Mr. Mitchell sees “no necessary conflict between labor and capital.” Then why the United Mine Workers? What excuse has it to exist? Its whole record is one of conflict, honorable conflict, waged under difficulties and involving hunger, rags and death, and every page of it tells in harrowing phrase of the necessary conflict between the capitalist and the wage worker, the exploiter and his victim, the master and his slave. If there is no “necessary” conflict, why any at all? Why do not the operators raise wages instead of lowering them? What have the miners been striking for all these years? Is it not because they have had to fight tooth and nail for every particle they have ever received? Has all this been unnecessary? Does Mr. Mitchell draw salary as president of the Mine Workers to continue this “unnecessary” conflict, or to put an end to it by letting the operators control his union and advising the miners to thankfully accept what the operators see fit to allow them? It is doubtless because he sees no “necessary” conflict between capital and labor that Mr. Mitchell is a Republican in politics. He also claims to be a friend of President Roosevelt—and so is Sherman Bell. Mr. Mitchell’s friend Roosevelt hasn’t the power as chief executive and commander-in-chief of the nation to prevent the snuffing out of a state constitution, the brutal banishment of Mother Jones, the burial alive of that real labor leader, C. H. Moyer, and the murder and mobbing of miners in Colorado by the military criminals in authority. Grover Cleveland served the capitalists by invading the state of Illinois and Theodore Roosevelt serves them just as loyally by keeping out of Colorado. President Roosevelt may be your friend, Mr. Mitchell, but he is not the friend of the exploited class you are supposed to stand for. He is not my friend, nor do he and I belong to the same party, or stand for the same principles. Mr. Mitchell says “there is no necessary conflict between capital and labor.” I say there is no possible peace between them. Every hour of truce is at the price of slavery. This is Mr. Mitchell’s fundamental error. From this all others spring and he has yet to face their consequences. Personally, I have not the slightest feeling about the matter. There was a time when I admired and applauded Mitchell’s leadership. I thought I saw the coming of a man. But alas! Little by little I have seen him succumb to the blandishments of the plutocrats. He is today their beau ideal as a labor leader. The man was never born who can honestly serve both capitalist and wage worker, both master and slave. Time will tell! There is a mass of evidence and other matter I have had to omit. Space will not allow its use and I have already exceeded proper bounds. I have a proposition: