Mine Owner Robbins was wise when he said to the miners’ delegates: “The union between the operators and miners has been a partnership for several years that I have been proud of.” There is a whole volume in that paragraph. And there is another in the utterance of Vice President T. L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers when the strike seemed certain: “If Senator Hanna had lived there would have been no strike. His influence would have been powerful enough to force the operators to listen to reason.” What a commentary upon the United Mine Workers and its leaders! Operator Robbins and labor leader Mitchell and his colleagues, Governor Peabody and President Gompers, David Parry and Sherman Bell all belong to the same capitalist political party that supports the same capitalist administration that assassinates eight-hour and anti-injunction bills and treats labor like a galley slave. To me it seems not only like sarcasm but positively tragic to hear Mr. Mitchell and his colleagues boast of the “great benefits” that have come to the miners and the “substantial” things they are now enjoying in face of the fact that thousands of them are totally idle, that those employed in the coal fields of Indiana today do not average above two days of work a week, that they are in debt, housed in shacks and eke out a miserable existence as the coal digging victims of wage slavery. These miners get 85 cents for digging a ton of coal for which the people in that immediate vicinity pay $3.50. The operators, of course, get rich; the miners, of course, stay poor. Truly, an ideal arrangement. Small wonder that the “interstate movement” perfectly suits the operators, that the United Mine Workers under the leadership of Mitchell, Wilson and Lewis is so satisfactory to them that they agree to collect its dues by deducting them from the wages of the miners, without which the union would go to pieces; and this is one of the reasons why Mr. Mitchell did not dare to break with Mr. Robbins, and why Mr. Mitchell helped Mr. Robbins to force the wage reduction upon the miners. Mr. Mitchell has profound regard for the good will of the capitalist and great consideration for his feelings, interests and general importance, so great that he issues a proclamation to the miners of the country calling upon them to refrain from work while a capitalist is being buried, with not the remotest thought of showing such extreme respect to the memory of the dead when instead of a rich capitalist it is only a hundred and eighty poor coal diggers, stark and mutilated, blown up in a mine through the criminal negligence of the capitalist owners for whom they were digging up profits.