This is the point that excites the wrath of the union officials. I now repeat it. To me it looks that way. I cannot avoid that conclusion. The only error I made was in the date of adjournment. The convention adjourned March 7, not the 5th. Upon this point I stand corrected, but it is wholly immaterial. The convention refused the ultimatum of the operators on the 5th, the press reports saying “the vote was cast in the face of the opposition of President Mitchell and the other national officers.” Next day the _Post_ sent out its prophetic dispatch. That is the point at issue, the action of the convention and the _Post’s_ prophetic announcement next day. The date of adjournment does not alter the fact in the smallest degree. “But,” says Mr. Mitchell, “Mr. Robbins had not returned to Pittsburg and therefore could not have given the _Post_ the information—that disposes of the ‘misstatement.’” Not quite. The _Post_ had a representative at Indianapolis and there are telegraph wires between there and Pittsburg. When I said that in my opinion there was an “understanding” between Robbins and Mitchell I simply meant what I said. The men are on friendly personal terms. There is nothing wrong about that. When “they shook hands in the presence of the delegates and engaged in earnest conversation and were loudly applauded by the convention” there was no objection to that. But the miners voted down the operators in spite of Mitchell’s protest. That is a fact, is it not? And when the operators were voted down Mitchell and the national officers of the union appealed to the referendum. Would they have resorted to the referendum if the delegates had voted to accept instead of rejecting the reduction? The national officers also had themselves authorized by the delegates to “explain the situation” to the local unions in sending out the vote, and this “explanation” took every form that could be devised to whip the rank and file into submission to the operators. As an instance of this “explanation” the speech of Mr. Lewis at Linton was a shining success. He was given full credit by the capitalist press for having turned defeat into victory and carrying the day for the reduction and against the strike. But to complete the evidence. When the operators were turned down by the miners’ convention and a strike seemed inevitable, the Pittsburg _Post_ coolly declared that it had it upon the “best authority” that there would be no strike, that the miners would give in; and then it went on to state precisely what the basis of final settlement would be and that the contract would be signed for two years. Less than two weeks later all these things came to pass to the very letter.