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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1903)
26 THE SUNDAY OKE GONIAL, PORTLAND, JANUARY 4, 1903. OVER ONE THOUSAND MEN IN CALIFORNIA SUSTAIN THEMSELVES IN IDLENESS A STRIKE THAT HAS NO PARALLEL A STORY- THAT BEADS LIKE A PAGE FROM "LOOKING BACKWARD." mjr ESWICK, Cal.. Dec. 30. (Special Correspondence.) A strike which has no parallel in the long history of labor troubles resulted on November ID last in the complete shut-down of the im mense plants of the Mountain Copper Company, Ltd., at Keswick and Iron Mountain, across the state line, in Shasta County, California, and for over a month not a wheel has turned in the big- corpo ration's $15,000,000 establishment. The 1103 employes quit to a man, and the story of the strike is so full of enlivening incidents that it reads more like a romance of the "Looking Backard" type than a plain re cital of 20th century facts. The remote ness of the camp has thus far served to prevent the newspapers from getting any thing save the most meager reports. The strikers have taken absolute pos session of the town of Koswfck, have rested the hotels and lodging-houses, com pletely furnished, and comfortable quar ters have been supplied without cost to all the men. This was done on December 5, when the company announced that it would not accede to the demands of the men, but would close its works down for 10 years, if necessary. "And we mean what we say," said the company. "All right," responded the strikers, "we will wait 10 years for you." And so it started. The hotels and lodging-houses were rented, together with in numerable cabins scattered on the Shasta hillsides about the smelter, and today the long siege Is on in earnest.- It is in the Immediate charge of Keswick Smelter men's Union, No. 143, the local labor or ganization, but back of it is the powerful "Western Federation of Miners, with which No. 143 is affiliated. The Federation has indorsed the strike, and has promised to spend all of the $3,800,000 In its treasury, if necessary, to support the men. EverytliInK Free. The result is that the strikers, in addi tion to quarters, have these things sup plied them: If unmarried, they eat three meals a day at a great restaurant just equipped. If married, they draw regular rations of groceries, meats, etc., from a strike com missary, organized and conducted on a sort of military basis. They get free fuel. There are two barber-shops open day and night for their accommodation. Twice a day "sick call" Is sounded and contract physicians attend to the ailing. Medicine also Is free. Stamps and stationery are supplied to those who wish to do any correspondence. There is a free theater. The reading and clubrooms are furnished with up-to-date literature. Cobblers and tailors these from their own ranks do all needed repair work. A two-story bathhouse is always open to them. Tobacco rations are issued dally. And the only duty required of them is service as sentries on eight-hour shifts every day a duty, however, that Is stern ly Insisted on. In addition every man has bedn solemnly sworn not to leave Kes wick, the oath following his pledge not to permit any stranger to pass the picket lino Into camp while he is on guard. Thus Keswick, for the time being, is a little nation in itself, and no man knows how long it will be able to maintain so re markable a status. Those who look for a speedj settlement base their belief on the present threat of international complications. The company is English, with headquarters in London, and no stock at all Is held in this coun try. It is the richest corporation doing WHEzRE rASMES, Belgium, Dec 12. (Special . corresponaencej i amin tne heart of one of the richest coal mining regions of Europe. Belgium Is only about one-third the size of Indiana, but It has deposits of coal and iron which make It hum like a beehive. It is the busiest workshop upon the continent, and it sup-j ports aoout as many people to the square mile as any country of the world. Its annual productof coal amounts to 22, 000,000 tonB. It uses the greater part of this at home, and also Imports fuel from Germany and England. At present the people are looking to the United States as a possible source of manufacturing fuel, and the day may yet come when the mills here will be largely run through coal from the United States. The Black Country of Belgium. The Belgium mining conditions are en tirely different from those of our coun try. Our mines are near the surface and it costs but little to get the coal ' to the cars. Those of Belgium are far down under the earth, and every ton has to be lifted by machinery to the surface. Some of the mines which I visited today are more than a half mllo deep. The water has to be fought at every turn, and mighty pumps are employed to keep the works dry. There are tunnels cut ting the earth this way and that at a depth of 2000 feet. Over them are other tunnels, and the whole country Is a cata combs, made by getting out the coal. The mines have to be timbered. The wood is cut from the forests near by, but the most of it is not over six Inches thick, and as it cornea to the mines it looks like telegraph poles, each 50 feet long, tapering to a point at the end. Such tim ber stands In great stacks about each mine. It is unloaded from the cars by women, who handle the poles like so many Amazons. Belgium's Coal Pyramids. This coal region is far different from those of Pennsylvania, Ohio or Tennessee. There it is mountainous. Here at Was mes the land is flat, and the only eleva tions are from the dumps of the mines. The coal here is filled with waste. It has to be sorted and the refuse. Is carried out upon cars. There is so much of it that a pyramidal mountain soon rises up beside each mine, standing out like a black cone against the blue sky. There are such pyramids everywhere in this part of Bel glum. Some of them are dead, the mines which produced them having been worked out and abandoned. Others have ladders up their backs and a framework on the top. where women push the cars along and with a rattling sound empty them. Some of these pyramids are smoking. There is mtveh sulphur in the coal and spon taneous combustion often starts a fire which bums for years. Instances are fcnown of people going to sleep on the dumps and being suffocated by the fumes and gasea Take your stand wfth me on one of these coal mountains just outside the mining town of Wasmes and look about you. See the farms covered with rich crops, with these coal mounds rising above them. There is one at our right, with great, bug-like bags crawling over it Take your field glass and look at them. They are not bags. They are wo men who aro picking up tho coal that has "been left in the waste. There comes a business in California, owns a refinery in Paterson, N. J., and has Its own fleet of coal and coke-carrying ships. When It bought Iron Mountain a misnomer, by the way, for the mountain is simply one great, inexhaustible mass of low-gride copper ore there was no town of Kes wick and no settlement of any sort in the vicinity. Investment of J?(J,000,000. The company sent over here as Its gen eral manager Lewis T. Wright and a large staff of assistants, all English. They opened mines at Iron Mountain, built the tremendous five-furnace smelter at Kes wick, constructed a modern and fully oqulpped 12-mile railroad between them, and connected the smelter with the South ern Pacific by another road. It Is said that they spent between $5,000,000 and 56,000,000 In making all these improve WOMEN DO MEN'S WC7RK M MIMES car along the coal mountain. Two wo men are pushing It, and with the glass you can almost see their muscles swell as with bare arms they cast it on tho dump. Now 16ok at that mound at the left. It Is hundreds of feet high, and, like the others about it. it is an evidence of the enormous waste that the miners havo to contend with. Every bit of coal that is brought to the surface has to be picked over and the waste Is evidently more than the coal itself. Near every mound you see the huge buildings of the coal workers. They are not unlike those of the United States, but the scenes about them are different. TiKr Lilies nu:l UlacU Diamond. In the United States the work Is done altogether by men. Here most of the labor above tha surface Is performed by women. And such women! Lusty young girls of" from 16 to 20. Protty girls, rosy cheeked, round-armed and plump, with faces smutty with coal dust, but at the samo time comely. Their eyes aro bright and their beauty is accentuated by the coal dust on their faces, through which the red flames forth like that or the dark moss rose. They are very tiger lilies set In a background of black diamonds. Come with me and let us visit ono of the mines. We enter the great works where the mighty shaft is Jerking up and down raising the coal to the surface. At the mouth of the opening stand a half dozen of these Belgian girls, their heads done up in blue and white handkerchief turbans, their sleeves rolled up high above the elbows and their shapely ankles plain ly showing between the ends of their skirts-and their white wooden clogs. Set them grasp that car as the engine stop, and shove it over the rails to where It L to be dumped for the sorters. As they do so another gang of girls takes their places to handle the next car, and others shoot the empties back to the other side of the shaft. There is no fooling about tnis. 'me women work like bees, and with the strength of horses. They do more than the men, and they are, I am told, more conscientious in their work.. Sorting Coal. Leave the shaft and come with me to the sorters. The coal rolls down a chute into the cars. Women stand at the' side of the chute and help It onward with hoes. Girls of 14 to 20 sit further down picking the refuse and slate out of the coal with their hands. Still further on there are more turbaned, bare-armed maidens, sooty and dirty, working away as fast as their fingers can move, and in the railroad car itself. Into which the coal drops, thero are other women hoeing the coal this way and that, sorting the waste. All the work is done by- the piece, and the girls are paid In propor tion to tho amount they perform. I asked as to the wages, and was told that the rate is 2 cents a basket, and that the . best workers can pick about a basket and a half every hour, thus earning as much as 30 cents in their day of 12 hours. Among the Women Miners. And still the women miners of Belgium are far better off today than they have ever been in the past. Their condition has been notoriously bad. For a long time intra children were employed in the mines. They were harnessed to carts and coal cars with straps and chains, so that they crawled along on their hands and knees, dragging the coal to the mouth of the shaft. Now women under 21 are pro hibited by law from working underground, A DEPUTY HAVING DRUXK ments before ever a single ounce of ore was mined, and practical mining engi neers who have seen the plant do not doubt the figures. But It proved a good Investment, never theless. The percentage of copper ran only from 7 to 15 per cent, but there was a not Inconsiderable amount of gold In every ton of ore, and during the past eight or 10 years the company has regu larly been declaring largo dividends. The money It has paid In taxes has not only supported Shasta County, but has given the county a surplus so big as to make It the envy of every other community In the state. x During all this time General Manager Wright employed nonunion men at both the mine and the smelter and on the con necting railroad. It was the one big non union camp In the West, and an eyesore and henco those whom you see on the suriace are young girls. They could get better wages down below, and many of them will leave the surface work and go into the mines as soon as they are old enough. As a result, the surface girls are not bent and broken, and those I saw were as well developed physically as the prize golf girls of the United States. And still they were toiling like so many horses, pushing the cars this way and that. Some were lifting great lumps of coal welch ing from 15 to 20 pounds each, and others wore doing all sorts of work which In America would be done by men. In one place a ditch was being dug and lined with brick and cement. A girl of 15 was mixing the morlar with a hoe, and a little further on at a brick pile three sturdy girls were loading bricks upon a wheelbarrow, which a fourth girl pushed upon the car when It was full. They were working hard, .and the perspiration stood out in white beads upon their dusty faces. I took a photograph of them, and my heart came Into my throat as they smiled. Wages In Bel&rinm. I have said that the women who sort the coal earn about 90 cents a day. Some get less, but there are others who make as much as 40 cents, and In the mines they are paid as high as 46 eonts. Men TOO MUCH ATTEMPTED TO GO THROUGH THE PICKET LINE. to the labor organizations. The latter finally decided to take a hand In the mat ter, and the Western Federation of Miners sent B. F. Barbee, Its organizer, to Kes wick to form a union. He succeeded In doing this, but most of the work was done In secret, and It was some time before General Manager Wright and his staff knew what was going on. But as soon as he got wind of the affair he began to take retaliatory measures. In the early part of November he In some way secured a list of the officers of the local union and somo of lta most act ive' members, and by the middle of last month they had been dropped one by one from the company pay rolls. Among thfe first to go was John L. Donnelly, presi dent of No. 143, who "had been employed as a furnnce feeder. There were Individ ual protests in plenty, but a reason was given for every discharge usually Incom petence or Inattention to duty. Then, on November 19, to the utmost miners get 79 or 80 cents underground, and about 50 cents at the surface. Boys of 14 and 15 are paid 42 cents, and children about 20 cents and upward. Altogether, there are 121.000 -miners In Belgium, and of them all I doubt whether 10 per cent make a dollar a day. And still the Belgian working day aver ages from 10 to 12 hours, and the average number of working days every year is more than 300. Low wages and long hours are the rule. There are 730,000 working people here, and of these nine-tenths work 10, 11 or more hours per day. Of all the workers one-fourth make less than 40 cents a day: one-fourth from 40 to CO cents, and another fourth from 70 to 80 cents per diem. Woman's Work and Wases. Women are everywhere paid less than the men, and about half of the female workers make less than SO cents a day. while In the whole country of more than 6,000.000, half of whom are women, only 3?5 women get as much as SO cents a day. Among the best-paid women here aro those who work underground In the mines. The work is hard and degrading. It unsexes those who are thus working away day after day in the seml-larkness, and In time makes them animals. In old age they are little better than the horses and donkeys which work with them and : ? THUEB GIIU.S WEKE LOADING Bill CKS. surprise of every man not in the secret, the men quit work. The day shift went off duty at 6 o'clock in the evening, an nouncing that they would not report for duty the next day, and the night shift stayed away altogether. In the space of 60 minutes the smelter, with its 15 towering stacks which had spouted fire by night and smoke by day without a moment's Inter mission since its first furnace was "blown in," lay silent in the big gulch, dying like some strange animal might die. The next morning It was lifeless, and the people of Keswick, for the first time In many years, ate no sulphur fumes with their breakfasts. The men at the mine and on the railroad struck, too, and a committee of strikers composed of Frank W. Fowler, who won fame some years ago as a member of the California State Legislature; Frank Brown and Jay W. NIcholB, went to the company's of fice to discuss terms with General Man ager Wright, But there was no discus MR, which stay In the mines until they die. Some of tho horses will live from 10 to 20, years a.ftcr going down underground, but they brcoma perfectly blind at the end of three years. How the Miners Live. I have been Interested In the life of the people. Every great mine has Its dwelling house's about It, a collection of little two story bricks built together In blocks. Each hou has five rooms, two on the ground floor, two above and a little attic under the roof. The families are large, and the average number of children is six or sevn. The miners are miserably noor. Nearly every one paj'3 a rent of 519 or J2Q a year for hl3 home, but only the fewest save money. The people are great drink ers. In this region every third house Is a saloon, and the most of the wages go for drinks. The people drink alcohol, and the women drink as well as the men. Belgium spends more than eight times as much for liquor as It does for schools, and Its annual drink bill Js about ?3 per head, or $25 per family. I am surprised at the number of saloons. They are known as "estamlnets," and you see them every where. Thero is hardly a block In the city without one or more, and they are scattered along the country roads. There are more than 200,000 saloons in Belgium, and It Is said that ono person in every sion. Mr. Wright declined to receive the committee or have any communication with It, and he said so with some vigor. Whereupon the strikers held a mass- meeting and agreed without a dissenting vote to remain out until the company granted recognition of their union and re- insiaiea tne aiscnarged men. The West ern Federation of Miners wnu pnmrmml Cated With, and on the following dav nr. i ganizer mrnee came from Denver with a rat cneck. Since then President Henry Moyer, of the federation, and other high officials have reached" Kenwiclc, and day by day the strike has developed the curi ous situation which exists at presenk The company promptly had Sheriff Behrens swear In two score of its clerks, foremen, bosses and heads of depart ments as special deputies to protect its. property, and armed them. The strikers erected tents all about the company's grounds, sent large details of pickets to the railroad station and out on the roads CARPENTER WRITES OF THE BLACK COUNTRY OF BELGIUM 30 of the whole population Is employed In selling intoxicating drinks. Many of the workmen get drunk on Sat urday and lay off over Monday. Similar conditions prevail In England, where drunkenness Is, 1C anything, worse than here. There are a number of worklngmcn's associations In Belgium. The men have their trades unions and their co-operative societies. There Is one kind of organiza tion, known as "Mutualities," which has over 50,000 members. There are societies for mutual help so formed that the mem bers support each other In times of trou ble, providing medical attendance and other such things. Many of the societies are protected by the Government, and to some the state gives subsidies, increasing their funds for medical attendance and support In time J of sickness. The government now has I pensions for such worklngmen of over 65 who need them, and also associations which Insure the Hv63 of worklngmen at low rates. Belgium has a ministry of industry and labor1 which has to do with matters relat ing to worklngmen. nnd there Is also what Is known as the superior council of labor, organized to consider labor Interests and prepare measures regulating them for pre sentation to Parliament. This council Is composed of 16 workmen, 16 manufactur ers and 1G scientists. It Is said to be of great value to labor Interests.' The governments are becoming more and more paternal In many of the Euro pean countries. They a-re taking the place of a father to the people and trying to benefit them In a variety of ways. In Belgium the state has erected dwellings for worklngmen In certain localities, and has arranged so that they can buy them on easy terms. It in helping the farming Interests by schools of agriculture, and through its railroad service Is reducing freights and facilitating the marketing. 1 have spoken of the postal arrangements of Switzerland and France, whereby the farmer can express his goods to consumers through the postofflces. Here in Belgium the government has put on fast trains for England for the shipment of dairy prod ucts. It facilitates trade and it seems to bo on the outlook to help the producing classco. I am surprised at the enormous manu facturing Industry of Belgium. Tht coun try Is a very beehive of work. It has about 6.000.000 people, and fully 750.000 of them are at work making something to sell. The factorlee are as thick as In the black country of England, and the land teems with house Industry'. There are about 26.000 workshops which employ on the average only three hands each, and an enormous amount of cotton and linen cloth Is woven at home. On the Eastern edge of the Belgian coal field Is Llcge, which, has 175.000 peo ple, and which was built up out of manu factures of Iron. It Is the Sheffield of tha country, making vast quantities of firearms for home use and export. It ha3 30,000 workmen, who make nothing but guns, and most of these work at their own homes. The manufacturer furnishes the 'material and the workmen take it home and make the different parts of a gun. One man may be employed up on locks, another on barrels, getting from 2 to 3 cents for his work on each gun. It is only recently that much machinery has been Introduced and this Is used only with the cheaper kinds of firearms. Parts of guns are also made for ex port. We get many of our steel gun barrels from Liege, and also the Damask gun barrels, which are made nowhere else in the world. The secret of making the lixiillnii- Intn omn In W1T fiwnv ("Wrv man who might want to go to work. JNeariy aw men were on picKet amy at a time, and this number has been slightly Increased since. Of course trouble followed. Some stran gers refused to be turned away from the rnmn nnr? twa fi o frY-flroTi rlnolcprf in the Sacramento River and forced to board outgoing freight trains. Once they tackled a deputy by mistake, shooting followed, and therx- rere arrests. Another time 'e. Deputy, having drunk too much, attempt ed to go through a picket line with, a talc" nlstol in plthpr hnnrl T'noro trns more shooting, but the weight of evidence in court was against the deputy, ana no was sent to prison for two months by Justlca of the Peace Thompson. At iron Mountain an unpopular boss was deliberately kidnaped, forced to walk to Kfiswlrk. nnr! rmf a tniln TT got off at Redding, swore out a score of warrants, ana ms assailants are out un der heavy baiL Last week Thomas Craze, a smplter boss and special deputy, was assaulted, and. In addition to causing the arrest or tne men who attacked him, he had Preside-it Donnelly and Organizer Barbee taken Into custody. They secured their liberty on $2000 bail each, and will be tried December 29. The union is bailing us men out as rast as they are arrested, and already it has furnished security to me amount or a small fortune. The com pany, too. Is protecting its own employes in thia way. But it is not IKCMMrv tn oniwf many conflicts that have been brought about by the Intense feeling on both sides. nr to Se the detailed experience of the m maintaining their iron clad cordon about the nnm mt ly shutting out Keswick from the rest of u.e nu. wnen this phenomenal condi tion of affairs was brought about, the cit izens of the county, becoming alarmed, formed a committee of arbitration to seek a settlement Judge Sweeney, of the Su perior Court, was at the head of this committee, and they interviewed both sides. But neither would budge an Inch and no progress was made. Present Status. The net result is that the English offi cers and the small army of deputies eat and sleep and have their being in the com pany grounds. The strikers have them surrounded, but make no effort to touch company property, for they are extremely anxlous not to have any troops of the National Guard sent here. Thus far they have kept the real situation from getting to the outside world, but it will be impos sible, of course, to prevent publicity un der the circumstances. A local newspaper correspondent, suspected of writing arti cles in which the strikers did not appear to advantage, was forced at the pistol's point outside the lines on the night of December 9. The company will say no word as to Its intentions, save that it will not take tho strikers back. There is a persistent ru morand it has caused a general shiver in Shasta County that they are quietly re cruiting a new force of men in the Coast cities, and will attempt to bring them to Keswick in a body. There Is no evidence thus far that thia is so. but if it should bo the truth the news will be of speedy Interest in Sacramento, if not In the Na tion's capital. There are arms and men enough in the camp to equip a regiment almost. And all the time jthe strikers, when oft duty, are thoroughly enjoying themselves. On the occasion of The Oregonlan corre spondent's visit an amateur minstrel and theatrical performance was the night's at traction, and the local opera-house was nowhere near big enough to contain thoso who wanted to attend. This, too. In face of the fact that while the show was In progress a score of campflres on all the surrounding hills showed the presence of that indefatigable line of watchers at the picket tents. In a small way the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race have locked horns In Keswick, but the question of what it will grow Into Is one of genuine serious ness. Both sides admit that much. Damask barrels Is carefully guarded, be ing handed down from father to son. Only the most skilled of the workmen tin make these barrels. The ordinary rough bored barrels are turned out in great quantities; they cost from 60 to 70 cents apiece, when ready for export. When the United States has finally set tled Its mining troubles our exporters can study tho Belgian market with profit. This country Imports something like 2,009, 000 tons of coal a year, the moBt of It com ing from France, Germany and England, and necessitating comparatively heavy freight charges. Thero are six lines of steamers sailing between Antwerp and the United States, and American coal should be landed there at low rates. The freight rates of the present are based upon tho grain rates, and are consequently high. The Belgium coal will not compare with the best grades of our coal. The anthra cite here has not tho hardness nor bril liancy of the Pennsylvania product, and it la lighter In weight. Some of the Bel gian bituminous coal has 75 per cent slack, so that It Is used for the making of bri quettes rather than for export. Some of the Belgium mines have given out, and, as the coal area Is limited, the country will eventually have to Import more than it does now. Not only here, but In all parts of Europe, there should be a market for American coal, and If care fully nursed a business can be built up which will materially Increase the balance of trade, which Is already in our favor. FRANK G. CARPENTER. (Copyright, 1902.) The Patter of the Rain. Nothing else can soothe my senses Into slumber round and deep; Nothing else can calm ray spirits Into deep and dreamless sleep; Nothing else can soothe my being Bright with Dreamland's warp and woor. Like the patter of the raindrops. Like the rain upon the roof. Nothing else can ease my troubles, Or the cares that oft depress; Nothing else can soothe my sorrows To complete forgetfulness; Nothing else wields half tho magic 'Gainst the His of life a proof Of the ratter of the raindrops, . Of the rain upon the roof. 'Ian Buchanan. Roseburg, Or., December, 1002. While at Portland here we listen To the patter of the rain. And for days and weeks together All pray for a change in vain; Pray that one bright ray of sunshine Through a rifted cloud will glare And give us one more assurance That the sun Is still "up there." "Nothing," writes a bard out southward, "Who ought now to be drouth-proof, "Nothing else wields half the magic Of tho rain, upon the roof." Then let's send him a kind greeting And all pledge him "the glad hand" If he'll run up here and show us How much "magic" he can stand. OLD MAN OUT OP A JOB. The Lincoln Conspiracy. On what daya were the chapters of tho Lincoln conspiracy published In The Ore gonlan? I think I have saved all of them, but I wish to bo sure. MRS. R. R. December 7, 8 10,. 12, 13, 15, 10, 20, 2L 24 and 25.