With all possible haste the national and state leaders made their rounds among the faithful. The “dangerous” locals and districts were all visited and mass meetings held to save the operators. The slaves had instinctively rebelled against the wage cut, and the rebellion must be put down by their own leaders if they expected the plaudits of the capitalist exploiters and the “well done” of the pulpit, press and “public.” Alternate pleas, warnings and threats were turned on until the fires were put out and the day was saved for the operators. Only a little while ago Gompers warned the capitalists that reduction of wages would not be tolerated and solemnly enjoined his followers to resist them to the last. Mitchell, Shaffer and other lieutenants of Gompers are the active allies of the capitalists in enforcing reductions. Watch the developments! To conclude: The United Mine Workers of America has been struck by lightning. EUGENE V. DEBS. This letter was answered by Mr. John Mitchell and his colleagues in a communication which appeared in the same paper on May 21, 1904, as follows: MR. MITCHELL AND HIS COLLEAGUES. Indianapolis, Ind., May 7, 1904. _Editor Social-Democratic Herald_: In your issue of April 9 you publish an article over the signature of Eugene V. Debs containing a mass of misstatements with the apparent purpose of making your readers believe that the officials of the United Mine Workers of America, and particularly President Mitchell, have betrayed the trust reposed in them by their constituents by using their official position for the benefit of the employers instead of for the welfare of the employes. Mr. Debs’ knowledge of mining affairs is limited, by virtue of his lack of time and opportunity for personal investigation, and must of necessity be general and superficial. He has not sufficient knowledge of the mining industry to be a competent critic of our trade politics, and yet, if he had confined himself to a criticism of those policies, they might have passed unchallenged, so far as we are concerned. But when, without investigation of the facts, he takes an Associated Press dispatch, distorts it to suit his own purpose and jumbles it up with a number of other things that never existed except in his own diseased imagination, in order to prove that the officials of the United Mine Workers are dishonest, we believe that justice to ourselves and the organization we represent demands that his statements shall be refuted and his purpose laid bare.