The Lesson Of The Strike

The great Reading strike has fallen through because of the hunger of the poor minera. They could not hold out as long as the company, that is all. Mr. Corbin, the president of the Reading road, has been making somevery plaintive statements about the unselfish capitalista and their losses, which no sensible person will beüeve. In the flrst place, the owners of the coal lands draw a large royalty on every ton of coal, justfor signing their names. The Reading company mines about 40 per cent. of the annual output of coal. This mining company and the Reading railroad company are practically one, and henee the railroad company secures a good price for hauling the coal. They own the land and the shanties, and the stores, and demand high rent and big prices. A few of the great journals have told the side of the miners fairly, and among them is Harper's Weekly. The Nation, with its characteristic inability to do justice, sneeringly said that the miners' wages were $2.60 to $270 per day, and nobody would feel very much sympathy for hungry men who refused such wages. The Nation didn't teil all of the truth! The miners necessarily lose mach time in the course of the year, and from their daily -wages they must each hire an assistant. There are other ways in whidh their apparently high wages are cut down, eo that, as a matter of fact, they must live in a moet wretched manner. The average miner and nis family live in a house of three rooms. It is Raid that it would be bard to find a home so mean, comfortless, and grimy in an agricultural región. The boys mast work in order that the family may have suflkient food, and in the heart of Pennsylvania, in her most beautiful valleys, are growing up thousands of ignorant, ill-fed, and hapless boys, who will one day be men " inspired," as has been said, " by the bitter experience of their youth and the traditions of oppression which they have inherited from their fathers." This reference to the boys in the mining regions of Pennsylvania is very significant. If the last report of the bureau of labor statistics of Pennsylvania can be believed, there is a most alarming etate of affaire among the children of miners and factory operatives. It all goes to show that we have right in this country all the forces which produce sociali8ts and anarchists. Those -who don't see this are simply blind to the signs of the times. Some of the miners were interviewed by newspaper reporters. One of the more intelligent of them who was not foreign-born, said that his experience had led him to lieve that the government should run the mining business. What is that but state socialism, justlike the state social - ism brought over from Germany? It sprang up in that mans mind independently of foreign influences : he could see no other way out of the diffieulty. It is a significant instancO, and illustratee our declaration that there are in the United States all the forces necessary to germinate and develop socialistic and anarchistic ideas. Wk wjsb it were possible to publieh all of Prof. Gayley!8 lecture, a part of which will be found in this number of The Register. It will be foand to be very interesting, sad, and instructive reading. While the island of Achill may be the " blackest land nnder the eky," yet its misery, f deeper, is of the same kind as that in Connaught, in the highlands of Scotland, and in the other islands about Ireland and Scotland. One little island is owned by one woman, and the tenante upon it are virtually her Blaves, for they hand over to her all that they produce above a mean living. Wonen haven't a right to mie in that way. Twenty-four men own one large island on which several thousand people live. These landlords live luxuriously, while the people on the island slave and starve. Many of the landlords have lordly castles on the island which they seldom condescend to visit ; they live in London, in Rome, or epend much of their time on the Mediterranean in their yachts. They never work. They or their aneestore stole the land from the people. They reserve the best land for deer parks and shooting places. Why this should be permitted in the 19th century is incomprehensible; but it illustrates what has been said about society being yet a sound ariBtocrat as regards industrial affaire. A TELEPnoNE message to Mr. Keech, at 11 o'clock today, stated that Jackson county gave two to three hundred "dry" majority. The "wets" stole a march, and secured a laree majority in the city, but the townships did well. Iosco county probably goes "wet." Thelarge gain in Berrien county ie probably due to the democratie judge's letter- a bold and fearless plea for prohition.