Bad as the social and industrial condition of Great Britain is, that of the United States threatens to become as bad or even worse unless the power of landlordism there is subjected to popular control. A striking instance of the rapid growth of monopoly and its ruinous effect on industry, as well as its atrocious tyranny over labor, is recorded in a striking little book by Mr. Henry D. Lloyd, of Chicago, called A Strike of Millionaires against Miners.
Rights of Labor (Chicago).
This narrative of the rapacity and greed of our coal barons we most earnestly commend to all our readers as a plain, clear statement of facts, admirably put; it deserves the widest circulation.
New York Herald.
This is one of the saddest, most enraging stories ever put on paper; of course the corporations protested, as corporations always do in such cases, that they were not to blame, but the awful facts cannot be denied or explained away. The Herald expressed its mind editorially at the time. Now that the whole case is presented, the Herald's readers can see how easily a scheming gang of heartless scoundrels can quickly reduce thousands of families to a condition worse than old-fashioned African slavery.
Tacoma (Washington) Globe.
Among the many books recently published on the labor question and the relations between the rich and the poor, none has excited a deeper interest than A Strike of Millionaires against Miners. Before the atrocities perpetrated in Spring Valley by the coal mining company, composed of some of the wealthiest men in the United States, the wrongs inflicted on the peasants in Ireland fade into insignificance. This book should have a wide reading, that all may know whither the nation is drifting.
Boston Herald.
The story of the labor disturbances at Spring Valley, Illinois, caused by a shut-down of the mines in 1888, is told by H.D. Lloyd in a thrilling presentation. In perusing the whole history, from the first alluring advertisements of the mining companies to the editorial comments in Chicago papers after the lock-out took place, a dweller in happier laboring regions will hardly believe that so much injustice could have been done in free America.
The Worker (Brisbane, Queensland).