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| Coal Strike Commissioners. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, March 21, 1903.
STRIKE COMMISSION
Makes Public Its Findings--Both Sides are Favored.
AN INCREASE OF WAGES GRANTED
Or Shorter Hours Arranged—United Mine Workers not Recognized—Coal Cannot be Paid for by Weight—No Standard Ton Fixed—Sliding Scale of Wages—No Discrimination Because of Membership or Non-Membership of a Labor Organization—No Interference With Workmen—Awards to be in Force Till March 31, 1906.
Washington, March 21.—The report of the anthracite coal strike commission was made public this morning. It provides in general for an increase of 10 per cent in the rates of wages paid contract miners and for a reduction in the hours per day of other mine workers. Water hoisting engineers are to work hereafter in eight hour shifts, with a 10 per cent increase in wages where they have been working heretofore in such shifts. Other engineers and pumpmen are to have a 5 per cent increase. Firemen are to have eight hour shifts without increase. Other mine workers are to be paid the same wages on a basis of a nine hour day that they have been receiving for a ten hour day.
A board of conciliation is provided for to settle disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the commission's awards, to consist of three members selected by the operators and three by the miners' organizations and an umpire in case of a tie to be appointed by one of the circuit judges of the third judicial district of the United States. No strikes or lock-outs shall take place pending adjudication by this board.
The commission declines to recognize the United Mine Workers of America, as such, by compelling the operators to enter into any contract with the organization, but modifies this, in the manner above stated, by providing that the miners' organization shall have a hand in the machinery, whereby the findings of the commission shall be put into effect.
The third demand of the miners, which was that coal be paid for by weight wherever practicable, was refused, the commission refraining from making an obligatory award. It declined to fix a standard ton, where coal is paid for by weight, and from imposing upon owners of collieries where coal now mined is paid for by the car, the obligation to pay by weight and make the changes in plant necessary therefore. Check weight men shall be employed when requested by a majority of the contract miners of any colliery, their wages to be paid by the miners.
A sliding scale of wages is provided whereby the miners may increase their earnings according to the increase in the market prices of coal, the above rates awarded being in all cases the minimum.
There shall be no discrimination against any workman because of his membership or non-membership in a labor organization, nor shall there be any interference by union men with non-union men.
The awards made shall continue in force until March 31, 1906.
The entire report of the commission comprises eighty-seven printed pages, or about 50,000 words. Particular stress is laid by the members upon the fact that the findings are unanimous. A large part of the report is devoted to a history of the strike and a review of the conditions prevailing in the anthracite regions. One chapter deals with the losses occasioned by the strike. The total decrease in production is estimated at $46,100,000. The total lost in wages is $25,000,000. There were expended about $1,800,000 in relief funds, and the total decrease in freight receipts is placed at $28,000,000. The aggregate loss therefore is approximately $100,000,000.
Recommendations and Comments.
An interesting chapter in the findings is devoted to a discussion of the "discrimination, lawlessness, boycotting and blacklisting," and therein some plain words are spoken.
The boycott is condemned as immoral and anti-social, a practice which would be outside the pale of civilized war. In civilized warfare, women and children and the defenseless are safe from attack, and a code of honor controls the parties to such warfare which cries out against the boycott we have in view. Cruel and cowardly are terms not too severe by which to characterize it.
Closely allied to the boycott is the black list. This system is as reprehensible and as cruel as the boycott, and should be frowned upon by all humane men.
Among the general recommendations with which the report concludes, the following are of particular weight and importance:
''The commission thinks that the practice of employing deputies upon the request and at the expense of employers, instead of throwing the whole responsibility of preserving peace and protecting property upon the county and state officers, is one of doubtful wisdom, and perhaps tends to invite conflicts between such officers and idle men, rather than to avert them.
"The employment of what are known as 'coal and iron policemen,' by the coal mining companies, while a necessity as things are, militates against the very purpose for which they are employed. Although as a whole the coal and iron policemen were men of good character, there were a sufficient number of bad characters to discredit the efforts of the whole body. Their presence is an irritant, and many of the disturbances in the coal regions during the strike grew out of their presence."
The employment of immature children is condemned. In fact they should be protected against the physical and immoral influence of such employment, and there ought to be a more rigid enforcement of the laws which now exist.
The commission cannot see its way to recommend the adoption of compulsory arbitration.
"We do believe, however, that the state and federal governments should provide the machinery for what may be called the compulsory investigation of controversies when they arise."
In conclusion, the commission says: "In the opinion of the commission, the questions involved in this controversy were not of such importance as to justify forcing upon the public consequences so fraught with danger to the peace and good order as well as to the well being and comfort of society. If neither party could have made concessions to avoid a result so serious an arbitration would have prevented the extremity which it reached."
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| Thomas A. Edison. |
THOMAS A. EDISON'S PATENTS.
Total Number Almost 800, the Fees for Which Amounted to Over $51,000.
Washington, March 21.—The clerks of the patent office began several years ago to keep a systematic account of the patents issued to Thomas A. Edison. They have various inventions tabulated and indexed, so that they can put their hands on each different idea he has protected by patent from the beginning of his marvelous career of invention. When a pending claim is allowed, as it no doubt will be this month, Mr. Edison will have received 791 patents in all.
He is not adding to the list as many ideas nowadays as he did some years ago. Up to 1895 he had taken out 711 patents. Since then he has added to the list from three to twenty-three patents each year. Last year he took out nineteen. This year, so far, he has received six. In ordinary fees for patents Mr. Edison has spent over $51,000.
DANGER TO CUBAN TREATY.
Congress of Cuba Must be Called in Extraordinary Session to Ratify It.
Washington, March 22.—Senator Quesada, Cuban minister to the United States, had a consultation with Acting Secretary of State Loomis yesterday regarding the Cuban treaty ratified by the senate Thursday. Under the terms of the treaty ratifications must be exchanged by March 31. Unfortunately the Cuban congress is in recess and would not convene again under ordinary circumstances until April 7. Unless, therefore, an extraordinary session is called the treaty is dead. After leaving the state department Minister Quesada put himself in cable communication with President Palma, and it is understood that the latter will call the Cuban congress together immediately.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
Outshines Ormus and the Ind.
"The wealth of Ormus and of Ind," however great that may have been, was nothing to be compared with that stored in Uncle Sam's vaults, which is undoubtedly the most prodigious hoard of gold ever got together in the world's history. According to a late statement of the treasury department, there was on the date it was issued $634,950,053 in gold [at $20/oz.] in the United States treasury. The bulk of this great hoard, which is undesired and quite useless there and, by reason of its being withdrawn from the channels of commerce, simply a detriment, has been accumulated in the present fiscal year.
This vast sum surpasses by more than $500,000,000 the hoard of the Bank of England. The treasuries of the oldest and richest European countries do not touch it in amount. It exceeds by more than $518,000,000 the sum which the United States accumulated in 1879 with which to resume specie payment. The imagination of the American nation stood appalled before the figures required to measure the wealth used in that financial feat. The amount stored away can scarcely be comprehended.
It is much more than all the gold taken from Australia to England in the ten years of the heyday of production in that country—to wit the sum of £90,000,000, which was what Australia produced from 1851 to 1861. It would take all the mines of the United States more than eight years to produce this gold in our treasury at the present rate of production and all the mines of the world nearly three years.
There are, of course, a great national satisfaction and sense of security in the possession of this vast store of gold, but really it is of little practical benefit to the people. In another age it might have tempted a war of spoliation, but at the present time it alone would not repay the cost of a war waged to capture it, even if some foreign power could be perfectly certain of its ability to get it.
It is safe against both foreign invasions and domestic thieves. Indeed, it seems to be altogether too safe. It would be better for everybody if the greater part of it could be transferred to the legitimate channels of trade. The essential wealth of a nation is not in hoarded gold, but in money circulating among the people.
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| Capt. William Saxton. |
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| Capt. Frank Place. |
WAR REMINISCENCES.
By Captain Saxton of the 157th Regiment, N. Y. Vols.
STILL IN CAMP AT HAMILTON.
Regiment Gets its Number and Officers Are Selected—Dons Uncle Sam's Blue Uniform—The Arrangement of a Regiment by Companies Described—Mustered Into the Service—Preparations for Starting for the Front.
CHAPTER 10.
To the Editor of The Standard:
Sir—August 24, Sunday. The fair grounds were surrounded with a solid upright board fence about 8 feet high, and a guard was placed around this on the inside, and no one except officers were allowed to go in or out without a pass. I was detailed sergeant of the guard. The regiment was marched down town to church.
August 25. The last week's excitement, a night in the old tent, one in a hay loft, all night on guard duty, food that lacked in many respects the qualities of my mother's, all together was too much for me, and when I came off guard duty I was sick.
The town people had thrown open one of the churches, and fitted it up as a hospital. I was persuaded to go there toward night, and some ladies came in during the evening and looked after us.
August 26. In the morning. Mrs. Bancroft invited me to go to her home till I got well and I gladly accepted the invitation. I found there two others of our company. I was visited by Capt. Place and Surgeon Hendrick.
August 27. Felt better. Capt. Place came again and gave Orson Strowbeck and myself a leave of absence for ten days to go home and recruit up. We started about noon and arrived home at 10 p. m.
Bought a Revolver.
August 28 to September 6, spent in visiting friends and relatives. Bought me a Colt 6 inch, 6 shot, revolver, to be loaded with powder and ball. One day Orson and I run 400 bullets for it, to take with me. Just think of it. The idea of carrying around that amount of lead in my knapsack. Well, we didn't know then as much about soldiering as we did three years later. I wonder what became of the bullets? I presume they are planted by the wayside in the sacred soil of Virginia.
I attended a farewell soldiers' picnic in a grove just out of town, also one at Smithville on the 30th, where I met several of our former students who had enlisted in the One Hundred and Fourteenth, New York, and Charley Dunning, who went in the Eighth New York Cavalry. This was the day the second battle of Bull Run was fought.
September 6. Reported back to camp.
September 7, Sunday. Regiment marched down town to church in a body.
September 8. What a transformation has taken place in our camp while we have been gone. The old tent has disappeared and in its place nice, new, clean board barracks. And the men? I can't distinguish my most, intimate acquaintance a rod away. Why? They have donned Uncle Sam's blue uniform and they all look alike.
September 9 and 10. Drills and dress parades were the order of the day, and at night the officers drilled down town in the ball room of the hotel.
September 11. One month since enlistment, and pay day, drew $17 of Uncle Sam's money, which lacked just $1 of paying for my revolver.
September 12. Drilled.
The Regiment Officered.
September 13. The colonel came back from Albany, and on dress parade announced that our regiment would be the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh New York Volunteers, infantry, and the field officers would be: Colonel, Philip P. Brown, junior; Lieutenant colonel, George Arrowsmith; major, James C. Carmichael; surgeon, Dr. H. C. Hendrick; assistant surgeon, Dr. F. D. Beebe; quartermaster, Perrin H. McGraw; chaplain, Barstow; adjutant, O. E. Messenger. The captains of the companies were company A, Captain Smith; Company B, Captain Randall; Company C, Captain Place; Company D, Captain Dunbar; Company E, Captain Andrews; Company F, Captain Stone; Company G, Captain Tuttle; Company H, Captain Beck; Company I, Captain Billinger; Company K, Captain--[sic].
Colonel Brown was a professor in Madison university in Hamilton. Lieut. Col. Arrowsmith was a captain in the Twenty-sixth New York, and was with his regiment in the field, and did not join us till we were in Virginia. Five companies of the One Hundred and Fifty-seventh were raised in Cortland county, and five in Madison county. Our company was Company C, the color company, and our captain third in rank of the captains.
Arrangement of Companies.
A new infantry regiment was composed of ten companies, and each company is lettered thus: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K. The captains of companies take their places according to their company letters. The captain of Company A is first in rank, of Company B is second, and so on. When a regiment is formed in line each company takes its place according to rank of its captain in the following order from right to left:
2 7 10 5 8 3 9 4 6 1
B G K E H C I D F A
The letters of a company never change, but the numbers are constantly changing. For instance, if the colonel is killed, the lieutenant colonel takes his place, the major takes the lieutenant colonel's place and the ranking captain takes the major's place, and each of the other officers are advanced in rank one point. The captain of Company B would now be First company, and its position would be on the right of the regiment, and the first lieutenant of Company A, promoted to captain, would be the lowest in rank and his company would take the position of Company K, the tenth company. Officers are not always promoted in the order of their seniority in rank. Sometimes a junior is promoted over several seniors.
Whatever place the commander of a company holds in regard to his seniority in rank, his company takes the position in the regiment according to his number. A regiment is divided in the center into two wings, the same as a company is into platoons—the right and left wing, the division occurring between companies No. 3 and No. 8, or C and H, in the original formation. In each regiment there is a color bearer and color guard, selected by the colonel. The color bearer is a sergeant and the guard is composed of eight corporals. The front rank is composed of the sergeant and one corporal on either side. The rear rank is of three corporals-, and the remaining three corporals will be on the line of the file closers. The position of the color guard is on the left of the right center company, and in maneuvers is attached to that company. That is why our company, C, (No. 3,) was called the "color company" when the regiment was organized.
Besides the battle flag (the United States flag) the different states furnished their regiments with a state's flag. New York's was a handsome dark silk flag with the coat of arms of the state of New York handsomely painted on its sides, embellished with plenty of gold leaf. Truly these two handsome flags were wonderfully beautiful when fluttering in the breeze in the center of a thousand young men, decked out in Uncle Sam's new uniform of dark blue. They looked quite different now from what they did at the end of three years, when we returned them to the state, soiled, ragged and battle scarred, but they were a thousand times more dear to us for the baptism of blood. The color bearers have a belt around their waists with a socket in it, in which to insert the end to the flag staff to carry it on parade. There are oil cloth cases for them, when they are furled, to protect them from soil and storms.
September 14, Sunday. Regiment marched down to Baptist church for services.
September 15. Was paid $50 state bounty.
September 16. Drilled.
September 17. Drilled. This was the day of the battle of Antietam.
September 18. My father, sister and other friends came to camp.
"Belong to Uncle Sam."
September 19. The regiment was mustered into the United States service for three years or during the war. "We now belong to Uncle Sam."
September 20, 21, 22, Camp nearly deserted. Most of the boys have gone home on three days' leave.
September 23. Father and mother came to see me.
September 24. Our knapsacks, haversacks, and canteens were issued to us. All visitors were ordered to leave camp at noon. More than one hundred teams came into town in the afternoon and evening to take us to the railroad in the morning. W. S.
HAS RENTED THE SHEPARD STORE.
Mrs. T. Everts will Take Possession Monday—Opening About April 1.
Mrs. T. Everts, who has had her millinery parlors in the Calvert block at 30 Main-st., Cortland, for about 20 years, has rented the store formerly occupied by Rae M. Shepard and will take possession Monday. Mrs. Everts' increasing business has made it necessary for her to seek larger quarters and she has taken advantage of an opportunity to get a more desirable location on the ground floor. Mrs. Everts will be ready for her spring opening about April 1.
Will Add Dress Making.
Mrs. J. Alberts, who has recently removed her millinery parlors to the new Tanner building on Main-st., has rented two additional rooms on the same floor and will add a dressmaking department. This new department will be in charge of Mrs. Hattie Givens.
Real Estate Changes.
N. Jay Peck completed negotiations this morning for the sale of his residence at 21 Washington-st. to Nathan L. Pierce. The consideration is $3,500. He also sold today his house and lot at 24 Washington-st. to Henry L. Booth for $1,900.
Mr. Pierce bas sold his two houses at 70 and 72 Elm-st. to George Crofoot, formerly of Truxton, for $5,000.
Mr. Peck will move to his newly acquired possessions at 60 North Main-st. and will later erect a fine dwelling at that place.
BREVITIES.
— Cortland Lodge of Perfection will hold a regular meeting Monday evening at 8 o'clock.
—The sun crossed the line at 2 o'clock this afternoon and from this time forward the days will be longer than the nights.
—There is no marked difference today in the condition of Mrs. F. E. Reynolds, who is ill with typhoid fever at the hospital.
—The last entertainment in the Normal course this year will be a lecture on May 13 at Normal hall by Hamilton Wright Mable.
—The Ithaca band is about to start upon a long concert tour through New York and Pennsylvania, It will be under the management of Leigh Lynch of New York City.
—The Standard has already begun receiving advertising matter concerning the great Barnum & Bailey circus, which is a pretty sure indication that "the greatest show on earth" will visit Cortland at some time this summer.
—The new display advertisements today are—Sager & Jennings, Drugs, and paints, page 6; G. H. Ames, Shoes, page 6; F. E. Brodgen, Toilet paper, page 5; Haight & Freese Co., Stocks, bonds, etc., page 5.
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