instances of mis- 
 representation of the men was the state- 
 ment in the letter to the citizens of Spring 
 Valley, published November 1st, that " the 
 final decision of the men is that they will not 
 sign any contract nor be governed by any 
 rules," the fact being that the men had made 
 every effort to get a two-handled contract out 
 of you, and had in mass-meeting agreed to 
 abide by the rules of last year. 
 
 Very cunningly was the campaign of slander 
 to check the streams of relief carried on. Only 
 special knowledge of the subject could save
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 145 
 
 outsiders from being deceived, and this knowl- 
 edge the public did not possess. The pre- 
 possessions of many of the leaders of the busi- 
 ness world were unalterably against the men, 
 and they willingly believed the evil report. 
 The essence of " business " is to get out of the 
 workingmen more than is given them. It is 
 out of that margin of" profit" that our large 
 fortunes and gigantic business revenues are 
 scooped. One of the great model merchants 
 of Chicago was asked for a contribution of 
 some of his canned beef tea, for the sick 
 women and children of Spring Valley. 
 
 " No," was the reply, " we will give nothing 
 to men on strike." His philosophy was clear 
 and simple. The employer, like the king, can 
 do no wrong. To explanations, assurances, 
 offers of proof that the trouble was not a strike, 
 but a lock-out, his ears were deaf The work- 
 ingmen must be wrong. But " nothing is 
 asked for the men," was then urged; this beef- 
 tea is wanted for the sick women and children, 
 and I promise you it shall be given only to 
 them, and only upon a physician's order." 
 Still deaf in heart and head. " If the work- 
 ingmen choose to place their wives and children 
 where they will die for want of food, or medi- 
 cine, or doctors, so let it be. We will not do
 
 146 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 anything. " Slanders against the miners lodged 
 easily in such soil; to weed them out was hope- 
 less. The inexperience of the general public 
 made them ready dupes to the stories that the 
 miners refused to work at high wages, because 
 they wanted higher; that they were bad and 
 desperate men; that the mines could not be 
 operated in competition with the mines of 
 southern Illinois unless wages were cut, etc. 
 You assured the public, through your letter to 
 the governor of September 25th, that there 
 was no profit in the operation of the mines, 
 and the public actually got to believe that 
 your mines were a sort of eleemosynary enter- 
 tainment run by you for the benefit of humanity 
 in general, and your miners in particular, with 
 no possibility of return to yourself. It now 
 leaks out that, while making these statements 
 to the public, a large stockholder in the 
 coal company was buying up the interests of 
 smaller holders. And while you were making 
 these misstatements, other mines were working 
 the same veins in your neighborhood with 
 success. The White Breast Fuel Co. of Iowa, 
 a powerful corporation, believed to be a sort 
 of Siamese twin-brother of the Chicago, Bur- 
 lington & Quincy Railroad, was spending a 
 great many "thousands of dollars at the same
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OK SLANDER. 147 
 
 time a few miles away, in sinking shafts to 
 reach the same veins. Up to October all its 
 shafts had been failures, owing to water or some 
 other trouble, but the company cheerfully kept 
 on sinking new shafts. Its managers knew 
 what they were about. They had heard all 
 about the bugaboo of " Southern Illinois 
 competition." They knew there was a prize 
 in the Spring Valley neighborhood, and that 
 it was well worth sinking thousands of dollars 
 to get to it. Such facts make it ridiculous to 
 waste time over your assertion that the mines 
 were not profitable. 
 
 Well informed, indeed, must he have been 
 who could detect all the different varieties of 
 untruths with which the cause of the men was 
 met in street, parlor, newspaper, business office. 
 During a visit at Spring Valley I learned at 
 first hand that an offer had been made to the 
 company, at the instigation of business men, 
 anxious, naturally, to see the miners at work 
 again, by about fifty miners, to work the 
 middle vein, where .only that number could 
 then be employed. The offer had been sent 
 on to the head of the company for approval or 
 the reverse. Imagine the surprise with which 
 I read in the next day's issue of one of the 
 leading newspapers of the country a telegram
 
 148 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 from spring Valley announcing that the com- 
 pany had offered the miners this work, and that 
 the miners had refused it— just the reverse of 
 
 the facts. 
 
 In an interview with the manager of -the 
 company I asked why you had decreed the 
 destruction of the miners' union. 
 
 " Just look at that," he said, in a charmingly 
 confidential and I-don't-mind-telling-you-all-I- 
 know sort of air, " and you'll never ask that 
 question again." 
 
 What he had to show me was a little four- 
 page circular of the " By-Laws and Rules " 
 governing Lodge 26 of the Miners and Mine 
 Laborers. 
 
 " What is it you specially object to? " I 
 
 asked. 
 
 " All of it, but look particularly at this Rule 
 XIII.: 'Any man found with another man's 
 tools, shall be subjected to the following pen- 
 alties: First offense, suspension for ten work- 
 ing days; second offense, suspension for thirty 
 days; third offense, unconditional discharge 
 from'the works.' Now," he said, " how would 
 you like to have your employes usurp the right 
 of discharging your workmen?" 
 
 Of course, I wouldn't like that if I were an 
 employer, and I said so. I went away con-
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 149 
 
 vinced that-there was more in the " tyranny of 
 labor organizations " than I had believed. 
 
 This was so important that I spent some time 
 getting at the bottom of it. 
 
 The truth — carefully withheld by the man- 
 ager — was, I found, that these dreadful rules 
 and by-laws were a joint agreement which had 
 been made between the company and the men 
 for their mutual convenience in settling the 
 various questions that arise in mining between 
 employer and employe. They were the com- 
 pany's rules as well as the men's. 
 
 The use of detectives has become a feature 
 of the " harmony " between American labor 
 and capital. It is one of the most significant 
 symptoms of the true condition of our indus- 
 trial relations. Espionage and tyranny have 
 always gone together. Power that has to 
 uphold itself by the use of spies is, self-con- 
 fessedly, a power that stands by force, not by 
 consent. The use of spies by a government 
 shows that it is despotism, because it is not 
 founded on the free consent of the governed. 
 The use of spies by an employer is proof con- 
 clusive that the relations between him and his 
 " hands " are not those of free contract. It is 
 one of the mischievous features of the present 
 system that it has made the captains of Indus-
 
 I50 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 try SO rich, and taken them so far away from 
 actual touch with the people, that they have to 
 depend on the report of intermediaries and 
 detectives. These, by resistless laws of their 
 kind of human nature, will tell their principals 
 the things they think these would like to 
 know, and will create, if they cannot dis- 
 cover, the conspiracies and bugaboos which 
 make their services continuously indispensable. 
 Spies sent from Pennsylvania worked in the 
 Spring Valley mines for months before the 
 lock-out of December, and it was no doubt 
 largely on the report made by them that the 
 policy of the company was determined. De- 
 tectives, claiming to be Pinkertons, were sent 
 to town during the troubles between the com- 
 pany and the men. It was on the strength of 
 the inebriated imagination of one of these 
 worthless men that the idea gained credence 
 that the miners — the most peaceful men in 
 the world — contemplated a resort to mob vio- 
 lence. These lying reports found ready echoes 
 in the guilty consciousness of the company that 
 its lock-out was a daily repeated act of violence 
 against the lives of the people. The com- 
 pany's office was hastily converted into an 
 arsenal, and repeating rifles with their deadly 
 ammunition were sent in large quantities to
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 151 
 
 defend those whose only assailants were their 
 own consciences and the mercenary imagina- 
 tions of spies. These detectives went so far 
 as to make their defiling rendezvous in the 
 church. 
 
 While the people, with incredible gentle- 
 ness, were bearing this great burden of want, 
 wondering, as Father Huntington said of them, 
 " with a look of bewilderment creeping over 
 their faqes — wondering why they must die," 
 your associated millions put out such asser- 
 tions as this, over the signature of your repre- 
 sentative, the president of the company, 
 in a letter in the Chicago Times of October 
 lOtli: " If property has depreciated in value, it 
 is the result of a condition of anarch}', There 
 is no law in Spring Valley to-day. Property 
 rights are not recognized there, nor is the life 
 of any man safe there, after dark unless it be 
 that of a man who is well armed and able to 
 protect hiinself. " This was indeed stoning 
 those who asked for bread. Little need be 
 added to what Father Huntington says in his 
 letter on page 71, to show that these people 
 not only had not the brutal instincts which 
 could find gratification in violence, but had the 
 wit to know how -irretrievably any disorder 
 would hurt them. Such a slander could have
 
 152 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 been uttered against this deeply injured com- 
 munity in this hour of suffering only by the 
 heart which had deliberately created misery to 
 make dividends. It was not true, but it helped 
 create public opinion against the people, and 
 checked the relief. The charge was especially 
 cruel, because Spring Valley has always been 
 phenomenalh' peaceful. In four years there 
 has only been one murder there, and that was 
 done by a railroad hand, not a miner. Crime 
 of all kinds, has been practically^ unknown. 
 People went to bed safely without locking 
 their doors. For a new town with a popula- 
 tion of 5,000, gathered suddenly from all parts, 
 and out of all nationalities, this is a record 
 which can probably not be matched elsewhere. 
 It confirms what has been said about the select 
 character of the people. They were the pick. 
 
 Even during the excited days when — no out- 
 break of any kind having taken place — the 
 streets were taken possession of by heavily 
 armed men, deputy sheriffs, called in because 
 the company said it expected trouble, and when, 
 following them, several companies of militia 
 came with loaded guns and fixed bayonets, 
 the people kept their temper on the whole 
 marvelously. Some stones were thrown, 
 some windows broken. The little disorder
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 1 53 
 
 there was, though not justifiable, was, Father 
 Power declared, provoked by the behavior of 
 the deputies. The grand jury of the county, 
 mostly farmers, and not partial to labor union- 
 ists, could find nobody deserving of indictment, 
 and when the militia went home, they sent back 
 contributions for the relief of the people they 
 had been summoned to shoot. Mr. Murtha, 
 marshal of Spring Valley, says: " I have been 
 a policeman in London and elsewhere in Eng- 
 land, marshal in La Salle for many years, 
 marshal here, I have been for twenty years 
 in one way and another an officer of the peace, 
 and in all that time I have never seen a quieter, 
 more peaceful and law-abiding town than 
 Spring Valley." This was said, too, during 
 the lock-out, and after the affair of the deputy 
 sheriffs, and the militia. The attitude of 
 the miners when the deputy sheriffs and 
 militia were quartered on the town sug- 
 gests many resemblances to the behavior 
 of the people of Boston under the provoca- 
 tions of the presence of the British soldiers in 
 1770, except that the miners were more pa- 
 tient than the Bostonians. The miners called 
 the citizens to unite with them in a mass-meet- 
 ing June 2d, at which the following preamble 
 and resolutions were adopted:
 
 154 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Whereas, The Spring Valley Coal Company, after having 
 locked us out since the 29th day of April, without having given 
 us any information of why they did so; and, 
 
 Whereas, Htiving now brought to our city without cause 
 or warrant the sheriff and posse, for the purpose of creating 
 disturbance in our otherv.dse peaceable city, who have insulted 
 and abused a number of our citizens who are pursuing their 
 ways peaceably, not having violated any law; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, the citizens of Spring Valley, condemn 
 the action of the Spring Valley Coal Company as unwarranted, 
 pernicious, and un-American, and calculated to disturb the 
 peace of the city, thus prostituting the rights of our citizens to 
 serve their private ends ; 
 
 Resolved, That though these parties are here for the pur- 
 pose of causing disturbance, we will thwart them in their efforts 
 by counseling peace and a strict observance of the law, which 
 they are determined to make us violate ; 
 
 Resolved, That a committee be appointed to wait on 
 Mayor Duggan and request him to assert his authority and 
 bring to justice those parties who have been brought here 
 without his leave or warrant. 
 
 We heard much from Spring Valley of an- 
 other favorite accusation against the men: 
 That they are prevented from working by their 
 leaders, who are bad men, who terrorize the 
 good men, etc. 
 
 In truth, every important step taken by the 
 miners, as by labor unions generally, is by 
 secret ballot. 
 
 The men vote just as they choose and in 
 perfect security. 
 
 In this the labor organizations are far more 
 democratic, far more observant of the opinions
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. I 55 
 
 and rights of dissentients than the organiza 
 tions of capital. There is nothing in labor 
 unions comparable to the dictatorial power 
 exercised by the managers and trustees of 
 corporations. The unionist has a freedom of 
 speech, and vote on all questions, which the 
 stockholder does not know. 
 
 The miners were published to the world as 
 having " refused to accept their own offer," in 
 declining to work when the company in 
 October posted a notice calling for miners to 
 go into the middle vein at the wages which 
 the miners, through President McBride's letter, 
 had said would be satisfactory to them. The 
 men were entirely right; they refused to go to 
 work because the company made it a neces- 
 sary part of their proposal that the men should 
 give up their union, and make their contracts 
 as individuals. To have surrendered this point 
 would have been to surrender something much 
 more important than the rate of wages. They 
 did not " refuse their own offer," for the 
 recognition of their union was the most im- 
 portant part of their offer. But this unjust 
 and untruthful color was given their action 
 and heralded through the country in press dis- 
 patches, and triumphantly quoted by the busi- 
 ness class as another proof of the perfidious
 
 156 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 and shiftless character of the working people. 
 The ingenuity with which, in this and other 
 countless ways, the course of these unfortu- 
 nate miners has been tortured into seeming to 
 be the opposite of what it really was, has been 
 nothing short of diabolical. Going among the 
 men, nothing has interested me more than to 
 see how this continuous and perverse misrep- 
 resentation of what they said and did mysti- 
 fied them, until in a kind of daze they came 
 to accept it humbly, as part of their lo.t, 
 something in the order of nature, that the 
 well-to-do, the business class, should be for- 
 ever unable or unwilling to understand them. 
 Rather an unwise and unsafe attitude this, it 
 has often seemed to me, for a minority, even 
 if rich, to place themselves in with regard to 
 the vast majority of the people. 
 
 It was the company, not the miners, which 
 " refused to accept its own offer." October 
 iith a notice was posted in the company's 
 window, that a limited number of men were 
 wanted to work in the middle vein, under 
 " Streator rules and conditions." It is part of 
 the Streator rules that the men's organization 
 is recognized by the company. 
 
 At a mass-meeting of the miners in Spring
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. I 57 
 
 Valley, October i ith, the following resolutions 
 were passed: 
 
 R.-sohi'd, That we send a committee to Manager Dalzell to 
 inform him that we will resume work on the same conditions as 
 La Salle — namely, 82 >4 cents per ton and twenty inches of 
 brushing. 
 
 Henry Hill, Joseph Hercer, and Archy 
 Hamil were appointed on the above committee, 
 with the addition of IMessrs. W. Bailey, of the 
 Gazette, and Mr. Johnson, of the Sentinel. 
 
 This committee retired from the meeting 
 and had a short interview with Mr. Dalzell, 
 who said he was instructed to have nothing to 
 do with the committee in any manner, and he 
 could not listen to any proposition from them, 
 nor give them any satisfaction whatever. 
 
 The meeting had been called because of a 
 notice being put up in the office window to the 
 effect that the company was going to start the 
 middle vein Monday, and would give employ- 
 ment to a limited number of men. The num- 
 ber of men that can be put to work in that 
 vein is between 50 and 100. The committee 
 asked Mr. Dalzell what the conditions in that 
 vein would be. He told them he could not 
 tell them as a committee; but, if any one applied 
 for work as an individual, he would tell him. 
 After much discussion, the miners arrived at
 
 iSB A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 the conclusion that the middle vein was being 
 started for the same purpose as it was the ist 
 of June — to use fifty or sixty men for the 
 purpose of enslaving several thousand — and 
 that the purpose further was to break the 
 miners' organization, which if accomplished 
 would subject the miners to abuses they have 
 before experienced, and with which the present 
 reduction could not be compared. The fol- 
 lowing resolution was then adopted unani- 
 mously: 
 
 Resolved, That no man apply for work in the middle vein 
 until the company is prepared to give all work and treat with 
 us as a body. 
 
 In a communication to the press the miners 
 explained that there are many men who can- 
 not understand the English language, and, if 
 they applied in person, they could not tell 
 what conditions the company would impose- 
 in their contract. Of those who speak English 
 there are many who would not properly un- 
 derstand the contracts, as the men claim that 
 experience teaches that they are not couched 
 in plain language, and that they need the 
 closest investigation and consideration. The 
 coal companies take every advantage of the 
 miners when they succeed in compelling them 
 to make agreements in this way ; and then
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 159 
 
 hold that they (the miners) are in honor bound 
 to abide by them. 
 
 " All this trouble is being made by a few 
 leaders who never dug a pound of coal," was 
 another remark the representatives of the 
 company often made to prejudice the public. 
 
 " Which of the leaders do you refer to ? " I 
 asked the superintendent, for all of them, as 
 far as I knew, were practical miners, and had 
 worked in the Spring Valley mines. 
 
 " There's Tom Brady, for one," he said; 
 " he never swung a pick in his life." 
 
 " How is this, Brady?" I said to the secre- 
 tary of the miners' organization, when I next 
 saw him, " People say you have no right to 
 represent the men, for you have never been a 
 miner." 
 
 " Look at that scar," he said, rolling down 
 his stocking; " that's where my leg was 
 smashed by coal falling on it while I was 
 workinor; in the mines. I have never mined 
 in Spring Valley, but I was check-weighman 
 here, by the consent of both the men and the 
 company, and the check-weighman must be a 
 practical miner." 
 
 Even if the leaders were not miners, why 
 should not the employed be as free to choose 
 their representatives as the employer ? The
 
 vJ 
 
 1 60 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES 
 
 president of the company never mined a ton 
 of coal. The directors never mined a ton of 
 coal. Are the rights of representative gov- 
 ernment in industry for the rich only? 
 
 This readiness to misrepresent any fact so 
 as to prevent the public from getting the ma- 
 terials for a true 'understanding of the case 
 went to recklessness and beyond. Turning 
 back to the advertisements offering lots for 
 sale on pages 24 and 29, the reader will see that 
 they are all signed by the Spring Valley Coal 
 Company. These advertisements were circu- 
 lated in newspapers and pamphlets for five years ; 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars' v.'orth of lots 
 were sold through them, and yet the president 
 of the coal company, who has acted as your 
 spokesman throughout the whole business, de- 
 clared to the public, over his own signature, in 
 a letter dated October 8th, in the Chicago 
 Times: " The Spring Valley Coal Company 
 has never, so far as my knowledge goes, of- 
 fered lots for sale. It has never, to my knowl- 
 edge, disposed of any of its realty. The sale 
 and purchase of lots at Spring Valley have 
 been entirely private transactions with which 
 the company has had nothing to do." If the 
 reader will compare these amazing assertions 
 with the closing lines of the advertisements
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. l6l 
 
 given above on pages 24 and 29, he will fit 
 himself to judge correctly of the value of all 
 the other assertions coming from your repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 One of the officers of the company repeated 
 to me the favorite refrain of their letters, inter- 
 views, and statements that the men did not 
 want to go to work, and had made no eff"ort to 
 get back to work. 
 
 I knew better than that, and said: " It is 
 only a few days since the men decided, in their 
 mass-meeting, to make you an offer to go to 
 work in your middle vein, at the same prices 
 paid in Streator, where about fifty could be 
 employed, and sent you a committee with the 
 proposition." 
 
 " We don't recognize committees," was the 
 reply. 
 
 Because the men had come in a committee, 
 this gentleman was willing to make the statement 
 that " the men " had never tried to get work. 
 
 To any one of the general public too little 
 familiar with the facts to detect the lurking lie, 
 this assertion would have conveyed the impres- 
 sion it was made to convey, that the company 
 was anxious to open the mines, and that the 
 men didn't want work, and would rather live 
 on charity.
 
 1 62 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 The public has been misled by your agents 
 about the facts of the business, as well as about 
 the doings of the workingmen. In their vari- 
 ous communications to the public the coal 
 company have dwelt, as the main line of de- 
 fense, and with great effect, on the compe- 
 tition of the coal of southern Illinois. They 
 have succeeded thereby in creating the wide- 
 spread belief that this cheaper southern coal 
 was driving the dearer coal of Spring Valley, 
 and the rest of northern Illinois, out of the 
 market. Speaking of this, the president of 
 the company says: "The operators in north- 
 ern Illinois cannot pay from 30 to 50 per cent, 
 more for mining their coal and compete in the 
 markets with coal costing from 30 to 50 per 
 cent, less for mining." Again, he says: '' If 
 we could mine and produce our coal at Spring 
 Valley at the same cost that it is mined and 
 produced for in southern Illinois we would 
 then be on an equal footing in these markets," 
 
 etc. 
 
 By these, and many other reiterations of 
 the same point, the idea was thoroughly dis- 
 seminated among the public to the disadvan- 
 tage of the miners, that they persisted in de- 
 manding wages at which the northern Illinois 
 mines were being driven out of business by
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 1 63 
 
 the southern Illinois mines. This was done so 
 successfully that the first point made against 
 the writer whenever I began a discussion with 
 a business acquaintance, of the case of the 
 Spring Valley miners, was sure to be: " It is 
 impossible for these mines, with their thin 
 veins, to compete with the thick veins of the 
 southern mines. If the miners won't take less 
 the Spring Valley Coal Company says it will 
 have to shut its mines for good." 
 
 Fortunately, or unfortunately, according to 
 the point of view, the facts of this bugbear 
 competition of southern with northern Illinois 
 coal are accessible to all. They disclose that 
 it is a phantom, a shadow good enough to fight 
 the claims of the working people with, but not 
 good enough to stand the light of investiga- 
 tion. This would be more than surprising if 
 we had not had in this whole degrading busi- 
 ness so many other illustrations of the same 
 mongering of facts. In truth, the trade 
 morality of our day thinks it all right for one 
 bargainer to mislead another as far as he can. 
 
 Let the buyer beware." Special Commis- 
 sioners Gould and Wines made a thorough 
 inquiry into the excuse thus proffered for the 
 terrible course taken at Spring Valley, and re- 
 port that there is nothing in it. Nothing in
 
 i 
 
 164 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 it ! The whole fabric of the company's justifi- 
 cation of its action in inaugurating the lock- 
 out, in the application of the hunger-screw to 
 o-et lower wages, rests on the allegation that 
 they were made necessary by this southern 
 competition. The president of the Spring 
 Valley Company said, in his letter to Governor 
 Fifer, September 25th, justifying the offer of 
 35 cents a ton : " We have made all the con- 
 cessions that we can possibly make to our men 
 and be able to maintain ourselves in a com- 
 petitive market." 
 
 But the special commissioners of the State 
 of Illinois report, officially, that there is noth- 
 incr in it. This ground of defense occupies the 
 principal place in all the company's state- 
 ments. The facts will be found given in full 
 on pages 13 and 14 of Messrs. Gould and 
 Wines' report. Their conclusions are thus 
 
 stated: 
 
 " In 1883 the first mining district and Bu- 
 reau County,* taken together, reported 25.6 
 per cent, of the total output of the State, 
 and 27 per cent, of the value of all the coal 
 produced; while in 1888 they reported 30 per 
 cent, of the total output of the State, and 
 36.4 per cent, of the value of all the coal pro- 
 
 * Spring Valley is in Bureau County.
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 165 
 
 duced. They had gained on their rivals, 
 within the State, in five years, 4.4 per cent, in 
 tonnage, and 9.4 per cent, in price, instead of 
 losing ground, as they claim that they have 
 been doing for a long series of years past."* 
 
 The commissioners conclude: " We dismiss 
 from further consideration by us the claim 
 that the diminution of profits in mining in the 
 first and second districts is due to the increased 
 production of coal in southern Illinois. It 
 appears to us to be not only not proved, but 
 disproved by such statistics as are at our com- 
 mand. " 
 
 A deep condemnation is pronounced upon 
 you in these colorless official words. 
 
 Your lock-out was unnecessary. 
 
 Your nicely built defense, with facts and 
 figures so skillfully dovetailed, is a sham. 
 
 What aspect does this put upon your treat- 
 ment of these people? 
 
 The contradictions and absurdities in the 
 statements put out by these great business 
 geniuses, speak for themselves. For instance: 
 
 Your spokesman figured out in his letter of 
 August 24th, that, if the miners' demand of 85 
 cents a ton were conceded, the company would 
 
 * On account of the lock-out no comparison can be made with the fig- 
 ures of 1889.
 
 1 66 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 lose 1 7 y2 cents a ton. It was then offering 3 5 , 
 nominally 75, cents a ton for mining. It has 
 since settled at 823^ cents, 2 i^ cents less than 
 the ficrure on which the above calculation of loss 
 was estimated. If these figures were correct, it 
 is now losing about 15 cents a ton. It was to 
 get the opportunity of losing 1 5 cents a ton that 
 the manager of the company based the offer of 
 his superintendent to take the mines and pay 
 him a bonus of i 5 cents a ton. It was for the 
 privilege of losing 15 cents a ton that he has 
 been printing and scattering broadcast pam- 
 phlets, " To Miners," urging them to go to 
 Spring Valley, has been appealing almost with 
 frenzy to the public for their support through 
 every channel possible, has more than doubled 
 his first offer to the men. It is by doing busi- 
 ness on this principle of losing 15 cents a ton, 
 no doubt, that the enormous fortunes repre- 
 sented in the Spring Valley enterprise have 
 been created. 
 
 Is it not strange that, of such transparent 
 iup-glins as this with common sense and busi- 
 ness sense, public opinion should be made? 
 
 These incidents give only a glimpse into the 
 methods of this campaign of slander and siege, 
 of moral starvation. 
 
 Where will public indignation find the words
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF SLANDER. 1 6/ 
 
 to express itself when it realizes that the pur- 
 pose of these misrepresentations was to cut off 
 the sympathy of the world from these poor and 
 betrayed men, so that, unrelieved, they might 
 be forced by your partners, hunger and cold, 
 to sell you their lives below cost?
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 
 
 The men who went to work, in November, 
 after the surrender, got no pay from the com- 
 pany until the middle of December. They got 
 credit at the stores, but there were many fami- 
 lies whose heads were away, many who could 
 not get work, because the mines are not yet 
 cleared up, and therefore could not get credit. 
 The distress of the summer, therefore, con- 
 tinued into midwinter. This was anticipated 
 by Adjutant-General Vance in his report 
 given above, in which he says that the neces- 
 sity for relief would probably exist for several 
 weeks after the mines have resumed opera- 
 tions. 
 
 November 27th one of the leading men among 
 the miners wrote in a private letter: " A great 
 many of our men have not started to work yet, 
 as only a limited number can possibly work at 
 the repairing. * * * There are 
 
 some who have a hard time to keep body and 
 
 soul together. We have no money in the 
 
 (168)
 
 FEED MV LAMBS. 169 
 
 treasury. The men are ii-ya poor condition, 
 and somewhat discouraged." 
 
 An inquiry was consequently sent to a resi- 
 dent of Spring Valley, asking what relief was 
 still needed, and to whom it should be sent. 
 His reply puts the last touch to this picture of 
 man's inhumanity to man. With other infor- 
 mation, it was the basis of the following dis- 
 patch, furnished by the write rand sent out by the 
 Associated Press on Thanksgiving Day, 1889: 
 
 Chicago, November 28. — The Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany, to prepare people to celebrate Ihanksgiving, have refused 
 employment upon re-opening the mines to miners who, during 
 the lock-out just ended, took a leading part in the distribution 
 of food, clothing and medicine to the sick and starving. This 
 relief forced the company to make terms twice as good as those 
 offered, although it did not save the men from severe reduction. 
 The company has also declined to re-employ officers of labor 
 unions, and has compelled all miners to abandon unions. As 
 there is no other industry in Spring Valley except that of this 
 coal company, this refusal to employ banishes the members of 
 the relief committee and leaders of the union from Spring Val- 
 ley. They are penniless, having had no work for seven months, 
 like all the working people here. 
 
 Some of these banished men have families of seven and eight 
 children. This action of the company has so intimidated the - 
 other miners that they decline receiving contributions for tho.se 
 still in want. They are afraid that if they are found distribut- 
 ing relief they will be also told to leave. Distress will last at 
 least until midu inter, as the mines are ready for only a few 
 men, and the heads of many families are away looking for work. 
 November earnings will be small, and not paid until the middle 
 of December. Relief will be needed, but the union has been
 
 I/O A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 broken up, and the miners do not dare form another relief 
 committee. 
 
 Here was a speedy illustration of what the 
 surrender of the union meant to the men when 
 worn out by the ceaselessly applied torture of 
 famine, they went back to work as " indi- 
 viduals." When Mr. Bourke, who had been 
 president of the union, applied for work along 
 with the rest who had stampeded, he was told 
 that there was no place for him. When Mr. 
 McNulty, who had been secretary, made a 
 similar application, he got a similar answer. 
 Henry Hill, too, has had to go. He was 
 never an officer of the union, never took any 
 lead in any dispute with the company. He 
 has been banished because, when the women 
 and children and the men who could not get 
 work began to starve, he gave himself to the 
 duty of relief. He was made chairman of the 
 relief committee. He worked day and night 
 dividing the provisions that were given, scour- 
 ing the country for more, hunting out the 
 worst cases of distress. He fed your hungry, 
 he bound up your wounded, he visited your 
 sick. As he did it to these; he did it unto Him 
 whom you call Lord! Lord! and, for doing it, 
 you have said to him, " Move on. There is no 
 place for you in Spring Valley with your seven
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. Ijl 
 
 children and your wife. Take to the road. 
 You tried to save the lives we were trying to 
 cheapen. " C. W. , too, whose story I have told 
 above, when he applied for work, after the sur- 
 render, got the word which meant, " Move on. 
 You shall not live in Spring Valley if we can help 
 it." He was never an officer of the union, 
 never represented the men in any of their dif- 
 ferences with the company, has always worked 
 faithfully according to his bargain. His only 
 offense was that he had been a member of the 
 relief committee, and that he had fed " Him 
 who was a hungered," who, as " Chinese 
 Gordon " says, lives to-day in the persons of 
 the poor and suffering. 
 
 These men and the others refused work 
 were sober, industrious, good. men. The 
 " sacred right to work," of which we hear so 
 much, was denied them, simply because they 
 had been chosen by their associates to act for 
 them in the union or the relief work, and had 
 done it to the best of their ability. The re- 
 fusal of work is, so far as the coal company 
 had control, the refusal of the privilege of 
 living at Spring Valley, since there is no other 
 industry there, as the advertisements stated, 
 except coal mining, and the coal is all owned 
 by you of the coal company. Some of the
 
 172 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 blacklisted men got public work to do for the 
 city ; the others have gone. The men who 
 have acted, as you would say of your own rep- 
 resentatives, as " attorneys," or " directors," 
 or " purchasing agents," or " brokers," or 
 what not, for their fellows, as yours worked 
 for you in this very matter, have been for that 
 offense banished with their families. To get 
 lower and lower wages, and more and more 
 workout of your men, it is indispensable that 
 they should not be allowed to unite, that they 
 should be starved, that, when starved, they 
 should be cut off from outside relief, and that 
 any natural leaders who show themselves 
 should be weeded out. So these men must 
 move on, like Poor Joe, although they had no 
 money to move with, no place to go to, and 
 winter was on them. If they had bought lots, 
 not fully paid for, they must forfeit land and 
 money. Christian warfare stops murdering its 
 enemies when they pull down their flag ; but 
 business and the Apaches take a surrender 
 only to facilitate extermination. 
 
 The men had anticipated the possibility of 
 such tactics, and had endeavored to guard 
 against them. Before surrendering, knowing 
 it to be the practice of employers to black- 
 list the leaders of the men during strike or
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 1/3 
 
 lock-out, the miners put to the president 
 of the company, the direct question, whether, 
 if the men went back to work, he would 
 aeree that the leaders should also be em- 
 ployed. They received in reply the fol- 
 lowing explicit assurance over his own signa- 
 ture: " Regarding those men who maybe con- 
 sidered the leaders, and who are so largely 
 responsible for our difficulties, but who have 
 not been parties to any overt acts toward the 
 company, we will make no exceptions to their 
 returning to work and remaining in the employ 
 of the company, so long as they in good faith 
 live up to what they agree to do. We have 
 arranged to send men to Spring Valley, and 
 we are meeting with more success than we ex- 
 pected." 
 
 Badly whipped as they were, the men were 
 too honorable to go back to work, and leave 
 their leaders to be sacrificed. They would 
 have continued the hopeless fight still longer, 
 rather than submit to that. But this declara- 
 tion from the president of the company was 
 explicit and satisfactory. It came from a foe, 
 but still from a foe they supposed to be an 
 honorable one. 
 
 Immediately upon receiving this assurance, 
 that their leaders would not be discriminated
 
 1/4 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 against, the men voted to go back to work. 
 Then they found that the pledge had been 
 given only to lure them to surrender. In its 
 public card in the following pages, it will be 
 seen, the company does not venture to make 
 any pretense that the banished men had been 
 guilty of any offense. If a tale of such duplicity 
 were put into a novel on the labor question, 
 all the critics would cry out against such 
 inartistic, because impossible, fiction. 
 
 Neither State nor nation has the power by 
 law to banish, but America's millionaires claim 
 and exercise it, though it is a function which 
 the government itself would not dare to assert. 
 
 The feeling with which this news was re- 
 ceived by the country was expressed with elo- 
 quent indignation by the New York Hcj'ald 
 in the following editorial, in its issue of Novem- 
 ber 29th: 
 
 A DISGRACE TO CI VILIZATIOX. 
 
 It is almost incredible that the Spring Valley Coal Company 
 should upon reopening its mines refuse employment to the 
 miners who took food, clothing and medicine to sick and hungry 
 folks during the terrible lock-out, and yet such is the news tele- 
 graphed from Chicago yesterday. 
 
 A more brutal and damnable action can hardly be conceived 
 in a civilized community. It has cowed the relief committees, 
 and supplies have ceased. Disease and starvation may stalk 
 unchecked among the helpless women and children. 
 
 When spring comes the sleek directors of this wealthy cor- 
 poration can point to the graves of those who perish this winter,
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 175 
 
 and say to their slaves: " If you would save your dear ones 
 from this fate, take the wages we offer you without murmur- 
 ing." Then the directors may go back to their homes and 
 thank God that they live in a land of liberty and charity. 
 
 The president of the company repHed to the 
 statements made in the Associated Press dis- 
 patch by issuing a card, which, on account of 
 its gross and angry personaUties, the Associated 
 Press declined to circulate. Omitting the 
 " abuse of the plaintiff's attorney," the card 
 said: 
 
 There has been no order given to not employ men at Spring 
 Valley who took " a leading part in the distribution of food during 
 the strike," as is alleged, nor as to any miner who was engaged 
 in the strike. When the men accepted the company's terms, 
 which were more liberal as to the price of mining than the 
 price paid at other mines in the State, more men signed con- 
 tracts the first day than we could possibly put to work, and 
 miners have been leaving other mines in the State and flocking 
 to Spring Valley in such numbers since work was resumed that 
 it has been impossible for the company to find work for all of 
 them. 
 
 Owing to the long strike our mines were not in condition to 
 work at their full capacity when work was resumed. We are 
 doing all we can, night and day, to get them in order, which we 
 hope to do by the middle of December, when we will be in 
 shape to double, if not treble, the number of men we are now 
 working. No better refutation of the infamous .slanders and 
 misrepresentations heaped upon the Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany and its officers can be given than the fact that not only 
 have all of our old men signed contracts, but that miners are 
 coming to Spring Valley from all over the State, seeking work 
 without our solicitation. Men generally go where they are 
 best paid, and where they can earn the most money.
 
 176 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 In reply to the Herald, the president of the 
 company wrote a card, in the course of which 
 he said: 
 
 I do not ask or expect the public or press of the country 
 to accept any statements made by my company in refutation of 
 the misrepresentation and falsehoods that a partisan press has 
 subjected the Spring Valley Coal Company and its officers to 
 during the past six months, but I do claim that official state- 
 ments and records made by the authorities of the State of Illi- 
 nois ought to be accepted by a fair and impartial press as a 
 refutation of these slanders. Governor Fifer, of Illinois, a 
 republican, through his adjutant-general and the State Board of 
 Charities, during the past summer, and when the strike of the 
 miners had been on from four to six months, made a thorough 
 investigation of the condition of affairs at Spring Valley, and 
 the official report of these gentlemen is the best answer that I 
 can give to the infamous slanders and misrepresentations which 
 have been published in the press of the country. 
 
 Why there should be any suffering or destitution at Spring 
 Valley on Thanksgiving, when a miner can earn from $3 to $5 
 per day for the support of himself and his family, I am unable 
 to account for. 
 
 The following extract accompanied the letter, 
 though, as the reader will see, it has nothing 
 whatever to do with the subject of the Herald's 
 editorial. 
 
 My inquiries were more particularly made with a view to 
 ascertain the conditions as to the destitution, starvation, suffer- 
 ing, sickness and general sanitary condition. I requested the 
 mayor to point out the most prominent cases of destitution or 
 to have the supervisor of the township, who is ex-ofiicio over- 
 seer of the poor, do so, as I would prefer to base my representa- 
 tion of the situation to you upon personal observation. The
 
 FEED MV LAMBS. 177 
 
 citizens with whom I conversed were repres;ntatives of the pop- 
 ulation of Spring Valley, and included physicians, druggists, 
 police, butchers, mechanics, miners, merchants, professional 
 men and business men generally. 
 
 The general sentiment expressed by these persons was that 
 the memorial presented to you and signed by many of them 
 was a misrepresentation as to the condition in reference to 
 destitution, starvation, suffering and sickness; that without any 
 consultation or concert of action on their ]iart, the memorial 
 was prepared and submitted to them for signature. Some per- 
 sons said they were opposed to the memorial as a whole; that 
 no such condition existed as was represented ; that there was no 
 starvation, destitution or sickness worthy of mention, but that 
 they had signed the memorial because, if they refused to do so, 
 they would be b lycotted in business. ()thers seemed to take a 
 different view. While they freely admitted the exaggeration in 
 reference to starvation anddestitution^yet they urged that there 
 had been a necessity for charitable work, and that this necessity 
 would probably exist for several weeks after the miners had 
 resumed operations. — Extract from Jaiiics IT. J'aiiie''s Report. 
 
 Concerning the card in the New York Times, 
 the Philadelphia Press said: 
 
 The facts in this case are clear. The president of the coal 
 company and his associates made money in the Spring Valley 
 mines by methods which led to a strike by starving men. 
 These methods were exposed by that well-known Episcopal 
 clergyman, Father Huntington, and by others. The exposure 
 aroused public sympathy and led to public aid, which rendered 
 the strike successful. There is even reason to believe that it 
 will advance wages throughout the Illinois mines. Replying to 
 published letters asserting that the company was refusing work 
 to miners engaged in relief distribution, to officers in the union 
 and to all who would not leave the union, the president of 
 the company denies that " orders " to this effect were issued, 
 and asserts that " all our old men have signed contracts." We 
 
 12
 
 178 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 sincerely hope this is true. We would like to believe that even 
 he has seen the error of his ways. We hope he has. At the 
 same time, a more direct denial would have been better adapted 
 to convince, and he could clinch it by a brief statement from 
 the union or its officers. 
 
 To the cards in the Times and Herald, the 
 following" rejoinder was made. It was circu- 
 lated by the Associated Press, and, as the 
 comments of a large number of papers showed, 
 was universally accepted as the indisputable 
 truth of the matter : 
 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company denies the truth of the 
 statement sent out by the Associated Press, that the coal com- 
 pany refused employment, upon reopening the mines, to the 
 miners who took a leading part in the distribution of food, 
 clothing and medicine to the sick and starving, and to the offi- 
 cers of the union during die lock-out, and has also compelled 
 the miners to give up their union. The statement was true; 
 the denial is untrue. It is vital the fact should be understood, 
 not tu make or unmake any one's reputation for veracity, but 
 that the public may know what means are being employed to 
 terrorize and impoverish the working people. 
 
 In a letter written the day before Thanksgiving a prominent 
 member of the Spring Valley Relief Committee said : 
 
 " The company are putting the men to work as fast as they 
 can — that is, the men they want to give work to. Seven of us 
 have been refused work, and five of those seven for certain will 
 get no work in Spring Valley. Their names are James O'Hare, 
 Andrew Bcurke, Thomas McNulty, Chris Weimer and Henry 
 Hill. They will have to go and' seek work elsewhere, which is 
 pretty 'hard law' in the winter, after seven months" idle time. 
 As far as sending relief here now is concerned, none of the 
 miners would take anything to distribute for fear they would be 
 dealt with like these five, and be made victims and have to leave
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 1/9 
 
 the place. If you could do anything to find work for me I 
 would go to Chicago." 
 
 Confirmation of these statements is right at hand from the 
 other side. In its issue of Thanksgiving Day the Spring Valley 
 Gazette, the organ of the business men, not the workingmen, 
 said : 
 
 " At the miners' meeting Monday evening the men donated 
 $li8 to help out of town a few men who have not yet got work 
 from the coal company. Six men are on the list — namely: A. 
 D. Bourke, Harry Hill, Thomas McNulty, Clement Lalliment, 
 Ed. Travis, and Chris Weimer. The $il8 was the entire bal- 
 ance of the money remaining in the hands of the relief com- 
 mittee. " 
 
 Of these men who are " on the list," Bourke was the president 
 and McNulty the secretary of the Miners' Union up to the end 
 of the lock-out, Hill was the chairman of the Rehef Committee, 
 and the others active members. 
 
 A later letter states that four of the men, Bourke, Hill, Lal- 
 liment, and McNulty, the leaders of the union and the Relief 
 Committee, have gone into their involuntary exile, and by the 
 same mail comes the Spring Valley Gazette stating that Bourke 
 has gone as far away as Missouri. These men have to leave 
 their wives and children behind them. 
 
 As to the union the miners, besides submitting to the banish- 
 ment of their old leaders, are compelled to sign contracts by 
 which they bind themselves, individually, not to take part in 
 any combination to obtain better wages, and agree to leave the 
 settlement of all grievances to the sole judgment and decision 
 of the company. The company refuses the union any recog- 
 nition in matters between itself and the men. 
 
 The value of the company's denial may be sufficiently judged 
 from the fact that the only quotation it makes from the Associ- 
 ated Press dispatch is garbled by changing the word lock-out to 
 strike. The trouble at Spring Valley was officially declared to 
 be not a strike but a lock-out by the special commissioners em- 
 ployed by the governor of Illinois to investigate it. The 
 anxiety of the company to mislead the pidilic on this point is
 
 l80 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 evidence tliat they cannot afford to stand by their action in ap- 
 plying the torture of famine for seven months to 5,000 people 
 in order to buy their labor " below cost." 
 
 The New York Sun of December i6, 1889, 
 in printing this .statement, said, editorially: 
 "It is a conclusive reply." 
 
 The Philadelphia Press said: " Denials 
 count for little in the face of these facts, and, if 
 the president of the coal company wants any 
 one to believe him, he must meet these pains- 
 taking and accurate statements not with abuse, 
 but with proof that his company has given 
 work to the men whose only crime was dis- 
 tributing charity to their mates." 
 
 And the Pittsburg Dispatch declared that 
 this recapitulation of the facts made "fine 
 mince-meat" of the denial by the company. 
 
 No further denial was attempted. Any 
 one who has made himself familiar with the 
 facts of this case, and has a taste for the work, 
 can pick out dozens of contradictions and 
 obvious misstatements in the statements made 
 by the company. But it is a profitless task to 
 spend time hunting for dropped stitches in a 
 web, the warp and woof of which are spun 
 altogether out of deceit and wrong-doing. 
 But it is worth while, in passing, to point out a 
 characteristic illustration of the reckless will-
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. l8l 
 
 ingness of these dtnployers to make a point 
 regardless of the facts. In its card of No- 
 vember 29th, the company stated that it " has 
 been impossible for the company to rind work 
 for all of them " — the miners who had applied 
 for employment. But the next day, in the 
 card of November 30th, the spokesman of 
 the company says: 
 
 " Why there should be any suffering or des- 
 titution at Spring Valley on Thanksgiving, 
 when a miner can earn from $3 to $5 a day 
 for the support of himself and his family, I am 
 unable to account for." 
 
 Friday the needs of selt-defense created a 
 demand for some such statement as that the 
 company had not refused employment, but 
 had been unable to give it to all. That state- 
 ment was supplied accordingly. Saturday 
 created a demand for the statement that the 
 company had furnished all with employment 
 yielding $3 to $5 a day, and that statement 
 was supplied forthwith. 
 
 Such are the advantages of life- long practice 
 of the principles of supply and demand. 
 
 But the company, in their first denial, make 
 one assertion, upon which it will be profitable 
 to pause. Your spokesman says: 
 
 " No better refutation of the infamous slan-
 
 1 82 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ders and misrepresentations heaped upon the 
 Spring Valley Coal Company and its officers 
 can be given than that not only have all of our 
 old men signed contracts, but that miners 
 are coming to Spring Valley from all over 
 the State seeking work without our solicita- 
 
 tion. 
 
 The writer of the card conceived, as he wrote 
 that, to say " All of our old men have signed 
 contracts" would sound well, and he said it, 
 utterly untrue as it was, as the facts we have 
 given show. But that is a mere aside, which 
 can be dismissed as an extemporaneous caper 
 in a life-long waltz with fancy. But the clos- 
 ing declaration that the miners who had flocked 
 into Spring Valley, upon the resumption of 
 work, had come there " without solicitation," 
 conceals a maneuver so deliberate, so char- 
 acteristic of this whole business, and so mis- 
 chievous, that it must not be passed by. 
 
 In the Spring Valley Gazette of November 
 14, 1889, when the company was in the thick 
 of the negotiations with its locked-out men for 
 their return to work, this paragraph was 
 printed: 
 
 " ' A Word to Miners ' is the title of a neat 
 eight-page pamphlet received Monday from 
 Erie, Pa. It is descriptive of the city of Spring
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 1 83 
 
 Valley, and the mines to which it refers, in 
 glowing terms. " 
 
 Erie, Pa., is the home of the president and 
 spokesman of the coal company. The pam- 
 phlet is herewith given in full. It is an impor- 
 tant document.
 
 A WORD 
 
 TO 
 
 COAL MINERS. 
 
 (185)
 
 A WORD TO COAL MINERS. 
 
 There is no State in the Union containing a larger Bitumi- 
 nous Coal area in proportion to its square miles than the State of 
 Illinois, and there are no mines in the United States where a 
 miner can have steadier work at more remunerative wages than 
 can be had at the most favorably located mines in northern Illi- 
 nois. There is a reason for this that can be readily understood 
 by any intelligent miner: In the first place the consumption of 
 Bituminous Coal for steam purposes, by railroads, is enormous 
 in that section, arising from the fact that Illinois contains more 
 miles of completed railroad to its population than any other 
 State in the Union. The consumption of coal by these rail- 
 roads is a steady one throughout the year, which is a great ad- 
 vantage in the way of furnishing steady work to the wage- 
 worker. The northern boundary of the coal fields of the State, 
 where the veins of coal are well defined and regular in their 
 formation, terminates at about the 41st parallel of latitude, at a 
 point where the Illinois River reaches its most northern limit. 
 The great States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as por- 
 tions of Illinois and Michigan north of the 42d parallel, are 
 destitute of coal. The coal from these northern Illinois fields 
 also finds a ready market in the States and Territories west 
 and northwest of the State of Illinois. With fully seven months 
 of winter and the thermometer often falling to 30 or 40 degrees 
 below zero throughout this large area, with its large and active 
 population, practically without timber, coal is not only a ne- 
 cessity in the great cities, but also to the farming community. 
 By referring to the geological map of the State of Illinois, it 
 will be seen that the northern limit of the coal fields of the State, 
 as stated, is between the 41st and 42d parallels of latitude, and it 
 
 (187)
 
 1 88 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 will also be observed that the great city of Chicago is within the 
 same parallels. Drawing a line due east and west through Chi- 
 cago, and north and south through Spring Valley, Illinois, it will 
 be found that the Spring Valley mines are about 55 miles south of 
 the east and west line, and about 100 miles west of Chicago, 
 midway between the waters of the great lakes and the Missis- 
 sippi River, and that the great lower and upper veins of the 
 Illinois fields do not extend beyond eight miles north of Spring 
 Valley, and that their southern terminus is in the 37th parallel 
 of latitude, being about the southern boundary of the State. 
 This great middle field, as officially laid down by tlie geological 
 map of the State of Illinois, cannot be better described than by 
 comparing it with a ham, the hock starting at Spring Valley, 
 Illinois, and extending south. Within this formation, only the 
 middle or upper veins are found. East and west of it, to a 
 greater or lesser extent, the great underlying veins are found, 
 but in no instance are the upper and lower veins found together 
 in their complete formation outside of the counties of La Salle 
 and Bureau, and even in these two counties not exceeding 40,000 
 to 50,000 acres. Taking Chicago as the great railroad center 
 of the West, with its present population of over 800,000 people, 
 and its prospective growth, it is hard to even approximate what 
 its future coal consumption will be. We know that in 1SS8 
 Chicago consumed over three millions of tons of Bituminous 
 Coal, and it is within bounds to say that the railroad consump- 
 tion of coal by the roads extending north, west, and southwest 
 of Chicago, for steam purposes, during the same period, was 
 not less than five millions of tons. If you want to sell coal, or 
 in fact any other commodity, you must find a market for it. A 
 large market means a large consumption, and a large consump- 
 tion means steady work for the producers of the commodity 
 consumed, as well as fair wages for the wage-worker; and, if 
 there are any coal fields in the United States better located in 
 this respect than the mines at Spring Valley, we have yet to find 
 them. 
 
 When the last geological map of the State of Illinois was 
 issued in 1875, ^^^ ^^^^ was not then known that the Spring
 
 A WORD TO COAL MINERS. 1 89 
 
 Valley coal fields contained laotli the middle and lower veins of 
 coal of the State ; but practical working has fully demonstrated 
 this fact. There are three well defined and workable veins of 
 coal at Spring Valley, the first vein averaging about four feet, 
 and, at a depth of 150 feet, has not been worked. The second 
 vein is from five to seven feet thick, at a depth of 250 feet below 
 the surface, with a good roof and comparatively free from water, 
 and is worked on the room and pillar system. 
 
 A good miner doing an honest day's work, can mine from 
 four to five tons per day, and are now doing it, which at the 
 present price paid for mining in that vein, namely, 72_J^ cents 
 per ton, will enable him to earn from $3.25 to $4 per day, and 
 the men now working are making these wages. The lower 
 vein, 350 feet below the surface, is mined on the long wall 
 system. The coal is from three feet eight inches to four feet 
 thick. Tlie under-cutting is mainly in fire clay, although in 
 some of the rooms or faces in two of the shafts, the rock is 
 found underlying the coal to a limited extent in some of the 
 working places. The roof is soapstone, about fourteen feet 
 thick, and about twenty-four inches of it above the coal has to 
 be removed. There is no water in the lower vein; it is practi- 
 cally free from faults; the level of the vein will not vary five 
 feet in a mile; no powder is required; after the bearing in is 
 done, the coal falls from the compression of the roof. Two 
 men are allowed a face of forty-two feet to work in. The per- 
 centage of the nut and slack combined is only thirteen per cent. 
 The screens are seven-eighths of an inch, and the price paid for 
 mining this vein is 82 }4 cents per ton of 2,000 pounds of 
 screened coal, including twenty-four inches of brushing. A 
 good miner can mine four tons per day, and in many cases five 
 tons. 
 
 THE TOWN OF SPRING VALLEY. 
 
 Less than four years ago, where the town of Spring Valley 
 now stands, was an open prairie containing a kw scattered farm 
 houses. The town is located at a bend on the northern bluff 
 of the Illinois River, fronr 90 to 100 feet above same, in the
 
 I90 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 counties of Bureau and La Salle, on a high rolling prairie. No 
 more beautiful, fertile, and productive agricultural region can 
 be found on this continent than is tributary to Spring Valley. 
 In less than one year from the time work began in developing 
 the mines, there were i,ooo inhabitants in the town, and in 
 1888 the population was estimated to be between 4,500 and 
 5, 000 people. Fine brick blocks, churches, schools, private 
 residences, hotels, national bank, electric lights, ^\ater supply, 
 and last but not least, snug and con>fortable houses for the 
 wage-worker, were constructed as if by magic. Three trunk 
 lines of railroad pass through Spring Valley, two of which 
 have been extended there since the town was started, namely, 
 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Chicago & North- 
 western, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific being the third. 
 No town of its size and certainly no coal property has superior 
 railroad and shipping facilities than Spring Valley, and in addi- 
 tion, by the Illinois River, it possesses an uninterrupted water 
 • communication with the Gulf of Mexico. The development of 
 the Spring Valley Company's property and the output of coal 
 reached in so short a period, has been phenomenal, and as the 
 main product is produced under the long wall system, being 
 the largest mines worked under this system in the United 
 States, if not in the world, to-day, its ability to meet all possi- 
 ble demands upon it in the future, is equal to that of any 
 Bituminous Coal mines in the country. There are six shafts 
 or mines now open, and when fully developed and in operation, 
 will have a capacity of not less than 1,000 tons of coal per day 
 each; in 1888 ihe output per day reached as high as 4,000 tons. 
 To the steady, sober and industrious coal miner, no better 
 locality can be found to locate in than Spring Valley, and 
 no coal field where steadier work and the highest wages 
 paid for mining coal can be relied upon. To the indus- 
 trious miner willing to do a fair day's work for a fair day's 
 wage, and who wi.shes to own his own home, and live "under 
 his own vine and fig tree," the Spring Valley Company are 
 prepared to erect such homes for them, to be paid for in 
 monthly installments, on long time, at a rate of interest not
 
 A WORD TO COAL MINERS. 191 
 
 exceeding five per cent, per annum on the actual cost of 
 the house and lot, and these monthly installments will be so 
 little in excess of the rent usually paid for such premises, that 
 at the end of a few years the wage-worker will have his own 
 home. The Spring Valley Coal Company do not want agitators, 
 bummers or drunkards, nor will they employ such knowingly. 
 Men who live off of the labor of others and whose occupa- 
 tion is dependent upon their ability to excite .strikes and differ- 
 ences between the wage- worker and the operator, are the worst 
 enemies of labor. Every intelligent employer of labor should 
 know that his interests can be best promoted by paying the 
 highest possible wages his business will permit, and by making 
 those who work for him feel that he has an interest in their pros- 
 perity and welfare, and that he is ready and wilHng at all times 
 to concede to the individual wage-worker his just and equitable 
 rights. 
 
 HOW TO GET TO SPRING VALLEY. 
 
 It takes two or three hoiirs to reach Spring Valley from Chi- 
 cago by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, and the 
 fare is $3. The Spring Valley Coal Company can now give 
 steady work to additional miners, with good tenement or board- 
 ing houses to live in, at reasonable prices. Men vA^o are ac- 
 customed to mining anthracite coal, iron ore, or other minerals, 
 can soon successfully work at Spring Valley. 
 
 Those desiring further information, can address: 
 
 Genl. Manager, Spring Valley, 111. 
 
 Genl. Agent, Chicago, 111. 
 Spring Valley, III., November ist, 1889.
 
 192 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 This pamphlet re-enforces the exhibition 
 made by the advertisements and pamphlets de- 
 scribed above and used to " boom " the town. 
 It shows how systematic and expensive were the 
 solicitations to new miners to come to Spring 
 Valley, to buy lots, to overstock the labor 
 market, an-d to menace the locked-out men al- 
 ready there with the permanent loss of their 
 places. It baits again the old trap of the 
 " home" and " the vine and fig tree." It is 
 silent as the sphinx aboutyour lock-out, still in 
 force, which had lasted eleven months for one- 
 third the men and seven months for all of 
 them, ignoring that, it renews the promises, 
 so cruelly falsified, of the original rainbow ad- 
 vertisements of " steady work" and the "highest 
 wages.". The terms in which it describes the 
 six shafts " now open," and the price which 
 
 is" paid of 82^ cents a ton, are obviously 
 designed to conceal the fact that no wages 
 were beingearned at all, and that the six shafts 
 were closed to all the men, except fifty or 
 sixty who were working in the middle vein. 
 The uninformed miner reading this pamphlet 
 would believe Spring Valley to be in the mid- 
 career of busy prosperit}'; not until he arrived 
 would he learn the truth, and discover that the 
 invitation he had accepted was but a " busi-
 
 FEED MY LAMBS. 1 93 
 
 ness man's " maneuver to use him against 
 brother workingmen. This pamphlet was 
 openly addressed to miners. It was dated 
 November ist, it was widely circulated, it is 
 signed by the officers of the company, it soli- 
 cits miners to come to Spring Valley, even 
 gives the railroad fare from Chicago; and yet 
 the spokesman of the company has the face to 
 declare, in a public card over his own signa- 
 ture four weeks later, that the miners who 
 filled Spring Valley came there "without our 
 solicitation." 
 
 When the president of the Spring Valley 
 Coal Company says the miners now in Spring 
 Valley came " without solicitation," he has 
 to face even more damnatory evidence than 
 this pamphlet. In his letter of November 2d, 
 to the men quoted above on page 1 7 1 , he says : 
 " We have arranged to send men to Spring 
 Valley, and are meeting with more success than 
 we expected. " 
 
 It is by such strokes of " enterprise " that 
 the conditions of dissatisfaction and the sense 
 of wrong are created among the working 
 people. 
 
 It is seldom that facts like these — as real 
 facts of supply and demand as any others — 
 get to the public. Professors of political 
 
 13
 
 194 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 economy do not come near enough to realities 
 to discover these things; the workingmen do 
 not know how to bring them before pubhc 
 opinion. All possible pains are taken to con- 
 ceal these tactics, to keep them subterranean, 
 and deny them, as is done in this case. But 
 it is such deceit and betrayal and false guid- 
 ance that make the difference to the working- 
 man between mere subsistence and killing 
 poverty. To the employer they mean success 
 in getting lower wages and higher dividends; 
 he lives at the comfortable altitude where the 
 alternations of the economic climate are only 
 between the more and less of too much. He 
 seems to be unable to understand the suffering 
 or the resentment of the working people 
 whom his business stratagems (so pleasant to 
 him) reduce from too little to nothing.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " MILLIONS IN it! " 
 
 " How can such things be true? " the public 
 ask, appalled. " Even if there is no humanity 
 or justice in these men, their interest ought to 
 restrain them. They lose when their mines 
 are shut, the sales of land arrested, the com- 
 pany store closed, the coal traffic of the North- 
 Western suspended. What can the motive 
 be? These men are not monsters who would 
 torture the poor when there is no money in it 
 for them." 
 
 There is money in it. There is millions in 
 it. 
 
 It has been a good speculation for all of 
 you, this successful attempt to cheapen the 
 men and destroy their union. Besides the 
 profit that will be made by forfeiting all the 
 money,* and regaining possession of the lands 
 
 * The latest nevs from Spring Valley is that the company is pushing 
 the men hard for back payments on the lots bought by them previous to 
 the lock-out. In almost all cases this must end in the forfeiture of the 
 lot and all the money so far paid in. This forfeiture will be the direct 
 result of the lock-out, and the company will make a handsome profit out 
 of its own wrongdoing — thereby violating one of the fundamental princi- 
 ples on which social life is based. 
 
 19s)
 
 196 A STRIKE OF MIIXIOXAIRES. 
 
 •wMdi Willi of itself roll up, in the conrse of 
 years, to thoMsaiiids per cent, of profit on the 
 wihole inves.taneinit. The coal company has 
 40,000 acres of coal land, or sixtj'-six sqnare 
 miles, the largest estate of any coal-mining 
 CC' mpvaay in the vrorM. 
 
 Tiie circialar, * A Woird to Miners,'" qmoted 
 above, states that there aie * three wdl-defined 
 and workable veins, the first at a depth of I yO 
 feet, averaging fomr feet; * » » 
 
 the second, 250 feet below the sianiace. five to 
 seven feet tMck; * * * -;-; 
 
 third, 550 feet below the snrface, three feet 
 eii^ht inches to fomr feet thick."" The formmla 
 msed bv mining emgineers in these fields to find 
 the amomnt of coal in these veins gives i ,000 
 tons of coal per aoie to every foot of thickness 
 in the vein. Hence, according to the com- 
 panv's statement, that its three veans ft>ot np 
 aboiai fomrteen feet thick, it mmst have 14,000 
 tons of coal per acre for the whole 40,000 
 acres. This womld be 560,000,000 tons in alL 
 On tiae cost of diggjimg this, they have secanred 
 by their war on the workingmen a irediiBCltjoB 
 of not less than tea cents a ton, besides ad- 
 vanta£!es in the iron-dad ooandtract wortii solid
 
 M 
 
 MILLIONS IM IT." 1 97 
 
 money. This saving of ten cents a ton on 
 your 560,000,000 tons makes the pretty penny 
 of $56,000,000. The total investment of the 
 coal company has not been much more than 
 $1,000,000 — it pays taxes on only $166,994 
 — and this single campaign, according to its 
 own figures of the amount of coal, yields a 
 profit of 5,000 per cent, and more; a profit 
 from this single summer's campaign of over 
 $50 for every dollar invested. 
 
 You have no right to growl with these fig- 
 ures, for they are your own. But the truth 
 is they are incorrect. The company, in 
 its " Word to Miners," grossly exaggerated 
 the amount of coal to be mined, and did so 
 as a part of its tactics to beguile innocent and 
 trusting workingmen into its paradise of 
 " steady employment " " at $3.50 to $4 a day." 
 But the public must not be misinformed, even 
 though it would serve the company right to let 
 its figures stand to its own confusion. Mining 
 engineers who have made a thorough investi- 
 gation of the coat fields in the vicinity of 
 Spring Valley agree that there are, as nearly 
 as can be figured out, about 5,000 tons per 
 acre. On this basis, your mines will yield 
 200,000,000 tons, and your midsummer cam- 
 paign of starvation and slander against your
 
 198 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 men will give you a saving of $20,000,000 in 
 the cost of mining it. 
 
 The paid-up capital of the coal company is 
 $2,500,000. At that figure, as the annual 
 capacity is 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 tons, the 
 saving of ten cents a ton will of itself pay a 
 yearly dividend of 4@6 per cent, on the 
 whole of it. No wonder that your bashaw 
 confidently announced that he would keep the 
 mines closed a year, two years, as many 
 years as needed, and that, if needed, he would 
 make the grass grow in the streets. 
 
 You who own the coal company could afford 
 even a longer idleness. Time cannot take 
 away your coal, nor your lots, nor the rail- 
 road ; but it began, the day after the lock-out, 
 to eat away the hearts and homes, souls and 
 bodies, loves and lives of the poor ones from 
 whom you had determined to steal the 
 $20,000,000 by the brute force of your mill- 
 ions and monopolies. 
 
 Mankind shuddered when Louis XIV. gave 
 the order that the Palatinate, alien to him in 
 race and religion, be ravaged. What will the 
 public, to which you appeal, say of you when 
 they comprehend the true nature of the ruin 
 you have visited for your "profit" on men,
 
 " MILLIONS IN IT. 1 99 
 
 women, and children of your own country, 
 fellow-citizens, and your " partners " ? 
 
 What has been done at Spring Valley is not an 
 extremecase; ithassimplybeen given extrapub- 
 licity. It is a perfect illustration of our monop- 
 olistic morals. You owners of Spring Valley 
 have simply pushed a little farther than poorer 
 men would have dared to do, the principles of 
 buying cheap and selling dear, and the manip- 
 ulation of the " Eternal law" of supply and 
 demand. The Spring Valley case is only a 
 well-illustrated instance, which shows how 
 rapidly the industry of this country is passing 
 out of the control of business men into that of 
 business animals, whose prototypes must be 
 sought among the carnivora that go on all fours, 
 and who need, as Emerson said of similar men 
 of his time, to be educated out of the quad- 
 ruped state. The majority of our business 
 men are being consumed, as well as the work- 
 ingmen, by such monsters. The workingmen 
 feel the devouring tooth of" monopoly" more 
 keenly and more promptly than business men, 
 simply because they are weaker, and have a 
 narrower margin between themselves and death. 
 Prescience should arouse among business men 
 an even sharper ferment of reform than dis- 
 tresshas created amongthe workingmen. Busi-
 
 200 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ness men should make common cause with the 
 workingmen. Only by such a cooperation 
 can the country be saved from the catastrophe 
 toward which its rights, prosperity, and liber- 
 ties are being hurried by the greed and lust 
 of a small body of the richest and most danger- 
 ously disloyal men popular government has 
 ever been threatened by
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 
 
 The trouble between you and your men at 
 Spring Valley is one of the incidents of a social 
 war which is raging in the soft coal regions. 
 In this civil strife the mine-owners and rail- 
 roads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illi- 
 nois are fighting with each other, and with the 
 workingmen. It is part of the history of this 
 calamitou struggle that the workingmen have 
 opposed it, and have advocated an enlightened 
 policy of cooperation, which, if the capitalist 
 and corporations had been as civilized, would 
 have put an end to the industrial war with its 
 incalculable losses — losses in life, as well as in 
 property. It is a significant fact that it was at 
 the suggestion of the workingmen that a joint 
 organization of mine-owners or operators, and 
 miners was formed in 1885, which for three 
 years established peace in this industry. On 
 this subject the following from the report on the 
 coal-miners' strike and lock-out in northern 
 
 Illinois, by J. M. Gould and Fred. H. Wines, 
 
 (201)
 
 202 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 special commissioners appointed by the gov- 
 ernor, August, 1889 (page 10), is of interest: 
 
 " The executive board of the ' National Fed- 
 eration of Miners and Mine-Laborers,' in 
 session at Indianapolis, September 12, 1885, 
 issued an address requesting the mine operators 
 of the United States to meet with said board, 
 ' for the purpose of adjusting the market and 
 mining prices in such a way as to avoid strikes 
 and lock-outs, and give to each party an in- 
 creased profit from the sale of coal.' 
 
 " At a convention held in Chicago, October 
 15, 1885, at which both operators and miners 
 were present, this call by the miners alone was 
 indorsed, and a joint committee of three oper- 
 ators and three miners was appointed to in- 
 vite the cooperation of all engaged in coal- 
 mining in America, and to call a meeting of 
 operators and miners in joint convention at 
 Pittsburgh, on the 15th of December, 1885. 
 
 " At the Pittsburgh convention a scale of 
 prices for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and 
 Illinois was drafted, which was afterward ap- 
 proved by the ' First Annual Joint Conference 
 of Miners and Operators ' at Columbus, Ohio, 
 in February, 1886. This scale was known as 
 the Pittsburgh scale, 
 
 " The scale was revised at the second an-
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 203 
 
 nual conference, also at Columbus, in Feb- 
 ruary, 1887. 
 
 " It was again revised at the third annual 
 conference at Pittsburgh, in February, 1888." 
 
 This movement to substitute the methods of 
 reason for those of force became abortive through 
 the failure of the operators — employers — 
 to sustain it. The mine-owners of southern 
 Illinois refused to enter the organization. 
 Those of northern Illinois consequently with- 
 drew in 1888, and the final disruption was 
 brought about in 1889, by the withdrawal of 
 the Indiana operators. The movement was 
 started by the workingmen and loyally sup- 
 ported by them, but killed by the business and 
 railroadmen. In southern Illinois, the miners, 
 despite the hostility of the operators, did their 
 best to establish the system, and through their 
 union succeeded in advancing wages to the 
 figure set for their district by the joint conven- 
 tion. The workingmen were faithful in all 
 instances. But the Grape Creek Coal Com- 
 pany of Illinois, although one of the parties to 
 the scale, after agreeing to it, refused to accept 
 it, and kept their men out of work for two 
 years, until at the end of one of the most 
 righteous and obstinate labor strikes on record 
 the men were compelled to give in. Such
 
 204 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 action as this, and the failure of the mine- 
 owners of southern Illinois to join the move- 
 ment, and the withdrawal of the northern 
 Illinois and Indiana operators brought this 
 most hopeful effort for industrial peace to a 
 close. The differing attitudes of the working- 
 men and the employers show the difference in 
 their philosophy produced by the difference in 
 their circumstances. The workingman repre- 
 sents the multitude — the people. He knows 
 by a sure instinct that war is fatal to his wel- 
 fare. The business man represents the few 
 who aspire to supremacy over the many by 
 war. He welcomes the struggle, with all its 
 chances, for one of these chances is that he 
 may win great wealth, and be elevated above 
 all his associates. The workingman stands 
 for the democratic principle in business ; the 
 capitalist for the aristocratic. 
 
 Behind the failures of the peace movement 
 in the coal industry, may be easily seen the 
 malign influence of the railroads. Space for- 
 bids to give the details here, but broadly, the 
 refusal of the southern Illinois mines to enter 
 was because by doing so they and the railroads 
 with which they are interlinked would have lost 
 the advantage ofmaking secret and unfair freight 
 rates. The withdrawal of the northern Illinois
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 205 
 
 mines had a similar element in it. At the open- 
 ing of the Pittsburgh conference of 1888, a 
 leading operator boldly charged that there had 
 been a " conspiracy between the railway officials 
 of the Northwestern railroads and the opera- 
 tors of the Northwestern mines of Illinois to 
 shut out of the great markets of the North- 
 west, as far as they were able, the coal mined 
 in Pennsylvania and in Ohio." 
 
 The principal owners of the important coal 
 mines are often owners and officials of the allied 
 railroads, and they believed they could do 
 better in a demoralized market, with the help 
 of " rebates," than they could by assenting to 
 any open and harmonious arrangement to 
 settle prices and wages. They might be the 
 " fittest " who would survive the general ruin. 
 The baleful disorganizing "rebate" appears 
 again in the closing scene, when at the last 
 joint convention, that at Columbus, March 12, 
 1889, the Indiana operators withdrew. From 
 the debates in the last joint convention, it is 
 apparent that the mine-owners of Indiana 
 calculated that they could make more money 
 by breaking up this arrangement than by 
 perpetuating it. If they withdrew from the 
 mutual obligations it imposed on them with 
 respect to their competitors of Ohio and
 
 206 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 Pennsylvania, who still remained, and their 
 employes, they could have recourse to two 
 sources of profit. First, they could obtain 
 from the railroads that connected them with 
 Chicago such discriminating freight rates as to 
 give them an insuperable advantage in the 
 market; second, they could whipsaw down the 
 wages of their miners to almost any point by 
 the use of the unemployed labor, so plentiful on 
 all hands. They withdrew, and the joint con- 
 vention, after four years' existence, adjourned 
 sine die. In an eloquent speech,* begging the 
 operators and miners not to separate, Col. W. 
 P. Rend said: 
 
 It is not for the interest alone of the miners tliat a settlement 
 sliould 1)6 reached. It is not for tlie niterests of the operator 
 alone that a settlement should be reached. It is for the interest 
 of both. It is for tlie interest of the great jirinciple of conciHation 
 that, for the first time, I believe, in the industrial history of the 
 country, has been given effect to by the miners and operators. 
 * * * It is apparent that this question has got to be settled 
 by one of two methods. We have got to employ one of two 
 agencies : the agency of force or reason. Gentlemen, which 
 shall we employ? Shall we resort to brutal strikes and lock-outs 
 again? Is that your wish? Is it the wish of any operator here 
 to go back to the old system; to the old plan of fighting the 
 miners, the plan that entails loss of capital, the plan which 
 brings with it oftentimes scenes of bloodshed and disorder to 
 the State, and which engenders feelings of enmity and hatred 
 
 * From the official verbatim report of the Fourth Annual Joint Con- 
 ference of Miners and Operators held at Indianapolis, February 5-7, and 
 Columbus, IMarch 12-14, 1889. (Pages 112, 113, 114, 115.)
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 20/ 
 
 between capital and labor? I do not believe that you want 
 to go back to that old system. The other system is that 
 of reason and intelligence, of using the highest power and 
 the highest faculty that God Almighty has given us. Three 
 or four years ago we decided that the agency of reason was 
 the proper one for us to employ. We met together ; opera- 
 tors and miners both raised their voice in condemnation of 
 the system of strikes that had characterized, and I might 
 say brutalized, the industry before. After a great deal of 
 discussion and several conferences, we found a common 
 standing ground. We formulated scales. We established 
 peace, we established concord, we established good-will, where 
 before there had been either open warfare or an unfriendly 
 peace, and where before there had been discord, enmity and 
 hatred. We have accomplished marvelous results, gentlemen, 
 during the last three years. I do not think that the most san- 
 guine of the originators of this plan had believed that such 
 gi-and results could be accomplished in such a short time. Now, 
 gentlemen, it is not necessary for me to delay you in going over 
 the history of our dealings during the past three years. Suffice 
 it to say that we are convinced of the wisdom and justice of the 
 principles of arbitration. 
 
 * * * When this movement was first organized it was 
 treated with ridicule. It had no friends. Many of the operators 
 of the United States looked upon it as averse to their interests. 
 They said : " Clentlemen, you will build up a gigantic Miners' 
 Union, that will use its strength to make war upon us." 
 " You are giving strength to the enemy," they said. I did not 
 believe it. A great many of them called it a delusion. They 
 said: "It is an impossibility for so many interests to agree 
 where there is such a conflict and such a complication of inter- 
 ests. It is impossible to adopt any scale or any general 
 arrangement between operators and miners." Where it was 
 not looked upon as folly, it was regarded by many operators 
 as a vague chimera. We have demonstrated by three years' 
 trial and experience that it has been a strength to the cause 
 of capital; it has helped capital. (Applause.) Gentlemen, no
 
 2o8 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 man here in this room, I beheve, representing the operators, 
 will deny the fact that the last three years have been the best 
 period that we have experienced in the entire history of the 
 coal trade. You have derived a benefit from it. I have been 
 benefited by it, and it is useless, it is false, for any man to get up 
 and say that this movement has been injurious to the interests 
 of capital. It has been a benefit to the interests of capital and 
 labor, and you have both been benefited by this peaceful mode of 
 settlement. Before this, as I said before, there was a general 
 feeling of hostility. We looked upon one anotlier as enemies. 
 We did not understand one another, gentlemen. We did not 
 understand each other's position. The miner felt that he was a 
 victim of wrong, of grave oppression. He felt that capital was 
 a hard taskmaster, that ground him down. He felt justified, 
 whenever an opportunity presented itself where he could take 
 advantage of his employer, in taking that advantage. The 
 pain of his suffering became more intense, from the belief that 
 his employer was the cause of his privation and misery. On 
 the other hand, the operator looked upon the miner as unrea- 
 soning, and as turbulent. He felt that no matter what con- 
 cessions he made, no matter what he did, no matter what act 
 of kindness he would extend, he would be rewarded with in- 
 gratitude. These opinions were largely false, and due to mis- 
 conceptions. Their falsity has become apparent from the happy 
 experience of the past three years. We have now become ac- 
 quainted, and mutually understand each others' purposes and 
 sentiments. The men we have met here — I say it with no 
 idea of flattery, no idea of currying any favors; I ask no favors 
 of any man (Applause) — but I say that the men we have come 
 here to meet, we feel it an honor to meet. They are men 
 of intelligence; they are thoughtful men, and they mean to 
 act fairly and justly. They state their case fairly, and they 
 argue it well. We find they are better equipped and belter 
 prepared with arguments than we are. We find able men here 
 representing the miners. We are proud to meet men of this 
 kind. Now we are dealing with intelligence, where oftentimes 
 before we had to deal with ignorance. Sound sense, good judg-
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 209 
 
 ■*.■ 
 
 ment and a spirit of fairness characterize tire demands and 
 claims here presented I)y the miners' delegates." 
 
 The break-down of the joint organization of 
 miners and operators was followed by a season 
 of strikes and lock-outs, ending in great losses 
 to all, and in reductions of wages to the min- 
 ers; but the problem of organizing for the 
 common good, thus selfishly abandoned by 
 the capitalists, has been taken up again by 
 the workingmen. After the lock-out and 
 strikes of the soft-coal region were over. 
 President John McBride, of the Miners' Pro- 
 gressive Union, issued the following call for a 
 convention of five States: 
 
 National Progre.ssive Union Miners ) 
 
 AND Mine Laborers, [- 
 
 Gen. Office, Columbus, Nov 18, 1889. ) 
 
 Tlie miners of northern Illinois, Indiana, ()hio, western 
 Illinois, western Pennsylvania and West \'irginia, whose coal 
 goes into Western and Northwestern markets, are hereby noti- 
 hed that a convention of this competitive district will be held 
 in Indianapolis, Ind., at 10 A. M., on Wednesday, December 
 18, 1889. 
 
 All miners not organized are requested to meet at their 
 respective mines to select and send delegates to this conven- 
 tion. 
 
 The objects of this convention will be to consider and 
 determine upon a policy by and through which the interests of 
 the miners and mine laborers may be better protected and their 
 wages advanced during the coming year. 
 
 The joint movement of operators and miners for the adjust- 
 ment of mining rates in this district gave good results -to both 
 
 14
 
 2IO A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 parties while it lasted, but the withdrawal of Illinois and Indi- 
 ana operators from the movement and the bitter warfare waged 
 by them since May last against their employes makes it prac- 
 tically impossible for us to meet them in convention next 
 spring. 
 
 The experience of the last six months proves to us that min- 
 ers in no one or two States in this district should again enter 
 into an agreement with their employers and allow miners in 
 other sections of the district to do all the striking. We must 
 stand cr fall together as a district. 
 
 We prefer peace rather than contentii n with the operators, 
 but the good of our craftsmen in this field now depends that we 
 either secure a general agreement or depend upon our own 
 efforts to win just and equitable rates and conditions. The lat- 
 ler, judging from present surroundings, seems inevitable during 
 the coming year, hence we advise the consideration of a policy 
 that will include, among other things : 
 
 1. Restriction either in hours, tonnage or by a series of sus- 
 pensions at stated intervals throughout the entire competitive 
 district. 
 
 2. The creation of a large defense fund between this and May 
 I, 1890, to be used for the carrying out of the policy agreed 
 upon by the convention. 
 
 The conditions of the coal market now warrant better prices 
 than are being paid for mining, and, if our judgment is not seri- 
 ously at fault, next year will increase the prosjierity of the coal 
 mining industry. It will be our own fault if we do not receive 
 better returns for labor performed next year. 
 
 We now ask that each miner do his duty, and urge immediate 
 election of delegates. Fraternally yours, 
 
 John McBride, Prest. 
 
 In opening the convention, called as above, 
 President McBride said, among other things : 
 
 The history of the "joint movement" in this competitive 
 district during the past four years has clearly demonstrated that
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 211 
 
 in an intellectual contest we have been able to hold our own 
 with the owners and operators of mines, and I do not hesitate 
 in saying that, were disputes between mine employers and 
 employes to be adjusted by arbitration, instead of by a resort 
 to strikes, the ability of your representatives, aided by facts and 
 the logic of the situation, would have retained prices and bet- 
 tered mining conditions throughout the competitive district ; 
 but the discordant and demoralized state our forces were in, 
 together with their weakness financially, seemed to court the 
 destruction of conciliatory methods, and invite a conflict 
 with operators which could not but end in loss and disaster 
 to us. 
 
 To relieve the distress of those on strike and to reduce their 
 wants to a minimum, is a duty devolving upon our craftsmen 
 who continue at work, but to our shame it must be said that 
 this duty has been but indifferently discharged in the past by 
 the great majority of those who had work to do, and as a re- 
 sult their fellow-miners who were striking and suffering were 
 compelled to accept defeat, starve or appeal for aid to a sympa- 
 thetic and charitable public. 
 
 If miners and mine laborers would but do their duty toward 
 each other this need not occur ; and I am sick and tired of being 
 humiliated year in and year out by having to jiublish to the 
 world that my craftsmen are so lacking in energy and enterprise 
 that, rather than make proper financial provisions in time of 
 peace to protect their interests during periodical and apparently 
 inevitable wage contests, they prefer to be classed as paupers 
 and mendicants. This language may sound severe and harsh 
 to you — it certainly is not pleasant to me — but it is true, and 
 we are forcil)ly reminded of its truth by the fact that during the 
 several months' strike of the nine thousand miners and mine 
 laborers in Indiana and Illinois only about forty thousand dol- 
 lars in money and goods was contril)uted to aid them. This 
 would be but a small amount for the more than sixty thousand 
 nime workers of this competitive district to pay, hut the records 
 show that fully one-half of this sum was contributed by others 
 than mine workers, and this showing is not creditable to us.
 
 212 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 No wonder that operators so loudly boasted of their ability to 
 starve their miners into submission. 
 
 The convention adopted the following reso- 
 lutions: 
 
 Whereas, The almost total defeat of the miners of North- 
 ern Illinois and in the block coal fields of Indiana has caused 
 them to lose by cessation of work for six months, and by re- 
 duced wages for the next six months, at least half a million 
 dollars, and to this may be added the amount of money con- 
 tributed by those not engaged in the strike ; and. 
 
 Whereas, The miners in other parts of the competitive 
 field are now in danger of having prices and conditions similar 
 to Indiana and Illinois forced upon them; to prevent such a 
 calamity, mine workers of the entire district must decide, and 
 decide quickly, to cease complaining about their inability fo live 
 upon their meager earnings, and purpose to make a mutual and 
 determined fight along the line by contributions of a few dol- 
 lars each to a fund that will be large enough to guarantee the 
 success of a strike inaugurated to restore, not alone the old 
 rates in Illinois and Indiana, but an increased price throughout 
 the entire field. This must be done, or all go down to a lower 
 level. Therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That we favor the creation of a fund large enough 
 for both offensive and defensive purposes, and with this end in 
 view we recommend that mine workers throughout the entire 
 competitive district be assessed $i per month for the months of 
 February, March and April, the sum to be paid into the general 
 treasury; and 
 
 Resolved, That we advise our mine workers of this district 
 to consider, that, if an amount equal to one-half the money lost 
 through the failure of the late strikes was centered in a general 
 fund, it would prevent defeat in future contests for wage adjust- 
 ment. Be it further 
 
 Resolved, That the mine workers of this district instruct 
 their delegates to the national convention, to be held in Colum-
 
 SPRING VALLEY ONLY A SKIRMISH. 213 
 
 bes, Ohio, at an early date, to vote for or against the creation 
 of such a general fund by the methods herein advised, and to 
 also provide for the election of a board of trustees and proper 
 safeguards to prevent the misuse of any part of the funds for 
 purposes other than those for which it is asked to be created. 
 
 Whereas, The reports of the delegates show that the 
 miners represented are almost unanimous in their desire to have 
 the eight-hour day imposed in the competitive district, either on 
 May I, 1890, or as soon thereafter as practicable, therefore, 
 be it 
 
 Resolved, That we ask the miners and mine \\orkers in this 
 competitive field to prepare to put the eight-hour day in force 
 on May i, 1S90, and that our delegates to the Columbus con- 
 vention urge the co-operation of miners. 
 
 Resolved, That we are in favor of a restriction in the output 
 of coal in this competitive field and leave to the Columbus Con- 
 vention to determine the best method of restriction and the 
 time it shall take effect. 
 
 Resolved, That this convention urge the miners of Illinois to 
 use every available means to establish a shorter interval between 
 pay days. 
 
 If there has been any movement among the 
 operators toward organization, it has not been 
 pubh"c, Hke all the proceedings of tlie miners. 
 But it is not likely any such movement has 
 been attempted. The forces at work among 
 the capitalists, are forces of selfishness and 
 disintegration, not of union for mutual benefit. 
 A desperate struggle is on for the partition of 
 the soft coal business of the country among the 
 leading railroads and their business favorites. 
 The interests of the miners, of the operators, 
 and of the public, must all stand in abeyance
 
 214 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 until this process of coal monopolization is 
 settled. If it is settled by the survival of the 
 " fittest " of these anarchical contestants, it 
 will be found too late that another American 
 industry has passed under the absolute control 
 of a few men. These men will be able to fix 
 by the tariffs of a few railroad managers, and 
 by the votes of a half-dozen trustees, what 
 men shall be permitted to own and operate 
 coal mines, how much coal shall be mined each 
 year, what mines shall be operated, which 
 closed, what price the public shall pay, what 
 wages the miners shall receive, and at wdiat 
 points the industry of America dependent on 
 fuel shall or shall not be permitted to expand. 
 The men who have this power in the coal 
 market will have much to say, also, along with 
 similar lords of industry in other markets, 
 about who shall be senator, president, judge, 
 what laws shall be enacted, and how taxes 
 shall be apportioned among the people. Only 
 a fool can suppose that the republic of the 
 United States of America will survive the 
 continuance of such a system as this, which 
 before our eyes is being set up in the most 
 ■ important departments of the life of the 
 American people.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FIRST FRUITS — WHAT WILL THE LAST BE? 
 
 BONAMY Price, then Professor of Political 
 Economy at Oxford, visiting Chicago, called 
 about himself a parlorful of people, and asked 
 this question: " What is it specially distin- 
 guishes man from the brute? " There were 
 many answers, but his own was the only one 
 he liked: " Progressive desire. Like Oliver 
 Twist, man is always crying for more." By 
 virtue of this law, man, when associated as a 
 railroad, continually reaches out for more, more 
 railroad, more power. The locomotive is the 
 representative of our age. Concentrated in it 
 are all the tendencies of our civilization in 
 their intensest culmination. It stands for the 
 millionaire and the tramp, the overworked 
 ■' hand," and the laborer displaced by machin- 
 ery, the corporation dominating the state, the 
 idolatry of the god of our day — the bargain. 
 Steam and machinery reach their climax in the 
 locomotive. The commercial fanaticism of the 
 right to do what one wills with his own, and 
 
 (215)
 
 2l6 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 to buy i\nd sell anything, has found in the lo- 
 comotive the potent instrument which rides 
 over all the rights of the people in highways, 
 businesses, courts and government, and drowns 
 all protest with its screaming doctrine, that 
 public roads are private property, and that 
 private property is the government of the 
 many by the few, " of divine right," and not 
 to be questioned. This control of the high- 
 ways tends to become the control of the coun- 
 try dependent on the highway, and of all the 
 men and things therein. The framers of the 
 last constitution of Pennsylvania, knowing this, 
 sought to counteract this dangerous tendency 
 in the field where it was foreseen it might pro- 
 duce its most calamitous effects, by forbidding 
 any railroad to own or operate coal mines. 
 But, as they at the same time neglected to 
 make it impossible for the railroads to become 
 the owners of the courts and legislatures, 
 through which this prohibition was to be en- 
 forced, the wise foresight was of no aval]. The 
 sole effect of this provision of the constitution 
 has been that the railroads became the ovi'ners 
 in fee simple (very simple) of the government 
 of the state, as well as of the forbidden coal 
 fields. To-day a few law-breaking, anarchy- 
 practicing railroad giants, w^ith a few enor-
 
 FIRST FRUITS. 21/ 
 
 mously wealthy individuals bound to them 
 by invisible but .unbreakable money-belts, 
 own all the hard coal fields of the great State 
 of Pennsylvania. In the language of the con- 
 gressional report on the labor troubles in 
 Pennsylvania, in 1888, "seven coal-carrying 
 railroads, which are at the same time coal 
 miners, may be said to own or control all the 
 anthracite of the United States." 
 
 The report further says : " During the first 
 forty years the mines were worked by individ- 
 uals, just as are farms. The hundreds of em- 
 ployers were in active competition with each 
 other for labor. The fundamental law of sup- 
 ply and demand alike governed all parties. 
 As to engagement, employer and employe 
 stood upon a common level of equality and 
 manhood. Skill and industry upon the part 
 of the miner assured to him steady work, fair 
 wages, honest measurement, and humane 
 treatment. Should these be denied by one 
 employer, many other employers were ready to 
 give them. The miner had the same freedom 
 as to engagement, the same reward for faithful 
 service and .protection against injustice, that 
 the farm hand possesses because of the com- 
 petition between farmers employing hands. 
 With the development of the railroad system
 
 21 8 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 and its peculiar methods, the huv of competi- 
 tion was steadily restrained, and finally sus- 
 pended. To-day seven great carrying com- 
 panies are the real operators in the whole 
 region, and have either driven out the many 
 individual operators or else absolutely control 
 the few that remain. This virtual combination 
 of all employers into one syndicate has prac- 
 tically abolished competition between them as 
 to wages, and gradually but inexorably the 
 workmen have found themselves encoiled as 
 by an anaconda, until now they are power- 
 less. 
 
 The law of " progressive desire," which 
 drives the railroads to become the owners of 
 tonnage as well as the movers of it, has been 
 stronger than the law of the land. This law, 
 that the ownership of the highways grows 
 steadily into the ownership of the country 
 dependent on the highways, is to-day to be 
 seen in as active operation in the West as in 
 the East. Nothing produces so much freight 
 to the acre as a good coal mine; no other 
 source of freight is so concentrated, and so 
 easy to control as coal land. No single item 
 . of expense in railroading is greater than the 
 supply of coal. No other kind of commodity 
 is so certain always to demand distribution by
 
 FIRST FRUITS. 2ig 
 
 the railroads as coal. It is possible to conceive 
 of each locality in the West turnini^ in upon 
 itself for the suppl}^ of its food; but coal is 
 found only in spots, and the business of dis- 
 tributing it is one railroad men know the world 
 will not outgrow. Hence the leading railroads 
 in the West some years ago began to imitate 
 the policy so successful in Pennsylvania, despite 
 the law — the policy of becoming the owners 
 of their own coal mines. In this way they get 
 at cost the enormous amounts of coal they use 
 themselves, and secure on most, if not all, the 
 coal used by their " provinces," the several 
 profits of mining, carrying and selling. The 
 Northern Pacific owns coal mines on the 
 Pacific coast; the Union Pacific, those at Rock 
 Spring, Wyoming; the Central Pacific and 
 Southern Pacific are supplied by their mines. 
 The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe gets coal 
 for itself and its provinces from its own mines 
 at Trinidad, Colo.; Pittsburg, Kan., and 
 other points. The Braceville, 111., coal 
 mines are the adjunct of the Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee & St. Paul. If the Chicago, Burling- 
 ton & Quincy did not own its own coal mines, 
 it boughtsome of its supplies from mines owned 
 by leading stockholders. Similar arrange- 
 ments have been made by the Illinois Central,
 
 220 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 the Chicago & Alton, the Chicago & Rock 
 Island, the Wabash; by the Chicago & North- 
 Western at other points — as in Iowa — than 
 at Spring Valley, and by other railroads. 
 
 It would require a more intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the inner mysteries of the great 
 railroads than outsiders usually have, to be 
 able to say with certainty in what cases coal 
 mines are really owned by the corporations in 
 connection with which they are operated. 
 Sometimes they are owned by " rings " of the 
 managers, who thereby acquire the pleasing 
 and profitable power — nothing could ever 
 give them the right — of buying as officials of 
 che railroad, from themselves as individuals. 
 This works to the great advantage of the in- 
 dividual, who has great luck in getting good 
 bargains out of the official. We see here, no 
 doubt, one of the reasons why all our great 
 business geniuses make such point of the 
 sacredness of "individual enterprise." The 
 mines from which the Missouri Pacific and its 
 allied roads draw their fuel and coal freight 
 are understood to be largely the property of 
 the distinguished professor of the science of 
 " individual enterprise," who has been in con- 
 trol for many years of that main highway of 
 the Southwest. The "evolution " — to give a
 
 FIRST FRUITS. • 221 
 
 respectable name to the proceedings of so 
 highly respectable men — which has made the 
 property of the many the property of the few, 
 and has converted yeomen into miners, and 
 miners into slaves in the hard-coal fields, is 
 already well under way in the soft-coal dis- 
 tricts. Good society meets the poor reformer 
 with the angry charge that he means to 
 divide up property, but it winks complacently 
 upon the commercial monsters who are 
 visibly dividing the property of their neigh- 
 bors and competitors among themselves. All 
 the evil features of the destruction of private 
 property and personal liberty in Pennsylvania 
 are being repeated in the coal regions of the 
 West, as illustrated in the rapid monopoliza- 
 tion of the vast coal deposits by comparatively 
 a few men controlling rates of transportation, 
 and by the misery and degradation forced 
 upon whole communities like yours of Spring 
 Valley, and like Brazil, Braidwood, the Hock- 
 ing Valley, and other places. 
 
 In this first short half-century the enthusi- 
 asts for improved transportation who so 
 humbly begged the State for charters to per- 
 mit them to take away other men's land with- 
 out their consent, for little experimental rail- 
 roads, and who so thankfully solicited and re-
 
 222 * A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ceived every gift of bonds, lands, money or 
 " county aid," have grown to be these giants, 
 getting from the strong meat of highway 
 monopoly the strength to reach out for land 
 monopoly and market monopoly. If these are 
 the fruits of the first fifty years, what will be 
 those of the next fifty years? If these are the 
 winnings of the inaugural era which has seen 
 only the consolidations of local lines into trunk 
 lines, what will be the winnings of the period 
 already begun, which will be signalized by the 
 union of the trunk lines into one or two great 
 railway trusts, operated by private citizens for 
 private profit, claiming the highways of the 
 nation as private property, and using this pri- 
 vate property as the jimmy with which to get 
 possession of all other property? 
 
 If the fuel famines of Kansas and Dakota, if 
 the extortions of the coal rings and trusts of 
 Chicago and Pennsylvania, if the ruin of Spring 
 Valley, if the pitiable poverty of the miners of 
 Pennsylvania, if the extermination of the indi- 
 vidual coal-mine owners of Pennsylvania and 
 Illinois, and the " division of property" taken 
 from them, among their powerful destroyers, 
 if these denials of the " sacred right to work " 
 and of " private property" are the fruits of 
 these first years, when these properties and
 
 FIRST FRUITS. 223 
 
 privileges are still managed by men who have 
 sprung from the people, what will the fruits be 
 in the second and third generations, when all 
 this power has passed into the hands of those 
 who, by experience, education and habits of 
 life belong to another world than the com- 
 monalty, and who have acquired a taste for 
 powers and luxury that must be satisfied by 
 greater and greater levies on the people? If 
 these are the fruits of the grasping of coal 
 mines by the owners of the highways, and the 
 Napoleons of commercial conquest, what will 
 be the fruits of their ownership of the other 
 mines, the forests, and the factories, and farms, 
 all of which must in time be surrendered to 
 the " progressive desire " of the lords of in- 
 dustry?
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PART OF THE MORAL. 
 
 Men do not lose nor lessen their personal 
 responsibility by acting through a corporation, 
 or an agent, or by an}' other indirection. The 
 growing shrewdness of the public will onl)' lay 
 a surer and heavier hand on those who smite 
 their brothers from behind that ancient and 
 uncanny creature — the corporate person — 
 and then claim immunity for their souls and 
 bodies, because their dummy has no body to 
 be kicked, and no soul to be damned. Of the 
 two leading authorities on the law of Ameri- 
 can corporations, Taylor says:* 
 
 " It is the opinion of the writer that the fic- 
 tion of the ' legal person' has outlived its use- 
 fulness, and is no longer adequate for the pur- 
 poses of an accurate treatment of the legal 
 relationst arising through the prosecution of a 
 corporate enterprise. By dismissing this fic- 
 
 ^ Preface to " Law of Private Corporations," by H. O. Taylor. Phila- 
 delphia: Kay & Piros., 1884. 
 t Or moral or economic. 
 
 (224)
 
 PAFT OF THE MORAL. 2^5 
 
 tion a clearer view may be had of the actual 
 human beings interested, whose rights may- 
 then be determined without unnecessary mysti- 
 fication; " and Morawetz says;* 
 
 " The existence of a corporation as an entity 
 independently of its members is a fiction; 
 * * * while the fiction of a corpo- 
 
 rate entity has important uses and cannot be 
 dispensed with, it is nevertheless essential to 
 bear in mind distinctly that the rights and 
 duties of an incorporated association are in 
 reality the rights and duties of the persons 
 who compose it, and not of an imaginary 
 being. " 
 
 What men do in managing enterprises char- 
 tered by the public is not " their private busi- 
 ness." In such affairs they are public func- 
 tionaries doing the business of the public. 
 
 Such men as public functionaries are as law- 
 fully and inevitably to be called before the 
 people by name for the public discussion and 
 criticism of their acts as any other public serv- 
 ants. " For, although," says Ruskin, " many 
 of my discreet friends cry out upon me for 
 allowing ' personalities,' it is my firm convic- 
 tion that only by justly personal direction of 
 
 * "Law of Private Corporations," by Victor Morawetz. Boston: 
 Little, Brown & Co., 1886. 
 
 IS
 
 226 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 blame can any abuse be vigorously dealt 
 with." 
 
 He who acquires profits or property is 
 responsible for all the means that produced 
 them. lo-norance of this law excuses no man. 
 
 Step by step the " Model Merchant " has 
 pushed his right to buy cheap and sell dear far 
 beyond the necessary limitations of law, econ- 
 omy, morals and humanity. 
 
 Modern business under the leadership of the 
 Captains of Industry has developed into an 
 unnatural fanaticism of greed, producing a 
 seditious wealth and a morbid poverty. 
 
 Under the inspiration of this fanaticism, men 
 irreproachable in other relations of life proclairr) 
 and practice their right to consume the liveli- 
 hood, the liberties and even the lives of their 
 fellow-citizens in order to multiply superflui- 
 ties of power and luxury for themselves. 
 
 These fanatics of business — few but su- 
 preme — set a pace which is leading our busi- 
 ness civilization to destruction. 
 
 That the -sort of thing you have done at 
 Spring Valley, and others like you have done 
 in the valleys of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 
 and elsewhere, will be made conspiracy by 
 law if necessary, is certain as soon as the 
 public get to grasp the motive and the result
 
 PART OF THE MORAL. 227 
 
 of such concerted attacks upon the lives and 
 hberties of the people. It will be in vain that 
 you who own and manage the North-Western 
 Railroad will repel with indignation and amaze- 
 ment the charge that you are in any way 
 responsible. You did not know what was 
 being done? You have accepted and continue 
 ready to accept its result. You only built a 
 railroad to a coal field, as any one might do, 
 and are not responsible for any wrong com- 
 mitted in the production of the coal of whicli 
 you were only the carrier? Your position is in- 
 finitely worse than that. Owners and man- 
 agers with you in the railroad were owners 
 and managers of the coal company and land 
 company, and your acts disclose a concert of 
 action with a common purpose in the co-op- 
 perated management of those properties. The 
 question of conspiracy is a question of circum- 
 stantial evidence, and of the public judgment 
 of the evidence to be expressed, it is to be 
 hoped, some day by a jury, in the " good old 
 times " that are coming, when the public wits 
 will have developed to the point of taking 
 away from the poor and lowly their present 
 monopoly of conspiracy. The building of the 
 road and the booming of the town went on 
 together under the direction of a mutual ele-
 
 226 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 blame can any abuse be vigorously dealt 
 with." 
 
 He who acquires profits or property is 
 responsible for all the means that produced 
 them. Ignorance of this law excuses no man. 
 
 Step by step the " Model Merchant " has 
 pushed his right to buy cheap and sell dear far 
 beyond the necessary limitations of law, econ- 
 omy, morals and humanity. 
 
 Modern business under the leadership of the 
 Captains of Industry has developed into an 
 unnatural fanaticism of greed, producing a 
 seditious wealth and a morbid poverty. 
 
 Under the inspiration of this fanaticism, men 
 irreproachable in other relations of life proclain] 
 and practice their right to consume the liveli- 
 hood, the liberties and even the lives of their 
 fellow-citizens in order to multiply superflui- 
 ties of power and luxury for themselves. 
 
 These fanatics of business — few but su- 
 preme — set a pace which is leading our busi- 
 ness civilization to destruction. 
 
 That the -sort of thing you have done at 
 Spring Valley, and others like you have done 
 in the valleys of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, 
 and elsewhere, will be made conspiracy by 
 law if necessary, is certain as soon as the 
 public get to grasp the motive and the result
 
 PART OF THE MORAL. 22'J 
 
 of such concerted attacks upon the lives and 
 liberties of the people. It will be in vain that 
 you who own and manage the North-Western 
 Railroad will repel with indignation and amaze- 
 ment the charge that you are in any way 
 responsible. You did not know what was 
 being done? You have accepted and continue 
 ready to accept its result. You only built a 
 railroad to a coal field, as any one might do, 
 and are not responsible for any wrong com- 
 mitted in the production of the coal of which 
 you were only the carrier? Your position is in- 
 finitely worse than that. Owners and man- 
 agers with you in the railroad were owners 
 and managers of the coal company and land 
 company, and your acts disclose a concert of 
 action with a common purpose in the co-op- 
 peratcd management of those properties. The 
 question of conspiracy is a question of circum- 
 stantial evidence, and of the public judgment 
 of the evidence to be expressed, it is to be 
 hoped, some day by a jury, in the " good old 
 times " that are coming, when the public wits 
 will have developed to the point of taking 
 away from the poor and lowly their present 
 monopoly of conspiracy. The building of the 
 road and the booming of the town went on 
 together under the direction of a mutual ele-
 
 228 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 ment in both companies. When the dooming 
 of the town began, you of the raih'oad sub- 
 mitted "to it and to the loss of heavy traffic 
 receipts, when by a word you could have com- 
 pelled your other selves of the coal company 
 to have continued the mining and supply of 
 coal. Now that the people have been starved 
 into surrender, you have put on your trains 
 again and use the coal again. You will boast 
 again in your annual report, as you have done, 
 of the progressive cheapness per ton of your 
 coal— $2.28 a ton in 1885, $1.96 in 1886, 
 $1.75 in 1887, and perhaps $1.50 this year — 
 a progressive cheapness every downward cent 
 in which represents scores of broken lives. 
 The railroad has made prices on Spring Valley 
 coal at competitive points which indicate re- 
 bates on its transportation. High officials of 
 the freight department of the road have 
 appeared in person at the public tender of 
 bids for the supply of Spring Valley coal to 
 public institutions in competition with other 
 coals. This cumulation of evidence tells its 
 own story. Nor can you of the coal company 
 protect yourselves by the plea that competi- 
 tion forced you to do what you did. The 
 facts given above about the wages paid by 
 your competitors, and your own latest offers,.
 
 PART OF THE MORAL. 229 
 
 take that ground from under you. But waiv- 
 ing all that, you have no right to create such 
 competition, and then plead it as an excuse for 
 other wrongs. 
 
 If you continue your war on the miners, if 
 you pocket the profits that success will bring 
 you, the public will sooner or later declare to 
 all of you that you have vitiated your title to 
 your rights and properties at their very 
 roots. Political economy gives you private 
 property only that the interest of all may 
 be served by your self-interest ; the law gives 
 you your franchises and estates only for the 
 general welfare and the public safety; relig- 
 ion holds you to be only stewards of your 
 riches. If you usurp for your private profit 
 all these trusts and grants, if you withdraw 
 yourself from serving and protecting the 
 public and take to oppressing and plundering 
 them from your points of advantage, you will 
 but repeat the folly of your mediaeval exem- 
 plars whose castles now decorate a better 
 civilization with their prophetic ruins.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 STATEMENT TO THE PUBLIC BY THE COAL 
 COMPANY, AND REPLIES BY THE MINERS AND 
 THE PRESS. 
 
 The first and last statement to the public by 
 the Spring Valley Coal Company after the 
 lock-out of December and May, was in the 
 following letter to Governor Fifer. It was 
 made to justify the offer of August 23d of os- 
 tensibly 75, really 35 cents a ton. 
 
 Hon. Joseph IV. Fifer, Gover^ior of the State of Illinois. 
 
 Sir— The undersigned, in behalf of himself and those con- 
 nected witli him in the ownership and control of the Spring 
 Valley Coal Company, respectfully submits to you, and through 
 you to the public, the following statement of facts, which can 
 be verified and confirmed by evidence and figures which we ask 
 you and the public to impartially consider in refutation of the 
 uncalled-for and unjust abuse which the managers of the com- 
 pany's property have been subjected to. 
 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company was organized under the 
 laws of the State of Illinois in the year 1884 to develop a coal 
 territory north of the Illinois River, about lOO miles southwest 
 of Chicago, which field embraces about 40,000 acres. Within 
 this territory, in 1884, there were two small mines in operation, 
 supjilying the local demands of the neighborhood, the total out- 
 put of these mines not then exceeding 500 tons per day. As to 
 
 (230)
 
 APPENDIX. 231 
 
 the value of this coal field I can submit no better evidence than 
 the fact that no coal operator in your State was willing to risk 
 hip money in its development and improvement, or considered it 
 of sufficient value to invest one dollar in it. Neither myself nor 
 my associates supposed, when we concluded to try and utilize 
 this coal property and develop it, that we were committing any 
 crime. We supposed, that, so long as we conformed to the laws 
 of the State of Illinois and obeyed them, we would be protected 
 in our lawful rights, including the right of controlling our 
 property to the extent that other corporations and citizens 
 of your State enjoy. We asked for nothing more; we are en- 
 titled to nothing less. In this supposition we have found our- 
 selves sadly mistaken. Venal and partisan newspapers, as well 
 as politicians, desiring to serve political ends, together with 
 a few honest and charitable citizens and misguided clergymen, 
 have, without the necessary facts or knowledge to enable them to 
 form a correct opinion, heaped upon this company and its offi- 
 cers, through the press, an amount of falsehood and slander 
 that is perhaps without parallel in the industrial history of this 
 country. 
 
 The development of the Spring Valley coal field was not en- 
 gaged in for speculative purposes. All we could hope for was 
 a very moderate return on the capital invested. The Spring 
 Valley Coal Company purchased the coal rights and lands in fee 
 now owned by it located in the counties of Bureau, La Salle, 
 and Putnam, paying to the farmers of those counties something 
 over $650,000 for the same, and of this sum $350,000 to $400,- 
 000 was utilized by them in removing mortgages from the land, 
 the surface of which they retained. The company up to date 
 has further expended a large amount of money in improving and 
 developing the property, and to-day our mines have the capacity 
 to produce over 4,000 tons of coal per day, when in operation — 
 a capacity exceeding that of any other mines in the world worked 
 under the long-wall system. You can readily understand, sir, 
 that a property capable of producing from 1,000,000 to 1,500,- 
 000 tons of coal per annum could not expect to find a market 
 for its coal locally, situated as the Spring Valley Coal Comjiany
 
 232 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 is, but from necessity would have to look to tlie States and Ter- 
 ritories of the North and Northwest to market its product. The 
 ability of the company to operate its mines, to give steady em- 
 ployment to its men, and to sell its coal, is contingent upon two 
 factors — first, the cost of mining at Spring Valley, as compared 
 with the cost at the mines in the other Illinois coal fields with 
 which we come in competition; second, the cost of railroad 
 transportation from Spring Valley to competitive markets as 
 compared with the cost of transportation fiom mines in the 
 other fields to the same markets. The coal fields with which 
 the Spring Valley Company has to compete virtually embrace 
 the entire coal area of the State of Illinois south of the Illinois 
 River at Spring Valley, and extending to within forty-five miles 
 of St. Louis. Within this field are located what are known as 
 the Streator, Braidwood, and Wilmington districts, constituting 
 a part of what are known as tlie northern Illinois coal field. 
 Taking Streator as the center of this group of mines in the 
 northern field, and St. Paul, Minn., as a market for Illinois 
 coal, the relative distance from Spring Valley to St. Paul is 
 twenty miles less than from Streator. As you go south and 
 southwest on the lines of the railroads from Chicago, extending 
 into what are known as the central and southern coal fields of 
 Illinois, there are numerous mines producing and shipping coal 
 into the Chicago market and the markets of the Northwest; and, 
 if we take Essex, on the line of the Wabash road, \\hich is the 
 transfer point of coal from these central and southern fields, and 
 Chicago and St. Paul as competitive markets, we find the dis- 
 tance from Spring Valley to Chicago is loi miles, and to St. 
 Paul, by the shortest route, 420 miles, as against 60 miles from 
 Essex to Chicago and 470 miles from Essex to St, Paul. 
 
 Under an arrangement between the railroads of your State, 
 centering in Chicago and extending into the North and North- 
 west, within which territory the northern Illinois coal mines 
 are solely dependent for a market for their product, the follow- 
 ing system and rates of transportation have been adopted and 
 are to-day in force : A zone or territory embracing certain coal 
 fields in northern, central, and southern Illinois lifts been estab-
 
 APPENDIX. 233 
 
 lished, and the rates of railroad transportation upon coal from 
 all mines within this zone, passing through and going beyond 
 Chicago by rail lines from Chicago, are uniform, irrespective of 
 the distance the coal is transported from points within this zone 
 to Chicago. The limits of this zone are as follows : Starting 
 from the city of Chicago due west to Clinton, Iowa, thence fol- 
 lowing the Mississippi River as far south as Burlington ; thence 
 in a southeasterly direction, passing through Bushnelland Ver- 
 mont ; thence in a northeasterly direction through Peoria, 
 Lacon, Minonk, and Essex to Chicago ; embracing all the 
 mines and coal deposits within the territory described. The 
 southern limit of this zone or belt is Vermont, distant from 
 Chicago 211 miles, and from St. Paul, via Chicago, 621 miles 
 by the shortest rail route ; as compared from Spring Valley to 
 Chicago, loi miles, and St. Paul 420 miles. But, perhaps, 
 Peoria is a better illustration, for the reason that larger ship- 
 ments of competitive coal are sold in the Chicago market and 
 markets of the Northwest from the mines in that vicinity. The 
 price of mining in the Peoria mines last year was sixty cents a 
 ton, as against ninety cents paid at Spring Valley. The dis- 
 tance from Peoria to Chicago is 161 miles, and from Peoria to 
 St. Paul, via Chicago, 571 miles. Now, a ton of coal shipped 
 from Peoria to St. Paul, via Chicago, a distance of 571 miles, 
 pays only the same rate per ton for transportation that a ton of 
 Spring Valley coal pays for 420 miles, with a difference of over 
 thirty-five cents per ton in cost of mining in favor of Peoria. 
 
 To further illustrate the inequalities of railroad transporta- 
 tion affecting the operation of the fields of northern Illinois, we 
 would refer to the Consolidated Coal Company's mines, op- 
 erated within fifty-four miles ot St. Louis, with a claimed pro- 
 duction of 10,000 tons per day. The actual amount paid for 
 the transportation of a ton of coal by the Consolidated Coal 
 Company from their mines to St. Paul is $2.40, as against $2 
 from Spring Valley to St. Paul ; but the distance froni the Con- 
 solidated mines to St. Paul is 636 miles, while from Spring Val- 
 ley to St. Paul it is 420 miles, and an equivalent rate for a ton 
 of coal from Spring Valley to St. Paul would be $1.58 per ton,
 
 234 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 as against the $2.40 paid on a ton of coal from the Consoli- 
 dated 'mines, or a discrimination against Spring Valley, on the 
 distance relatively transported, of forty-two cents per ton ; and 
 the price paid for mining a ton of coal at the Consolidated 
 mines is forty-five cents, as against ninety cents a ton paid at 
 Spring Valley. This coal to-day is sold in the city of Chicago 
 for $1.65 per ton, and is sold at Essex for $1.25 per ton. 
 
 Now as to the relative cost of mining a ton of coal at Spring 
 Valley as compared with the cost of mining at other mines in 
 the northern field, and with the fields of central and southern 
 Illinois : Since the Spring Valley Coal Company has been in 
 operation the price paid the miners for mining a ton of coal has 
 been uniformly 90 cents per ton, with sixteen inches of brush- 
 ing, as against an average price of 80 cents a ton paid for mining 
 a ton of coal in the other mines of the northern coal field, as 
 against 60 cents and as low as 45 cents a ton paid for mining 
 in the central and southern C(>al fields. 
 
 (As the general public may not understand the meaning of 
 the term " brushing " used in this letter, I would state that it 
 refers to the refuse rock or other material overlying or under- 
 lying the vein of coal, and where a vein of coal is not of suffi- 
 cient thickness, when mined, to leave a perpendicular space 
 high enough to permit a pit car to reach the face of the vein, 
 of sufficient capacity to haul a maximum load of coal to the 
 bottom of the shaft, this material either overlying or underly- 
 ing the vein of coal has to be removed to secure the necessary 
 height, and this refuse necessary to be removed is what is 
 technically known as " brushing.") 
 
 There has been no jieriod during the foin- years which we 
 have operated the Spring Valley mines that we could not pur- 
 chase, and, in fact, we have purchased, coal from other mines 
 in the northern field at from 12 cents to 17^ cents per ton less 
 than the actual cost of producing the coal at our own property ; 
 and, as the rates of transportation from these fields from Chi- 
 cago and St. Paul were the same that our company had to jiay, 
 I think you will agree with me that we could hardly expect to 
 be able to maintain ourselves in a competitive market. I)Ut we
 
 APPENDIX. 235 
 
 have gone on hoping for a better condition of affairs, when we 
 would be able to keep our works going and our men employed, 
 and we stopped work only when the men declined to meet us 
 to endeavor to agree upon a price to be paid for mining for the 
 present year, and when we found that it was an utter impossi- 
 bility for us to continue operations without virtually bankrupt- 
 ing our company. The mild winter of 1888-89 so affected the 
 demand for coal that in December we were compelled to shut 
 down two of our mines, as there was no market for the coal ; 
 and for reasons hereafter explained, we were compelled to shut 
 down the remainder of the mines May ist, following. 
 
 About the 1st of April, and prior to deciding to close the 
 mines, I was advised by our superintendent that a committee 
 representing our miners desired to meet me in Chicago and see 
 if some equitable basis of mining could be agreed upon for the 
 then ensuing year. I was then in the city of New York, and 
 went from there to Chicago in compliance with this request, and 
 was there on the day fixed by the committee. I remained in 
 Chicago two days, and during that lime a telegraphic notice 
 was received from this committee that they would not come to 
 Chicago. This notice on their part being equivalent to aban- 
 doning the idea of having a conference, I returned home and 
 ordered the works closed on the following ist of May, on which 
 date all the other mines in the northern field ceased to work, de- 
 manding a reduction in the price of mining. 
 
 We have never asked, expected, or desired a miner working 
 in our mines to mine coal for us at one cent a ton less than a 
 fair relative price as compared with what was paid in other 
 fields in northern Illinois. As every intelligent coal operator 
 and miner knows, in fixing a rate for mining coal there are ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages to be found in the same veins, even 
 in the same field, which must be taken into consideration in 
 arriving at what are fair and practically equal prices to be paid 
 for mining at the different mines in such field. It would be 
 clearly unreasonable to expect, and unjust to ask, miners to 
 mine coal at Spring Valley at the same price ]5aid for mining in 
 the Braidwood field if it can be shown that the disadvantages
 
 236 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 at Spring Valley are greater than those at Braidwood; and, of 
 course, the foregoing applies equally to Braidwood if the 
 conditions be reversed. 
 
 There is not in the State of Illinois, nor in the United States, 
 a coal property where men can work with less discomfort and 
 greater safety to life and limb than they can in the Spring Val- 
 ley mines. During the four years that the mines have been in 
 operation, not one life has been lost. The mines are practically 
 free from water, which fact inures greatly to the comfort, not 
 only of the miner, but to his ability to mine coal therein. 
 
 You are, sir, respectfully asked to compare the price paid for 
 mining at Spring Valley during the last four years with the 
 price paid at Braidwood, at which latter place the highest 
 nominal price per ton was paid during this period for mining 
 coal in the State of Illinois. The basis upon which coal was 
 mined at Braidwood was 80 cents per ton for a vein of coal 2 
 feet 10 inches thick, and 15 cents per ton additional for a mini- 
 mum brushing of 3 feet 6 inches and a maximum of 4 feet — the 
 contract between the operators and miners at Braidwood speci- 
 fying 4 feet. Taking the minimum brushing as the basis, the 
 aggregate price was 95 cents a ton, which covered the cost of 
 mining the coal and brushing of 42 inches. Now, it must be 
 kept in mind in making this comparison that the relative con- 
 ditions of mining the seams of coal at Braidwood and at Spring 
 Valley are practically the same, except as to the thickness of 
 the veins ; and we also claim for Spring Valley certain advan- 
 tages which do not necessarily come into the actual cost of pro- 
 duction, but which are of material advantage to the miner. 
 The percentage of slack and nut coal produced in both veins is 
 the same. The stratum under the veins is the same — namely, 
 fire-clay. Both mines are operated on the long-wall system, 
 consequently the breaking down of the coal in each is the same. 
 The differences which exist in the comparative working of the 
 two veins are, first, the Spring Valley vein is entirely free from 
 water; second, it is practically free from faults; third, the vein 
 lies on a horizontal plane that does not vary from one to three 
 feet in a mile in the level of the coal; fourth, the roof is per-
 
 APPENDIX. 237 
 
 fectly dry and of free soapstone rock, 14 feet thick. In the 
 Braidwood district there is a large amount of water, and the 
 dip and rise of the vein in 1,000 yards varies as much as forty 
 feet. The roof at Braidwood is water-soaked, and is much 
 more difficult to maintain, \yhich work has to be done by the 
 men, and is covered in the price paid for mining. In some 
 placts the Braidwood vein comes within 25 feet of the surface, 
 while at no point at Spring Valley is the third vein within 450 
 feet of the surface. These comparative advantages and disad- 
 vantages in the working of the two veins, whatever they may 
 be, are largely in favor of the Spring Valley miner. During 
 the last four years we paid our men 90 cents per ton for mining 
 coal, including 16 inches of brushing. We require 30 inches of 
 brushing to enable us to economically mine the coal. Now, it 
 can be readily understood that, if a miner can jnine a ton of 
 coal at Braidwood at 80 cents a ton for mining, and 15 cents a 
 ton for 42 inches of brushing — all conditions being equal at 
 both mines, except as to the thickness of the veins — the relative 
 price at Spring Valley for 16 inches of brushing would be 85.71 
 cents per ton, and in this comparison we do not take into con- 
 sideration the fact that our vein is 10 inches thicker than the 
 vein at Braidwood. 
 
 Now, let the cost of mining at Braidwood be compared with 
 what would be the relative cost of the same work at Spring 
 Valley, and what would be an equivalent price to be paid at 
 Spring Valley as compared with that paid at Braidwood ? 
 
 An ordinary working place at Braidwood is 42 feet face, 2 
 feet 10 inches high (of coal), 3 feet deep, with three men work- 
 ing in the face. Now 2 feet 10 inches of coal, 42 feet face, and 
 3 feet deep, contains 357 cubic feet, and allowing 80 pounds of 
 coal to the cubic foot the space would produce 14 tons and 560 
 pounds of coal at Braidwood. It must be borne in mind also 
 that the miners claim that it is impracticable for them to work 
 three men in a working place at Spring Valley in a space of 36 
 feet face; but three men do work in a working place at Braid- 
 wood in 2 feet 10 inches of coal, 42 feet face, and there is no ob- 
 jection to it on the part of the men.
 
 238 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 It is as feasible and practicable to make the working places 
 at Spring Valley 42 feet (we now work there 36) as it is at 
 Braidwood. If, therefore, the working places should be in- 
 creased six additional feet, to enable three men to work instead 
 of two, which can be readily done at Spring Valley, a working 
 place at the latter mines with the same working face as at 
 Braidwood — namely, 42 feet face, 3 feet deep, and the thick- 
 ness of the vein being 3 feet 8 inches — would contain 462 cubic 
 feet, and at 80 pounds of coal per cubic foot would produce 18 
 tons 960 pounds of coal; or 4 tons and 400 pounds more coal 
 would be produced in the same space at Spring \'alley than at 
 Braidwood. 
 
 It must be kept in mind, also, that not one additional stroke 
 of a miner's arm is required in connection with the bearing in 
 or breaking down of this 18 tons 960 pounds of coal at Spring 
 Valley over what it requires at Braidwood for 14 tons 560 
 pounds within the space given. 
 
 The foregoing figures show that three men in a working place 
 at Braidwood, working in the space heretofore given, w^ould 
 mine 14 tons 560 pounds of coal, by which, at 95 cents per ton 
 paid at Braidwood, they would earn $13.57, and that for the 
 same work at .Spring X'alley, in the same space, they woulil 
 produce 18 tons 960 pounds, which, at 90 cents a ton, the price 
 paid last year, would amount to $16.63, which would be $3.06 
 more earned by the men at Spring Valley than at Braidwood, 
 which $3.06 would be equivalent to 16.56 cents per ton paid at 
 Spring Valley more than was paid at Braidwood. This excess 
 of earnings by the men at Spring Valley over that of Braidwood 
 would arise from the fact of the difference in the thickness of 
 vein mmed at Spring Valley, namely 3 feet 8 inches of coal, as 
 compared with 2 feet 10 inches of coal at Braidwood. Now, 
 the miners at Braidwood removed 42 inches of brushing to earn 
 their $13.57, whereas the miners at Spring Valley only removed 
 16 inches of brushing to earn their $16.63. Now, as our com- 
 pany had to do an additional 14 inches of brushing, and, if we 
 assume its cost to have been at the relative price paid for brush- 
 ing at Braidwood — namely, 15 cents for 42 inches of brushing
 
 APPENDIX. 239 
 
 — it would be equivalent to 5 cents per ton on each ton of coal 
 mined at Spring Valley, which should be added to the 16.56 
 cents, to secure 30 inches of brushing, making 21.56 cents, 
 which amount was actually paid the miners at Spring Valley in 
 excess of what should have been paid to equalize our mining 
 ccst with that of Braidwood; and if to this we add the cost of 
 the 12 inches additional brushing done at Braidwood, more 
 than what was required at Spring Valley, which, at the equiva- 
 lent price paid at Braidwood, amounts to 4.28 cents per ton, it 
 would make a total equivalent of 25.84 cents more paid for 
 mining a ton of coal at Spring Valley in 1888 than would have 
 been paid if the price of mining at Spring Valley were on an 
 equality with Braidwood. 
 
 To present this matter in another light: In the working 
 places heretofore described at Braidwood 44.74 per cent, of the 
 material moved is coal, and 55.26 per cent, is material necessary 
 to be removed to secure 42 inches of brushing. In the same 
 area at Spring Valley the percentage of coal produced is 59.46 
 per cent, and 40.54 per cent, is material removed to secure 30 
 inches of brushing. It will, therefore, be seen that the per- 
 centage of coal produced at Spring Valley for the same amount 
 of labor is 14.72 per cent, greater than at Braidwood, and that 
 it requires 14.72 per cent, less labor for brushing at Spring 
 Valley than is required at Braidwood, and yet the cost of mining 
 a ton of coal at Spring Valley last year exceeded the equivalent 
 price paid at Braidwood by 25.84 cents per ton. 
 
 Assuming that the foregoing statements as to the compara- 
 tive amount of labor required for a miner to mine a ton of 
 coal at Spring Valley as compared with Braidwood are correct, 
 and then taking into consideration the amount earned by a 
 Braidwood miner, together with that earned by the Spring 
 Valley miner, the amount of labor being equal at each mine, we 
 ought to be able to arrive at what would be a fair price to the 
 miner for mining a ton of coal at Spring Valley to make it the 
 equivalent of the price received by the miner at Braidwood. 
 This comi)arison would show that (the price now paid a Braid- 
 wood miner for mining a ton of coal being 87^ cents per ton
 
 240 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 in a 2-feet lo-inch vein of coal, with forty-two inches of brush- 
 ing) an equivalent price for mining a ton of coal at Spring 
 Valley in a 3-feet 8-inch vein of coal with thirty inches of brush- 
 ing would be 68.14 cents per ton. The miners at Spring Valley 
 demand 82 j/^ cents per ton for mining in the third vein with 
 sixteen inches of brushing, and, if required to do thirty inches of 
 brushing, then to be paid twenty cents per ton additional for the 
 coal mined, which would make the cost of mining a ton of coal 
 at Spring Valley $i.02j^ per ton as compared with the price 
 now paid at Braidwood (where the Braidwood miner does forty- 
 two inches of brushing) of 87^^ cents per ton. 
 
 When we come to what is known as the Streator field, we 
 cannot with any certainty make a relative comparison between 
 the Streator vein and our third vein ; but our second vein of 
 coal and the Streator vein are similar in all respects, with tlie 
 exception that perhaps our second vein contains from five to 
 nine inches more coal, on an average, than the Streator vein. 
 We have compared, as I have stated, the Braidwood vein with 
 our third vein because they are similar in all respects, and both 
 are worked under the long-wall system. Our second vein, like 
 the Streator vein, is worked upon the room and pillar system. 
 The miners and the operators at Streator have agreed, for the 
 ])resent year, upon 72 j-^ cents per ton for mining a ton of coal, 
 and we are entirely willing to pay our men 72^ cents per ton 
 in the second vein, giving to them any advantage which this 
 price may give as between the Streator vein and the Spring 
 Valley second vein. 
 
 A word as to the alleged " pauper wages " the miners in the 
 Illinois coal fields have received. The statement made by the 
 committee of the State Board of Charities, in their report to 
 you, that the average monthly wages of the miners throughout 
 the general mining district of Illinois for the year 1888 was 
 $31.60, does not agree with what an average miner earned at 
 Spring Valley. I have had prepared a table of the work done 
 and the money paid to twenty-five average mmers at Spring 
 Valley, who were permanently employed there during the last year.
 
 APPENDIX. 241 
 
 I can furnish their names and further details, which would be too 
 voluminous to embrace in this communication. A summary of 
 this table shows that these twenty-five men, working, we believe, 
 not to exceed seven hours in a day, mined an average of 2.7 
 tons of coal per day or part of a day, including 16 inches of 
 brushing; that the average pay received by each miner for each 
 day or part of a day worked was $2.51 per day ; that, of the 
 298 working days in the year, the average time lost by each 
 miner, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, was 66 days, or 22 
 per cent.; that the total average amount of pay received, if 
 divided over the whole numl:)er of working days in 18S8, would 
 amount to an average of $1.96 per day for each miner, and that 
 the total average amount paitl each of these twenty-five miners 
 for the year 1888 was $582.79, or an average of $48.56 per 
 month for the twelve months in the year, including over two 
 months of lost time — the amount stated being the absolute net 
 earnings of these twenty-five men, after deducting every outlay 
 which they are subject to. 
 
 As to the alleged profits realized by the stockholders of the 
 company from the mining of coal, from the company's store, 
 and from the town site of Spring Valley, they have no more 
 foundation to stand upon than the other charges referred to 
 herein. During the four years the work has been in operation 
 no stockholder has received one cent return upon his invest- 
 ment, nor will the books of the company show that he is en- 
 title 1 to any. As to the company's store and its profits, I 
 would state that, on the 1st of May last, when the mines were 
 closed and every employe of the company had been paid what 
 was due him in cash, the books of the store showed that there 
 was due the store about $17,000, 85 per cent, of which was 
 owed by the men who had been employed by the company; and 
 this $17,000 represents not only the capital originally invested 
 in the store, but some .$4,000 over, and these debts we consider 
 of little or no value. The total gains arising from the sale of 
 lots at Spring Valley by the Town Site Company for a ]ieriod 
 of five years and up to this date, instead of the fabulous
 
 242 A e^TRIKE OF MILLTONAlRKS. 
 
 aniounl stated by certain reckless journals, will not exceed the 
 sum of $26,000.* 
 
 * Statements like these, cunningly ambiguous, as careful reading will 
 show, made without verification, and put forward by one party to a dis- 
 pute for the purpose of cheapening what he wants to buy of the other — 
 his life and labor — cannot he accepted as evidence. They are invalidated 
 hopelessly by the demonstrations elsewhere given aii ttauseam of the 
 utter unreliability of all of the important statements made by the officials 
 of the company in their various communications to the public. These 
 allegations of loss are inconsistent with the known facts of the case. At 
 the time of making these assertions, the president of the company had 
 refused to accept his own offer to give up the management of his mines to 
 his men if they would pay him a bonus of fifteen cents a ton. The 
 company was therefore making more than that. The unprofitableness of 
 the mines, the Town Site Company and the company store is negatived 
 also by the eagerness of the company to resume work at wages more than 
 double those at first offered. Nothing need be said of the evidence which 
 could be procured of those who have seen the books and balance sheets of 
 the various companies, and can testify that they all exhibited profits, 
 although these may have been reinvested in the enterprise, instead of 
 being paid out in dividends. But even if the pretense of losses was true, 
 it does not justify one of the outrages done at .Spring Valley. The Rev. 
 John F. Power, of Spring Valley, gave the following information to a 
 reporter of the Chicago Inter Ocean : 
 
 "The president of the coal company is not honest with the people. 
 When he last met the men he made the bluff: ' Give me fifteen cents per 
 ton royalty, and you may take the d — d mine and run it.' That was his 
 language, and, when his superintendent offered to take the mines at the 
 proposition, he refused to let him have them. The president says that he 
 has lost money here. That is not true. In the last two years his mines 
 here have netted him $160,000. The company store has netted $34,000 
 since it was started. 
 
 "the company h.\s m.^de money 
 on its coal operations; it has made money on its town-site investment; 
 it has made money on its store. 
 
 "The trouble is that he has not been able to make 6 per cent, on the 
 watered stock of $2,500,000. That is the amount of the stock they claim. 
 It is half water. The whole outlay here cannot exceed $1,250,000. 
 The 40,000 acres of coal was purchased to keep out competitors. They 
 paid .$10 an acre for it. That would be .$400,000. The town site cost them 
 $80 an acre. You can figure up what they are out there and for the mining 
 machinery. I cannot see where they have invested more than $1,000,000 
 capital." 
 
 To which " L. W. B."of the Inter Ocean, after careful inquiry among 
 the principal tradesmen and citizens, adds: 
 
 The president of the company claims he has lost money in .Spring 
 Valley. That may be, but it will take different figuring from that made 
 by the men here to show his losses. He bought the coal under 40,000 
 acres of land at .$10 an acre. This is an outlay of $400,000. He paid 
 about $50,000 for the town site. He put up 200 houses at $500 each, 
 which would represent another $100,000. 'I'his makes $650,000 of an 
 outlay, and 
 
 LE.WES HIM NEARLY $2,000,000 
 
 of his capital stock to pay for sinking five shafts. In reality these did 
 not with the hoisting machinery cost more than $100,000. 
 
 On the town site, which cost about $50,000, he realized more than
 
 APPENDIX. 243 
 
 One of the necessary adjuncts in the operation of a propeity 
 such as the Spring Valley Coal Company is tenement houses for 
 those in the employ of the company to live in. The .Spring 
 Valley Coal Company, at an expenditure of $100,000 has con- 
 structed about 150 miners' houses. The money rent of these 
 houses is a secondary consideration to the company, as the op- 
 eration of the mines is mainly contingent upon their control 
 and who occupies them. On the 1st of May last, when work 
 was stopped at Sprmg Valley, the miners and their families 
 then occupying the company's houses were left in possession, 
 and they remained in undisturbed possession until about the mid- 
 dle of .August, when the proposition of seventy-five cents per ton* 
 was made to the men to resume work, and the superintendent 
 of the company was instructed as follows: 
 
 " In carrying out these instructions, I desire to avoid all con- 
 flict with the men or to give them any reasonable ground for 
 complaint ; and in case any of our houses are, on receipt of this 
 letter, occupied by the families of the men who are absent, you 
 will not take any legal proceedings to obtain possession of such 
 hoiises until the absentees have been notified, and have had time 
 to return to .Spring Valley, to remove their families. You will 
 make no claims cr demands upon the men for rents due the com- 
 pany since the 1st of May, unless in the case of such occupants 
 whose ability to pay will justify you in so doing." 
 
 It is now the 25th day of September, or nearly five months 
 (since May ist), that many of those houses have been occupied 
 by the men or their families, and u|i to the time of this vvriting 
 the possession of any house has not been secured by distraint 
 or eviction. But many of these houses are now occupied by 
 the families of men who have left Spring Valley and are work- 
 ing at other mines for less wages than we are willing to pay them; 
 others by men who will not vacate, and who have publicly 
 
 $300,000, making 600 per cent on his investment. The 40,000 acres of 
 coal was purchased to keep out competition, but he has made his whole 
 investment pay a fair per cent, on his watered stock oi $2,500,000. That 
 is what is claimed by the best business men of .Spring Valley. 
 
 * Thirty-five cents a ton net.
 
 244 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 threatened mob violence if they are disturbed in their occu- 
 pancy. These men will neither work themselves nor permit 
 others to work; and, if we should attempt lawfully to exercise a 
 right enjoyed by every citizen of your State to regain posses- 
 sion of our houses by distraint (without issuing an execution or 
 levy upon the tenants' household goods for back rents), we 
 should expose our property to incendiarism and ourselves to 
 the criticism of the press as oppressors of labor. If this con- 
 dition of affairs is not anarchy, virtual confiscation of property, 
 and the subordination of the law of the land to the will of the 
 mob, then I do not know how to designate it, and yet it is appar- 
 ently upheld by an intelligent and law-abiding public. 
 
 This company and its officers have been charged with closing 
 down the mines and refusing to negotiate with the men, with 
 the object in view of obtaining a reduced and unfair price of 
 mining, regardless of the welfare of the men and their families. 
 To this I answer that it is false; that I went to Chicago in April, 
 on the invitation of a committee representing our men, to meet 
 them there, and after I had traveled i,ooo miles to comply with 
 their request, the committee could not travel lOo miles to meet 
 their own engagement. 
 
 If the statements herein and the conclusions drawn from 
 same are reliable, you, sir, and an intelligent public, will admit 
 that the closing of our mines May 1st, last, was not ior the 
 purpose of forcing our miners to accept starvation prices for 
 mining our coal, but that we were justified in so stopping until 
 some fair and equitable basis for the mining of our coal could 
 be agreed upon, based on tlie price paid for mining at other 
 mines in the State where the conditions are similar. 
 
 We know of no law, moral or statute, that makes coal 
 mining an exception, or which is not equally applical^le to tlie 
 conduct of any other business interest of the country; nor do 
 we know of any moral or statute law tliat makes it obligatory 
 upon the individual citizen, or a corporation, to conduct his or 
 its business regardless of the interests of such business and the 
 conditions of trade, solely for the object of furnishing emi^loy- 
 ment to the labor of the country, when such a policy must inev-
 
 APPENDIX. 245 
 
 itably result in the bankruptcy of the individual or corpora- 
 tion. 
 
 We now propose to stand on our legal, moral, and equitable 
 rights. No amount of personal misrepresentation and abuse, 
 emanating from a gang of professional agitators at Spring 
 Valley and circulated throughout the country by a partisan 
 press * can drive us or influence us to resume work at Spring 
 Valley upon any other basis for mining than a relative price to 
 that paid by other mines in your State, where the conditions are 
 similar, unless we choose to do so voluntarily. And when this 
 conduion of affairs can be brought about, we are ready to start 
 up our works, and do all within our power to find steady em- 
 ployment for our men. 
 
 Taking the present price of mining as agreed upon between 
 the operators and miners at Braidwood, namely, 72^ cents per 
 ton for mining the coal and 15 cents for 42 inches of brushing, 
 and deducting from this the relative difference between mining 
 a ton of coal at Braidwood and Spring Valley, on the basis of 
 72)4 cents at Braidwood (arrived at in same manner as hereto- 
 fore shown, based upon the price of 18S8), of 15.07 cents per ton 
 in favor of Spring Valley, our price for mining should be 57.43 
 cents per ton; and adding to the 57.43 cents the price we should 
 pay for 30 inches of brushing, based upon the Braidwood price 
 of 15 cents for 42 inches of brushing, namely, 10.71 cents, it 
 would make the relative price of mining at Spring Valley 68.14 
 cents per ton, including 30 inches of brushing. We leave it to 
 an impartial public to say whether in refusing to accede to the 
 demands of the men for 82^ cents per ton, with 16 inches of 
 brushing, and 20 cents per ton additional for 14 inches of brush- 
 ing, the misrepresentations and abuse with which the officers of 
 this company have been assailed by an unscrupulous press are 
 justifiable. 
 
 In offering our men 75 centst per ton for mining a ton of coal 
 
 * The severest criticisms of the company have been made by papers 
 like the New York World, New York Herald, New York Sun, Chicago 
 Herald, Chicago Times, and St. Louis Republic, all of which represent 
 the party to which the president of the company belongs. 
 
 t Thirty-five cents a ton, when all the conditions of the offer were 
 fulfilled.
 
 246 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 in our third vein, including 30 inches of brushing, if they desired 
 to go to work, which is 2^ cents more tlian is paid in tlie 
 Streator field and 6.86 cents per ton more than an equivalent of 
 the price paid in the Braidwood mines, we felt and still Ijelieve 
 that we had made all the concessions that we can possibly make 
 to our men and be able to maintain ourselves in a competitive 
 market. Respectfully yours, President of the Spring Valley 
 Coal Company, Erie, Fa., Sept. 25, it 
 
 The Chicaf^o Times, the only journal which 
 printed this statement in full, conimented upon 
 it in the following editorial : 
 
 WHAT GOOD FAITH DEMANDS. 
 
 The Times published last Saturday a statement of the presi- 
 dent of the Spring Valley Coal Company, addressed to the gov- 
 ernor of Illinois, giving the company's side of the conflict with its 
 miners. 
 
 There is one important point, which the president in his long 
 apology passes over lightly, which deserves general attention. 
 It IS asserted that the Spring Valley Coal Company, soon after 
 its organization, when in the process of developing its mine, 
 offered, by advertisement and otherwise, its town lots for sale, 
 and held out as an inducement for their purchase that the com- 
 pany would prosecute the business of coal-mining and make the 
 lots offered to the public of permanent value. On these repre- 
 sentations a very considerable number of town lots were sold, 
 the men in the employ of the company at that time being to a 
 large extent the purchasers. These were necessarily men of 
 small means, and the sums which they invested, both in the pur- 
 chase of the land and the construction of improvements, were to 
 them of extreme importance. We are told that the amount 
 invested on these representations by the Spring Valley Coal 
 Comjjany in lots and improvements amounted to as much in dol- 
 lars as the total amount expended by the company itself in devel- 
 oping the mines and putting them in a condition, as the presi-
 
 APPENDIX. 247 
 
 dent says, for ])ro(lucing 4,000 tons of coal per day. The state- 
 ment in regard to this important point is meager and unsatisfac- 
 tory. He said : " The total gains arising from the sale of lots 
 at Spring Valley by Ihe Town Site Company for a period of five 
 years and up to this date, instead of the fabulous amount stated 
 by certain reckless journals, will not exceed the sum of $26,000." 
 
 Whether or not in the process of book-keeping the sum of 
 $26,000 is all the profit that appears on the company's books 
 from its town-lot operations is not of special moment. The 
 important fact is that a large number of men of small means 
 have been induced by the company's representations to invest 
 their money in the purchase and improvement of real estate, 
 and by the action of the company in closing its mines and 
 ceasing production these lots and the improvement thereon 
 have been rendered valueless. This is a point which the press 
 and the public may appreciate and rightfully sit in judgment 
 upon. If the president and his associates, who are known to be 
 men of large means, have led poor men into losing investments 
 l)y their representation, it is fair and right that they should 
 make reimbursement for these losses. 
 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company and its owners may or 
 may not be legally bound to make good the losses resulting from 
 their misrepresentations in this regard. It is tjuite probable 
 that the men who have invested their money in Spring Valley 
 lots and improvements are not able to contest the matter in the 
 courts. It is difficult to see, however, how this case dififers from 
 those in which the managers of " booms " in various parts of 
 the country, have involved, by their misrepresentations and false 
 statements, credulous investors. The Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany undoubtedly is composed of men thoroughly conversant 
 with the conditions of the coal trade. They bought the prop- 
 erty at .Spring Valley knowing what miners' wages and the 
 rates of transportation were, and on this knowledge they based 
 their representations to the public that they could successfully 
 conduct the coal business, and make Spring Valley a prosper- 
 ous town. If they deceived themselves, as fair business men 
 they should bear the whole loss of that deception, and not profit
 
 248 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 by the confidence which has been placed in them by men of 
 smaller means. 
 
 There is still another view of this phase of the matter. It is 
 for the interest of employers everywhere that laborers should 
 be protected in the ownership of their homes. The laborer who 
 owns his home is a better workman and a better citizen then he 
 who lives in a tenement. The saving habit which the purchase 
 of a home creates in the workingman is one which wise employ- 
 ers everywhere take pains to develop. It is a misfortune, equal 
 to the failure of a large savings bank, when the real estate bought 
 with workingmen's wages is made of no value. Just as the 
 manager of a savings bank, who speculates with the hard-earned 
 money of workingmen intrusted to him, deserves the condem- 
 nation of the press and public, so does the manager of any large 
 enterprise who leads workingmen to invest their money in the 
 purchase of property which he afterward, either through pique 
 or misjudgment, destroys the value of. 
 
 If the president of the coal company would have his conduct 
 approved by the people of Illinois, he and his associates of the 
 Spring Valley Coal Company should take steps at once to reim- 
 burse those who have been misled into investing in the Spring 
 Valley real estate, whether their investments have amounted to 
 a sum which, as it is claimed, will equal the total amount of the 
 Spring Valley Mining Company's investments in its improve- 
 ments or are no more than the $26,000 which he confesses his 
 company has profited by in its town-site speculation. 
 
 This editorial called forth the followinf^ from 
 the spokesman of the company: 
 
 Erie, Pa., Oct. 8. — To the Editor : My attention has been 
 called to an editorial in your issue of the 2d inst., charging, 
 inferentially if not directly, the Spring Valley Coal Company 
 with selling town lots to residents of Spring Valley on the 
 strength of false representations. 
 
 I should not feel justified in trespassing on your time and 
 encroaching on your journal's valuable space if it were not tha
 
 APPEJ^DIX. 249 
 
 your remarks seem to invite an explanation. They embody 
 statements which are evidently based on a misunderstanding of 
 the actual facts, and the inference that might be drawn from 
 them would therefore be erroneous. • 
 
 Unfortunately we have no literary bureau connected with our 
 company, and consequently it would be an impossibility for us 
 to reply to all the misstatements concerning the company pub- 
 lished by the press of the country. If we were to undertake the 
 task we should be obliged to give up all other business, for we 
 should have no time to devote to anything else. 
 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company has never, so iar as my 
 knowledge goes, offered lots for sale.* 
 
 It has never, to my knowledge, disposed of any of its realty. 
 If it has disposed of any, it must have been to such a very limited 
 extent tiiat it would hardly form a basis for the deceptions you 
 seem to think the company has practiced, but which, so far as 1 
 have any knowledge on this subject, exist only in miagina- 
 tion. 
 
 The Spring Valley Coal Company, when it began opera- 
 tions, bought and is now the owner of certain real estate in the 
 town of -Spring Valley necessary for the operations of the com- 
 pany, present and future — if it is to be permitted by the law- 
 less element of your State to have a future. The sale and pur- 
 chase of lots at Spring Valley have been entirely private trans- 
 actions, between individuals, with which the company has had 
 nothing to do. While the parties owning the lands were to a 
 greater or less extent interested in the company, if there has 
 been any fraud or if false inducements were offered for the sale 
 of lots, would it not be fairer to specify th^ alleged cases and 
 let those who are personally interested answer, and not bring 
 general or vague charges or indulge in insinuations that are sup- 
 ported by nothing belter than idle rumors, and which are hardly 
 worthy of refutation ? 
 
 The property-owners of Spring Valley, in my judgment, are 
 not suffering from false representations such as your article 
 
 * See advertisements of the company on pages 24 and 29.
 
 250 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 implies. If their property has depreciated in vahic, it is the 
 natural result of a condition of anarchy. There is no law in 
 Spring Valley to-day. Property rights are not recognized there, 
 nor is the life of any man safe there after dark unless it be that 
 of a man who is well armed and able to protect himself. No 
 wage-worker can go to Spring Valley and exercise the rights of 
 American citizenship and go out on the street at night without 
 placing his life in peril. 
 
 Is it any wonder that property has declined in value at Spring 
 Valley? What would it be worth in the city of Chicago under 
 a similai condition of affairs ? And yet high officials in your 
 city, men who make laws as well as those whose duty it is to ex- 
 ecute them, can find time, under the cloak of "sweet charity," 
 to sanction the lawless condition referred to when within sight 
 of their office windows 01 within one ward of your city more 
 genuine cases of destitution and misery can be found than could 
 be found in twenty Spring \'alleys. 
 
 When law and order shall have been restored at Spring Val- 
 ley, when a human life is safe there, when a property-owner can 
 control the property that he has bought and paid for, as others 
 control their property in your State, Spring Valley may peihaps 
 fulfill the hopes and expectations of her citizens. But prosper- 
 ity will not be secured by disregarding the obligations of law. 
 
 l)uring the year iSSS mir company paid taxes in Illinois ag- 
 gregating over $8,000. This, we supposed, was our contribu- 
 tion for the protection of life, liberty, and property at .Spring 
 Valley. Is there not a greater principle involved in the existing 
 condition of affairs at that place, and in which the whole peo- 
 ple of your Stale have an interest, than there is in the issue 
 which you undertake to raise. If there be any such cases of 
 deception and misplaced confidence as you seem to think there 
 are at Spring Valley, the aggrieved persons have the courts of 
 law to apply to for redress, while for our company at the pres- 
 ent time there appears to be no law except the law of the mob. 
 Very respectfully. 
 
 President of the Spring A'alley Coal Co.
 
 APPENDIX. 251 
 
 The Chicago Times of October iith made 
 this editorial rejoinder, which ended the con- 
 troversy: 
 
 The president of the Spring Valley Coal Company falls into 
 error such as Hamlet warned his mother against. He lays the 
 flattering unction to his soul that it is the trespass of Illinois, 
 not the soullessness of the corporation known as the Spring 
 Valley Coal Company, that is responsible for the blight which 
 has fallen upon the town of that name. He writes a com- 
 munication to the Times wherein he chooses to make a distinc- 
 tion, into the requirements of which the Times does not choose 
 to follow him, because it is practically a distinction without a 
 difference, between the Spring Valley Coal Company and its 
 twin brother or other close relative, the concern which has sold 
 town lots at Spring Valley. The Times'' position, generally 
 stated, was that if the coal company did not propose to carry 
 on the business of coal-mining at this place, it had no right, 
 directly or indirectly, to sell town lots and induce settlement 
 upon its property upon the representation that such was its 
 purpose. Such town lots were purchased with the understand- 
 ing that the industry was to be carried forward right there. He 
 admits tTiat " the parties owning the lands were, to a greater or 
 less extent, interested in the company," by which he means the 
 Spring Valley Coal Company, of which he is president. We 
 understand how these things aie done. There are wheels 
 within wheels. The coal company buys coal lands. Certain of 
 these lands are set aside for persons who are, to " a greater or 
 less extent, interested in the" coal "company," and they repre- 
 sent, that, as here is to be a town in which will be congregated 
 a large body of miners, we will sell this land, subdivided for the 
 purpose as town lots. Then, in course of time, the coal com- 
 pany locks out the operatives upon a pretext with which the 
 Times nor any humane person can have sympathy, and the 
 town lots become next to worthless. For this depreciation the 
 Times avers that the coal company, through its failure to carry
 
 2 52 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 out the projects it intimated to miners and lot purcliasers 
 it would pursue, is responsible. He says: "The property- 
 owners of Spring Valley, in my judgment, are not suffering 
 from false representations, such as your article implies. If 
 their property has depreciated in value, it is the natural result 
 of a condition of anarchy. There is no law in Spring Valley 
 to-day. Property rights are not recognized there, nor is the 
 life of any man safe there after dark, unless it be the life of a man 
 who is well armed and able to protect himself." Consciously 
 or unconsciously, he is guilty of a gross calumny not alone con- 
 cerning Spring Valley, where life and property are wholly safe, 
 but also concerning the State of Illinois, which protects both. 
 He writes from Erie, Pa., and speaks without personal knowl- 
 edge, or we assume he would not speak thus loosely. There 
 is not in all of Pennsylvania a more orderly commiuiity, nor 
 is there in all Pennsylvania a community more unjustly dealt 
 by than the settlement which the Spring ^'alIey Coal Com- 
 pany induced to gather there from far and wide, and now 
 leaves, miners and town-site owners, and all, to the charity of 
 mankind. 
 
 If it was not the purpose of the Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany to carry on the business of mining at the point named, 
 persons more or less interested in it, of" whom the president 
 may or may not be one, had no moral right to sell farm lands as 
 town lots; it had no right to gather miners from other fields 
 and center them there, and, when it suited the purpose of the 
 concern, to shut down the mines and lock out the operatives. 
 These Pennsylvania tactics are not welcome in Illinois. Spring 
 Valley is not in a condition of anarchy. It is in a condition of 
 extreme distress — a situation brought about not by the opera- 
 tives of the mines, not by the owners of town sites, who have 
 good cause bitterly to repent their bargains, but by a coal com- 
 pany which seems to be as soulless a corporation as ever was 
 organized under the laws of this or any other State. 
 
 It is not creditable to the president of the company and his 
 associates, that they alone of all the mine-owners of Illinois, 
 refuse to carry forward the operations they began, and, safe in
 
 APPENDIX. 253 
 
 their possession of unbounded wealth, leave poor men they 
 had gathered about their shafts to idleness and hunger. 
 
 The foregoing statement to the public by 
 the Spring Valley Coal Company was met by 
 the miners with the following address to the 
 governor of Illinois: 
 
 Hon. Jost'plt jr. Fifc7-, Governor of Illinois. 
 
 Sir — The open letter addressed to you, and through you to 
 the public, by the president of the Spring Valley Coal Com- 
 pany, in which he endeavors to sustain the position he has 
 taken upon the question of mining rates for the Spring Valley 
 field, showing, as he attempts to do, in lengthy, labored argu- 
 ments, the justice and equity of his claims, based, as he pre- 
 sents them, upon a comparison with competitive districts, dis- 
 plays a willingness to meet the issue as squarely as he under- 
 stands it. 
 
 In replying to his statements of the case, we must ignore a 
 considerable portion of his letter, which has no application, so 
 far as mining is concerned, to the present difficulty; therefore 
 we will treat only such features as are vital to the question at 
 issue, pointing out to you, and the public, the fallacious nature 
 of the conclusions at which he has arrived. 
 
 It is generally understood, that, when the operators of north- 
 ern Illmois offered a ten cent reduction, he made no proposition 
 to his miners, but left them in doubt as to the terms he desired 
 and intended to offer. When the joint meetings, brought about 
 by the agency of the commission appointed by you, succeeded 
 in obtaining a concession of i)A, cents, making the reduction in 
 mining rates 7^^ cents per ton as compared with last year's 
 prices, which rates have been accepted by the miners employed 
 in the field accepted by the strike, then it was that he proposed 
 75 cents for mining at Spring Valley, 30 inches of brushing, 3 
 men in a room, with an additional condition that in the future 
 he would refuse to deal witli his miners through their commit-
 
 2 54 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 tees or as an organized body. He says that his company " lias 
 never asked, expected or desired a miner working in our mines 
 to mine coal for one cent a ton less than a fair relative price as 
 compared with what was paid in other fields of northern 
 Illinois, "and intimates that they shall continue to pursue m the 
 future the same equitable policy that has marked their past his- 
 tory, yet the proposition made by him, and which he thinks fair, 
 and should be accepted, is a reduction of 15 cents per ton below 
 rates paid last year, with other conditions annexed, equal, upon 
 the company's own admission, to 10.75 cents per ton, as against 
 in the La Salle field, his nearest neighbor and competitor, of y'i 
 cents, with 20 inches of brushing; and the La Salle field condi- 
 tions as to mining and markets are the same in every respect as 
 those which prevail at Spring Valley mines. 
 
 While professing a willingness to pay as much for mining as 
 his competitors in northern Illinois pay, he in his argument 
 ignores the other and more important fields surrounding him in 
 northern Illinois, and confines himself to a comparison of earn- 
 ing ability between miners employed at Spring Valley and at 
 Braidwood. 
 
 To show the fallacious character of his comparative reasoning, 
 as applied to his own and surrounding mines, let us briefly out- 
 line methods by which miners' wages have been and are likely 
 to be adjusted. 
 
 In fixing mining rates in mines shipping coal to a common 
 market, one of two principles must be recognized: ist, by the 
 amount of l^or required to produce a ton of coal, regardless 
 of cost of dead work, quality or ability to sell it in a competi- 
 tive market; 2d, by the fixing upon a mean between the amount 
 of labor required to produce. The cost of production to own- 
 ers and operators of mines, quality of coal and ability to com- 
 pete with coals from other fields entering the same markets. 
 
 To carry out the first principle means to give a cheaper rate 
 of mining to miners having thick coal, which is easily mined, 
 and a proportionately higher rate in mines where mining is ren- 
 dered more difficult through a decreased thickness of the coal- 
 bed and faults of other kinds that make mining hard and dis-
 
 APPENDIX. 255 
 
 agreeable. Any one conversant with coal-mining knows that 
 this metliod means the survival of the fittest, and is generally- 
 advocated by operators whose mines have great natural advan- 
 tages in the way of thick coal and a low rate of dead work. 
 The claims of these operators are that a day's labor is a day's 
 labor, and whether performed in one field or the other, in a 
 thick or in a thin vein of coal, should yield to the miner the 
 same rate of wages per day. Upon this basis and by this 
 method of reasoning the president of the coal company, with a 
 view of reducing the wages of his miners, compares the earn- 
 ing ability of the Spring Valley and Braidwood miners. We do 
 not believe this method, under existing conditions, is practica- 
 ble, and we kno\\', if it was applied in a general way, that it 
 would close his mines, and his customers would purchase from 
 more favored fields. He says tliat the proper relative differ- 
 ence between Braidwood and Spring Valley should make the 
 price at the latter place 68.14 cents per ton. It is generally 
 known, and cannot be questioned, that a miner in Mt. Olive 
 mines, Macoupin County, 111., can produce with the same 
 labor double the quantity of coal ; and, if the equitable theory 
 of labor cost, as urged by him, be enforced, the relative rate at 
 Mt. Olive, as compared with Spring Valley, should be 34.7 
 cents per ton. This adjustment would equalize the earning 
 power of miners and permanently close mines located and op- 
 erated under similar conditions as those at Spring Valley, 
 whereas necessity would compel miners to secure employment 
 in more favored fields. To the miners this charge would in- 
 volve temporary inconveniences, but to operators it means total 
 less of invested capital. 
 
 The second principle to which we referred is founded upon 
 " a live and let live policy," by which operators and miners in a 
 competitive field agree to share the responsibilities and divide 
 with each other the labor and cost involved in the production 
 of coal. 
 
 The method is the one liy which all wage adjustments have 
 been hitherto made, and, although it has sometimes given, as it 
 must necessarily give, a greater reward to miners in thick coal
 
 256 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 than it does to miners working in thinner seams, it has also 
 tended to keep operators nearly upon the same plane in produ- 
 cing and selling coal ; this because it is cheaper to produce coal 
 in a thick than in a thin vein. Hence, if a thick co.al seam is 
 profitable to operators, and if thin coal afflicted with difficulties, 
 such as brushing, water, etc., is more expensive to operate, it 
 cannot be questioned that it is also less remunerative to the 
 miners, or that the disadvantages are shared by miners and 
 operators alike. 
 
 The president of the company states, "there is not in the 
 State of Illinois, nor in the United Stales, a coal property where 
 men can work with less discomfort and greater safety to life and 
 limb than they can in the Spring Valley mines." This is a mis- 
 take. There is as much safety at La Salle, Winona, Minonk, 
 Bloomington, Decatur, and other places in the same coal bed, 
 and there are dozens of larger coal fields in the United States 
 just as safe, while, so far as comfort is concerned, Spring Valley 
 is no better off than the places named above. All of them are 
 free from water, yet miners in Spring Valley and other thin 
 vein mines in northern Illinois are subjected to discomforts 
 such as are not known in thick coal beds or in mines worked 
 upon the room and pillar system. In the latter, miners have 
 more space to move around freely, to stand erect and work with 
 ease, while at Spring \'alley miners work upon their knees or in 
 a stooping position, and in loading coal must work in the nar- 
 row space left between the packing and the coal face. 
 
 Let any man who disbelieves this statement spend ten hours 
 hard at work in a room three feet or three feet and six inches 
 high, and convince himself that there is greater discomfort ex- 
 perienced than in working just as hard for the same length of 
 time in a room five to eleven feet high. 
 
 He wants three men in a room instead of two as heretofore, 
 and is willing to increase the length of the rooms from thirty- 
 six to forty-two feet. The miners are willing to meet thi^ 
 objection by two men working in rooms forty-two feet wide, 
 but they feel that three men working in one place often gel 
 into each other's way, and thus lessen their ability to produce.
 
 APPENDIX. ■ 257 
 
 If he does not want to cripple the earning power of his miners, 
 and simply desires to save in roadways, he will readily grant a 
 forty-two foot room to two men. 
 
 He also intimates that the hours of working at Spring Valley 
 did not exceed seven. The facts are that miners at Spring 
 Valley were compelled to be in the mine before 7 a. m. and to 
 stay in their working places until 5 p. m., the only exceptions 
 being when a fall of stone upon the roadway or no cars pre- 
 vented them from working. 
 
 The president is evidently misinformed as to conditions at 
 Braidwood, which he compared with those of his mines. It is 
 true that the method of working is the same, that is to say, both 
 places are operated upon the " long wall system." We have 
 never heard any very serious complaints about water in the 
 Braidwood mines, as he asserts; while some sections of the 
 mines may at times be damp, they are not wet. If, however, 
 he is correct in his statement that vast quantities of water accu- 
 mulate at the working faces in the Braidwood mines, thereby 
 involving additional expense for the employment of extra labor 
 and machinery to remove it, a factor to which he attaches great 
 importance, the owners of wet mines must be at a decided dis- 
 advantage in competing with the dry and less expensive mines 
 at Spring Valley. 
 
 Regarding the amount of brushing done by the miners at 
 Braidwood he has erred. He says the minimum amount is 
 forty-two inches and the maximum four feet. There is no stip- 
 ulated height for brushing required by Braidwood rules, tlie 
 only requirement is that the roadway be kept four feet from the 
 rail, and this under some conditions might necessitate three feet 
 of brushing and under others considerably less. 
 
 There is removed by the miners two feet and ten inches of 
 coal and from four to six inches of fire clay as mining, and to 
 this must be added, according to him, four feet, the maximum 
 brushing, thus making a space of over seven feet ; assuming the 
 roof settles until it reaches the bottom, which is absurd when we 
 consider the packing put in the place of the coal taken out, the 
 
 17
 
 2 58 A STRIKE- OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 amount of brusliing would need only to be increased a few 
 inches to cut the roadway through the solid rock. 
 
 There is a difference, too, in the manner roadways are driven, 
 not accounted for by him asNto width. At Braidwood roadways 
 in rooms never exceed seven feet in width at the bottom, and 
 are arched in such a manner as not to exceed four feet at the 
 top, while at Spring Valley the requirement is nine feet at the 
 bottom and eight feet at the top, and the labor required for this 
 work, especially at the Spring Valley mines, by reason of the 
 extra width and more solid nature of the strata, is even, at six- 
 teen inches thick, almost if not equally as onerous as that per- 
 formed by Braidwood miners. 
 
 The nature of the fire clay underlying the coal strata at 
 Braidwood is more uniform than at Spring Valley. At the 
 former place it is customary to take four to six inches of clay 
 in mining, while at Spring Valley there is an irregular sand- 
 stone formation underlying the fire clay, which frequently 
 touclies the bottom of the coal seam, where the sandstone rock 
 fluctuates so as to leave no fire clay between it and the coal bed, 
 and one-third of the places at Spring Valley are affected in that 
 manner ; it then become necessary to mine in the coal, and 
 this involves a double hardship upon the miners employed in 
 such rooms, for which the company has allowed no compensa- 
 tion. It increases the difficulty of mining, and when mined and 
 brought down, its shelly and brittle nature admits a larger per- 
 centage to pass through the screens, and for which the miner 
 receives nothing. 
 
 We are of the opinion that if the president was more famil- 
 iar with mining coal at Spring Valley than his assumptions in- 
 dicate, he would not place himself in a position to be justly 
 crUicised !)y those who are willing to admit his superior brain 
 power in many respects. He say^: " not one additional stroke 
 of the arm is required to bring down the coal, compared with 
 Braidwood." Here again he errs. And it is upon eirors such 
 as we have referred to, mistakes which he accepts-as facts, that 
 the erroneous nature of his conclusions, if not the imperfection 
 of his logic, is clearly shown. The amount of sulphur, or the
 
 APPENDIX. 259 
 
 number of iron bands running in the coal, determines the ease 
 or difficulty with which it can be brought down. It is conceded 
 that all coal contains more or less refuse, and his mines are 
 especially cursed in this way. At Braidwood a small seam of 
 sulphur is mostly found about the middle of the vein. This 
 varies, as it does in all other mines, from one to two inches in 
 thickness; in addition to this there is at Spring Valley, in 
 nearly every place in the entire field, a band of iron pyrites two 
 inches from the top of the seam, varying from one to several 
 inches in thickness. There is no cleaving quality in this stone, 
 and from si.x to eight inches of coal is thus lost, which dimin- 
 ishes materially the height of the vein represented by him. 
 The loss of this amount of coal, however, is not the chief 
 complaint, but the increased labor of wedging it from the stone 
 to which it strongly adheres. Those wlio have had a practical 
 experience with mining know without further comment the in- 
 creased labor necessary to produce coal under such conditions. 
 The cost of production, whether it be due to natural dis- 
 advantages or incompetent management, does, as a matter of 
 fact, determine the margin of profit and the prices for labor at 
 which the mine can be successfully operated, under the head of 
 what is commonly known as " dead work," which phrase is in- 
 tended to cover operating expenses of all kinds, much of an in- 
 teresting character might be furnished. In the late investiga- 
 tion conducted by the commission appointed by you, to effect, 
 if possible, a peaceable and satisfactory adjustment of the 
 mining difficulties in northern Illinois, much information of a 
 conflicting nature was produced. This, too, from several parts 
 of the same field, where conditions being nearly equal might 
 reasonably be expected to illustrate this ; the actual cost of dead 
 work embracing every source of expense connected with the 
 producing of a ton of coal at Spring Valley, which field, by 
 reason of the absence of water and other exceptional conditions, 
 which increase the cost of production, was, as shown by the 
 books of that company, at the request of Messrs. Gould amj 
 Wines, the committee appointed by you, forty-six cents per 
 ton, while the actual operating expenses of the Braidwood field.
 
 26o A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 which, as the company ptactically admits, is higher by reason 
 of tlie water and other disadvantages with which that section 
 has to contend, disadvantages whicli we admit are shared to 
 some extent equally by the miners and operators, were, as 
 Colonel A. L. Sweet testified, equivalent to forty-five cents 
 per ton. 
 
 Here the query naturally suggests itself, how Colonel Sweet, 
 owning and operating mines at Streator and Braidwood, both 
 under heavy disadvantages as compared with the dry and 
 comparatively inexpensive mines belonging to the Spring 
 Valley Company, paying, in addition to the extra sources of ex- 
 pense from which the natural conditions at Spring Valley ex- 
 empt the company, five cents per ton more for all coal pro- 
 duced at Braidwood, could yet show, as he has done, a net 
 expense of forty-five cents per ton against the forty 'six cents in 
 Spring Valley field, is a question that might well elicit interest 
 and inquiry. The results here shov^-n demonstrate one of two 
 facts, either that the mines at Spring Valley have been under in- 
 competent and therefore expensive management, or that Colonel 
 Sweet's mines have been most economically conductetl. If the 
 charge of relatively increased cost is due to mismanagement or 
 to any other cause, aside from actual and inevitable operating 
 expenses, the great aim on the part of the company should be 
 to remove the defects by substituting a more economical policy, 
 instead of endeavoring to reward extravagance or put a pre- 
 mium up m incompetency by reducing mining rates below what is 
 conceded to be the fair relative prices in the districts immedi- 
 ately surrounding him. 
 
 The miners of Spring Valley have never asked, expected or 
 desired to receive a price for their labor in excess of a fair rela- 
 tive rate as compared with that paid in other fields in northern 
 Illinois. This they believe they are entitled to, and, as the 
 president has expressed a willingness to grant this, it on'y re- 
 mains for him to join with liis miners in an effort to arrive at the 
 facts in the case by practical methods, such as a joint investiga- 
 tion as to the truth or falsity of his statements as compared to 
 ours.
 
 APPENDIX. 261 
 
 From the statements to which we have taken exception, we 
 have proved and could, if space permitted, further demonstrate 
 the equitable relations which Spring Valley prices and condi- 
 tions, prior to the strike, gave to the miners and operators of 
 that field as compared with those in competing districts. We 
 have defined the advantages the Spring Valley company would 
 enjoy as compared with other operators, and also explained the 
 disadvantages its miners would labor under if the prices and 
 conditions for mining at Spring Valley, as proposed, were 
 accepted. The injustice of the president's proposition may be 
 summed up thus: ist. He asks his miners to do a greater 
 amount of brushing than Brairrwood miners are required to do. 
 2d. For this work he proposes to pay twelve and a half cents 
 per ton less than Braidwood miners receive. 3d. He asks his 
 miners to mine coal three feet and eight inches thick, eight 
 inches of which is lost to the miner by reason of sulphur, and 
 in addition thereto do the brushing above referred to at a price 
 only two and a half cents per ton above the rate paid at Streator, 
 where the coal is over five feet in thickness and the miners have 
 no brushing to do. 4th. He proposes a reduction of fifteen 
 cents per ton with thirty inches of brushing, while the original 
 proposition at the La Salle field, his nearest competitors, operat- 
 ing under precisely the same conditions, and shipping coal into 
 the same markets, was ten cents per ton below last year's rates, 
 which proposition has since been reduced to seven and a half 
 cents, or one half less than that demanded of us. Iwenty- 
 four inches of brushing that has by compromise been reduced 
 to twenty inches, compared with his demand that Spring 
 Valley miners hereafter shall take thirty inches or ten inches 
 more in height, including extra widtli, than asked by his La Salle 
 competitors. 
 
 Being willing to accept equitaljle conditions and prices, 
 and to effect an honorable settlement of the present strike, we 
 offer 
 
 ist. 'I'o work the second or thick coal vein at .Spring Valley 
 for the ])rice paid Streator miners, namely: 72}^ cents per t<in; 
 this, too, in face of the fact that the mine is yet in the crop coal, is
 
 262 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 full of faults, and up to this time has cost the company, liy their 
 own admission, over $2 per ton for mining it. 
 
 2d. Believing that the president of the coal company will ad- 
 mit the fact that more labor is required to mine a ton of coal in 
 the third vein at Spring Valley than in the thick coal at Streator, 
 we will agree to mine his thin coal for the price paid the thick 
 coal miners at Streator, provided the company will do the brush- 
 ing and building; or 
 
 3d. We will agree to an adjustment of prices and conditions- 
 such as may be determined liy arbitration, or by an agreement 
 to jointly investigate, and be governed by the facts developed 
 by such an investigation. 
 
 Trusting that an equitable and amicable settlement may be 
 speedily effected by some one of the methods herein submitted, 
 we are, sir, 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 Peter McCall. 
 
 James McNulty. 
 
 Wm. Scaife. 
 
 David Ross. 
 
 John McBride. 
 
 Ill an editorial, commenting on this cor- 
 respondence between the " head " of the coal 
 company and its " hands," the Chicago Inter 
 Ocean said: 
 
 The president of the Spring Valley Coal Company complained 
 to Governor Fifer that the press of Illinois was trying to compel 
 him to run his mines solely in the interest of the miners. He 
 claimed that he had been willing to pay fair wages, and he 
 labored with an endless column of figures to show that his offer 
 of 75 cents a ton was equal to the wages paid in other Illinois- 
 mines. 
 
 The miners in their reply do not resort to his methods of hand- 
 ling figures, so as to confuse rather than enlighten. They make
 
 APPENDIX. 263 
 
 a plain proposition, which he will either accept or leave the 
 people to infer that his first letter was not honest. 
 
 He claimed that the second or middle vein in his mine com- 
 pared favorably with that at Streator. This vein is not yet 
 developed, but the miners met him more than half way with an 
 offer to work this vein for 72 j4 cents per ton, the Streator price, 
 and 2^ cents less than the price he offered. He has claimed 
 that every ton of coal taken from this undeveloped vein has cost 
 him $2. He has a good chance to show the foolishness of the 
 miners' proposition or the unfairness of his own by accepting 
 this offer. 
 
 Another proposition from the miners seems fair. They offer 
 to mine the coal in the third vein for the same price, 72^ cents 
 per ton, if the company will do the brushing and road-making. 
 This would be pay equal to that at Streator and Braidwood. 
 .Streator has no brushing to do, and the Braidwood operators 
 pay the men 72^ cents per ton for the coal, and pay them extra 
 for the brushing and road-making. I'he president of the com- 
 pany argued that the brushing and road making could be done 
 for less money than his miners asked. He, in fact, offered 
 them zYz cents per ton for this work and sought to justify that 
 offer in his letter to the governor. He can demonstrate this 
 much clearer to the people of Illinois by accepting the miners' 
 second proposition, and by building the roads and doing the 
 brushing for ly^ cents a ton. When he has done the work and 
 balanced his books, he may be able to show that his recent offer 
 was fair and equitalile as compared with the wages paid at 
 Streator and Braidwood. 
 
 The miners put the president of the company in another 
 corner by offering to submit their case to arbitration. 
 
 They have the best of the controversy so far, and will hold it 
 unless he meets them fairly on one or all of these propositions. 
 He cannot convince the people of Illinois that the miners are 
 in wrong, and that he is" opposed hy anarchy, "Ijy writing long 
 letters with such statements. The fact is that he has sought to 
 "break down the miners' union in Illinois. He did not wait for 
 a strike in his mines, he did not offer a proposition for reduced
 
 264 A STRIKE OF MILLIONAIRES. 
 
 wages. He closed his mines and threw his men out of work. 
 He kept the mines closed until after a settlement had been 
 effected at Braidwood and Streator. Then he offered seventy- 
 five cents a ton, the brushing to be done for nothing, and 
 announced that he would only treat with men individually on that 
 proposition. He would have nothing to do with any committee. 
 In his letter to the governor, the president forgot to mention 
 this feature of the trouble between him and his miners. It is 
 really the one great barrier between them, and he should be 
 manly enough to let the public see his true position, or keep 
 quiet. 
 
 In matter and manner, the reply of the 
 miners justifies the confident statement of 
 President McBride at the Indianapolis conven- 
 tion, in December, 1889, that the men had 
 shown themselves able to hold their own in an 
 intellectual contest with their employers, and 
 corroborates the manly acknowledgment of 
 Colonel W. P. Rend, at the Columbus Joint 
 Conference of March, 1889, that "We found 
 they [the miners' representatives] were better 
 equipped and better prepared with arguments 
 than we were."
 
 
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