"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

by Phebe Earle Gibbons

The two other companies probably tired, if corporations can be said to tire, of seeing the Pennsylvania Coal Company carrying on business thus, and it seems that hints were conveyed to the outstanding men by agents of their employers that they had made no organized application to the companies, informing them of their wishes. At length committees from the men called upon the agents of the companies, and offered to go to work at the rate at which the other men were working. To these the agents answered, “We are always ready to pay what our neighbors are paying;” and the men went to work at one dollar and thirty-one cents. This was not a long-protracted strike, and the men were successful in obtaining nearly all which they demanded.

These good prices continued for over a year, partly it seems, for a reason to me unexplained, and in part because the price at which the men went to work, although a high one, was actually not so high as the companies could then afford to pay, so greatly was the stock of coal reduced and the market-price raised.

Wages continued then at one dollar and thirty-one cents, when, in November, 1870, the three companies united in notifying the men that in one month there would be a reduction to eighty-six cents. This decline was an immense one, over thirty per cent., and the news came upon the miners like a thunderbolt. It would have been much better policy for the employers to reduce the price gradually as coal declined in market.

This state of things may indicate that there is not much sympathy between the miners and the corporations, and I am told that the men feel bitter toward their employers from their showing so little respect for their manhood as not to be willing to consult with them. These are tender points with some in the Scranton region. You will find the foremen not very anxious to talk about them, but you will be able to obtain the admission from some here that the men feel their interest to be at variance with their employers’.

When the end of the month of notification arrived, the men declined to take the sum offered, and suspended. They claimed that the matter of wages should be determined by a sliding-scale, adjusted to the price of coal in the market, and this they called a basis. They also desired to have an agent to examine the books of the companies, and to see what their profits really were. The first demand is so reasonable that we can scarcely see why it should be refused, and it is granted in the Schuylkill County region.

This sliding-scale, or the basis, became a rallying-cry during the long and trying conflict which followed. And they stuck to this until they were starved out.

On their side, the companies thought that strikes were coming too often (the interval having been about sixteen or eighteen months); and now, as we have said, the three companies were united.

The miners, however, had not all been in favor of suspending work. Some of the leading Welshmen would have preferred to compromise by offering to go on at a reduction less than that demanded by the companies, but these were overborne by others, who were very violent in the meetings of the W. B. A., crying out, “Strike! strike!” until, I was told, it was as much as a man’s life was worth to oppose them. So the pacific or conservative Welshmen were outvoted by the more reckless of their own nation and the rest. But once engaged, the Welsh were the most determined, being unwilling to yield until they had effected something. Says one, “I believe they would have held out to this day;” and another, “I believe they would have emigrated: they had strong talk of going out West in squads.” As it happened, if we may call it chance, the only blood shed in the struggle was that of two Welshmen.

The Miners’ Union did not anticipate that the companies would hold out as long as they did; but they seem to have been firmly banded, like the men, and they had the power of capital on their side. “It was like a big war,” says an acquaintance,—“a six months’ war.”