Cortland Evening Standard, Wednesday, October 8, 1902.
The Rights of Miners, Operators and the Public.
To the Editor of The Standard:
Sir—The acute situation resulting from the strike of the anthracite coal miners demands prompt relief, or the immediate consequences will be intolerable suffering and misery, far in excess of that resulting from the lawless violence and tyranny to which the victims of striking miners and labor unions are subjected, because borne by those who are helpless and innocent of any direct responsibility for existing conditions out of which the strike and its consequences arise.
The Right to Labor or Loaf.
Every man has a right to work when, where and for whom he pleases, or to refuse to work, but he has no right to deny another's right to do the same thing —much less to hinder, obstruct or persecute another for exercising this elementary right or option to labor or loaf. One man exercises this sacred right when he works, while another exercises it when he strikes. If the man who elects to work should organize a force of those who also elect to work, and that force should coerce those who elect to strike or loaf into working against their will, the result would be an odious slavery, but no more unjust, unlawful or tyrannical than the slavery which is maintained by the organizations of so-called labor unions when they enforce idleness upon those who elect to work, though others may strike and refuse to work.
The Duty of the State.
The state owes the duty to its citizens to protect them in the free and untrammeled exercise of this right to work or abstain from work at will, to the full extent of its civil and military power. A state which fails in the discharge of this duty to its citizens defaults in the performance of its most essential duty in the most important particular of the purposes for which it is organized. Such a state extorts money from its taxpayers while withholding its equivalent, by neglecting or refusing to perform the most vital duty which it implicitly undertakes to perform for every citizen, regardless of his station in life, as a consideration for the taxes which he pays and the military, jury and other duties which he performs, or may be compelled to perform as a citizen, at the behest of the state. A state which fails in its duty to protect all its citizens in this right thereby forfeits every claim to their support, either in the way of service or contribution. The loyalty of a citizen to his state or nation is due from him only in reciprocity, as a compensation for the protection which it owes him. A government which fails conspicuously to protect its citizens in the exercise of their elementary rights is a reproach to all who are in any wise responsible for it.
Pennsylvania's Ignominy.
In this respect the government of Pennsylvania is ignominious. But Pennsylvania, its state government and its citizens are delinquent in permitting and promoting wrongs more ancient and deep-seated than merely suffering its citizens to be outraged and slain by labor unions without adequate effort to prevent it. Might has been suffered to overthrow and supplant right in allowing the coal freighting railroad companies to freeze out the competing independent mine operators, by discriminating against them in freight rates and subjecting them to untold annoyances and inconveniences, until they were compelled to sell their mining properties at prices often ruinous and seldom remunerative, to the railroad companies, who have become organized monopolies, subjecting the unions to unbearable tyrannies on the one hand, while fleecing the consumers of coal on the other; and all this, too, in plain violation of law in this respect, that a corporation created by the state to operate a railroad has no legal right to engage in any other business not necessarily incident to the business for which it was organized. Nevertheless, this is done. The law is evaded by creating corporations to mine coal, subordinate to and under the control of railroad companies, in which an inner ring of the stockholders of the railroad companies usually constitute the controlling power of the mining companies, so that the business of mining coal is unlawfully united with the business of transporting it to market. Of the great variety of reprehensible means employed to drive independent mine operators out of business and into selling their mining properties to the railroad operators, the limits of this article will not permit of giving the details. The incidents resulting from this nefarious system would alone constitute a long and dismal chapter of injustice and robbery.
Strikes the Result of Monopoly.
The numerous strikes among the miners in the past have grown directly out of this odious monopoly, and nearly every one of these strikes has resulted in profit to the monopolists. The present strike has enabled the monopolists to dispose of their stock of coal at a large advance in price, and while the strikers have lost the wages they would have earned but for the strike, the monopolists have extorted from the consumers of coal nearly double the sum which their accumulated stock of coal would have brought in the market under normal conditions. Moreover, the markets have been cleared out so that it will hereafter be possible to restrict production so as to prevent the accumulation of stocks of coal in the hands of consumers and dealers, and the operators may thereby control the market, fixing the price by controlling the supply. Most of the local dealers in the United States are absolutely subject to the control of the monopolists, who fix the price and determine the quantity allowed to be delivered to each individual purchaser, so as to absolutely prevent the accumulation of coal in the hands of consumers and dealers, thereby enabling them to pocket the entire profit of the exorbitant prices which their nefarious manipulations have produced.
It is up to the People.
It is now up to the people, the consumers of coal, to knock the props from under this odious monopoly and, if necessary, to take the whole outfit by the throat, as one would a highway robber. Excellent coal is found in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Newfoundland, situated near tide water and convenient ocean transportation which. but for a protective tariff, could be sold in the markets of the New England states and everywhere on the Atlantic coast, to compete on favorable terms with the anthracite monopolists of Pennsylvania. This coal should be admitted free of duty, as well as the ores of these localities, as a necessary check upon the greed of the iron and steel monopolies, together with meats from Canada, Mexico and the countries of South America, for like and similar reasons. It is time consumers, who greatly outnumber the producers of tariff-protected products, should have the protection which a free market affords and not be taxed to support a favored few, because they supply the campaign funds for the politicians and their heelers. Not only may this remedy be readily applied, but it is open to no constitutional objection, and if it does not prove entirely effectual as a remedy, it can do no harm to try it. If it fails, some more drastic remedy should be applied. It might produce good results to disqualify and prohibit any person who owns stock in a railroad company carrying coal as freight from holding or voting upon either railroad or mining stocks at any meeting of a corporation engaged in the business of mining coal and operating a railroad carrying coal as a common carrier, and also disqualify such persons from acting as directors, trustees or officers of such corporations. This might prevent persons from engaging in the dual business of mining and freighting coal by a railroad. The right to control and regulate corporations vested in the state might be invoked to support such legislation.
The mine operators have asked the president of the United States to police their property with the army and coerce the strikers into accepting their terms. This will never be done unless the strikers furnish the pretext for it by rioting and acts of violence, which they very unwisely seem inclined to do.
Taking the Mines for Public Use.
The use of the product of coal mines is public and universal. The taking of coal mines for public use is, therefore, not unconstitutional, as the New York Sun contends it is. It is a frequent and familiar act to take the waters of a lake or stream situated on lands to which a citizen or individual has title by deed, and apply them to supplying other citizens and the public. Such a use of water is no more a public use than is the use of coal, which is as much a necessary of life as water, and the taking of property to obtain a supply of water has repeatedly been held by the courts of all the states to be a taking for public use, but it is obviously no more so than the taking of coal from mining properties would be. It would, therefore, seem that such properties are subject to condemnation for public use, notwithstanding The Sun's assertion to the contrary.
Very truly yours,
Cortland, N. Y., Oct. 7, 1902.
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