LABOR-STRIKES. 



431 



son, David Conroy of the Horseshoers' Union, 

 and others ; yet the fears which had prevailed 

 of a riotous disturbance resulting from this 

 meeting were proved to be entirely ground- 

 less. The following evening a similar meeting 

 was held in the Cooper Union Hall, under the 

 direction of the amalgamated Trade and Labor 

 Unions. 



By the 26th and 27th, the strikers, who had 

 shown themselves so determined before, began 

 to waver, and an understanding was brought 

 about with the managers of the companies. 

 Trains were allowed to leave Chicago, traffic 

 was partially resumed in Pennsylvania and on 

 some of the Western roads, while on others pas- 

 senger-trains at least were allowed to pass. On 

 the 25th, traffic was still suspended on the New 

 York Central, no freight-trains running, and 

 no passenger-trains west of Rochester. The 

 following day freight and passenger trans- 

 portation was regularly resumed, though the 

 striking trainmen in the Buffalo freight-yards, 

 and the mechanics in the Albany car-shops, 

 still held out ; the former succumbed on Fri- 

 day, and the latter went to work again on Sat- 

 urday. The Erie road, which was still block- 

 aded beyond Oswego on the 25th, resumed 

 business on the 27th ; the strikers had made a 

 proposition, as has been stated above, to go 

 back to work at the old rates, provided the 

 discharged committeemen should be reinstated, 

 and the leaders of the present strike should not 

 be turned off; but nothing in the form of a 

 compromise would be entertained by Receiver 

 Jewett. On receiving assurances, however, that 

 their spokesman, Donohue, should not be pros- 

 ecuted by the road, and that the old commit- 

 tees should receive consideration, they returned 

 to their work on the 27th, and freight and pas- 

 senger trains were dispatched over every sec- 

 tion of the line. The Pennsylvania Railroad 

 was in use, up to the 26th, only between New 

 York and Philadelphia. Governor Hartranft, 

 upon his return from the West on that day, 

 adopted vigorous measures to break the block- 

 ade ; and upon his threatening a sharp use of 

 the bayonet and musket, and passing over the 

 road with a detachment of State troops, the 

 strikers came to terms on Friday, the 27th. In 

 the West, trains were running on most of the 

 roads by the 28th. 



By the 80th, traffic, both freight and pas- 

 senger, had been resumed on the trunk lines 

 and most of the principal roads of the country. 

 On the Baltimore & Ohio the strikers showed 

 a determined spirit, and committed many law- 

 less acts; and on the Pittsburgh & Fort 

 Wayne routes the strikers still carried things 

 with a high hand, until, on the 2d of August, 

 they made up their mind to resume work. On 

 the New Jersey roads, the Pennsylvania coal- 

 roads, and the Lake Shore & Michigan South- 

 ern, the strike ended also on the 2d and 3d of 

 August. 



A sequel to the story of the railroad strikes 

 te that of the riots of striking and discharged 



miners in the coal-regions. Their complaints 

 were in a great measure identical with those 

 of the railroad employes in the same part 

 of the country. Their wages had been cut 

 down until their once comfortably-nourished 

 families began to languish in misery ; while 

 the same railroad corporations whose hands 

 were out on strike about them were the own- 

 ers of the mines in which they worked, or in 

 great part controlled them and had drawn 

 their profits from them. From the beginning 

 the Pennsylvania miners had watched the 

 strike on the railroads with eager and interest- 

 ed eyes. They had encouraged and themselves 

 taken part in some of the earliest lawless out- 

 breaks. The miners in the Philadelphia & 

 Reading Railroad's mines complained that 

 the highest wages made for 15 days' work was 

 $12, many making not more than $5, while 

 some veins were worked which yielded the 

 miners actually nothing for their labor, or were 

 even worked at a loss. In the Lehigh Valley 

 it was said that $15 to $20 a month was all 

 that the miners could make, and $15 was the 

 highest pay made by laborers. Many intelli- 

 gent miners declared that their families had 

 scarcely tasted meat for a year or more, and 

 that boiled Indian meal was the only kind of 

 food familiar to them. By the end of July all 

 the miners in the Scranton region, estimated 

 at 40,000 in number, were out, while strikes 

 were taking place in other parts of the coal- 

 country. Bread-riots were feared at different 

 points, owing to the stoppage of work in the 

 mines and the failure of food-supplies caused 

 by the arrest of railroad transportation. On 

 the 1st of August bands of riotous miners took 

 control of the towns of Kingston, Plymouth, 

 and Nanticoke, and throughout the country the 

 mine-pumps were stopped generally, and the 

 mines were rapidly filling with water. Trains 

 were arrested on the Lehigh Valley road, and 

 in Scranton a mob drove the mechanics from 

 the Railroad and Iron Company's shops, killing 

 one or two workmen and wounding the mayor 

 of the town, and robbed and destroyed the 

 company's stores, while they lost three or four 

 of their own number from a hasty volley poured 

 into them by a troop of vigilants. A note- 

 worthy episode of the coal-strike was the ac- 

 tion of the coronor's jury called by Alderman 

 Mahan, which brought in a verdict of murder 

 against the vigilance committee. They answered 

 the order of arrest before the court of Wilken- 

 barre, fearing violence to their persons in 

 Scranton. The strike in the coal-regions was 

 a determined and general one in nearly all the 

 mines in the Lackawanna and Wyoming Val- 

 leys, the Lehigh and Shenandoah regions, and 

 extended into the mining sections of Maryland 

 and Illinois. Many outside persons helped to 

 provide the miners' families with the necessa- 

 ries of life. The people generally were on the 

 side of the strikers. Farmers and tradesmen 

 contributed to their support. Whole plantings 

 of potatoes were abandoned to their use, and 



