Chapter VI: Act II: shows William working in different places, and for short times, (4)

For that reason little real news of the exact condition of affairs has reached the outside world. Newspaper men are decidedly unwelcome along the creeks; that is, their presence is distasteful to the mine owners. Few strangers had been allowed to enter the creeks for a long time prior to the entry of the militia last summer, without explaining their business to some man, and usually a man with a gun. Ordinarily a stranger would not get beyond the junction of the main line and the branch road. If the explanation of his business did not happen to be satisfactory, he was told to get out. If he demurred or showed a disposition to argue he was frequently beaten up. If he got up the line, his chances of getting beaten up were largely increased. One labor organizer told me that a couple of years ago he was pulled off a train and kicked into insensibility by the mine guards and when he recovered was made to "walk the creek" in water up to his waist because he had gone up Cabin Creek to see what the labor conditions were.

_The Mine Guards_

These mine guards are an institution all along the creeks in the non-union sections of the state. They are as a rule supplied by the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency of Roanoke and Bluefield. It is said the total number in the mining regions of West Virginia reaches well up to 2,500. Ordinarily they are recruited from the country towns of Virginia and West Virginia, preferably the towns in the hill country, and frequently have been the "bad men" of the towns from which they came. And these towns have produced some pretty hard characters. The ruffian of the West Virginia town would not take off his hat to the desperado of the wildest town of the wildest west.

These Baldwin guards who are engaged by the mining companies to do their "rough work" take the place of the Pinkertons who formerly were used for such work by the coal companies. Since the Homestead strike in the steel mills years ago when the Pinkertons fired into the strikers and killed a number of them, this class of business has gradually drifted away from the Pinkertons and much of it has been acquired by the Baldwin-Felts agency.

In explanation of the employment of these guards, the operators say that their property must be guarded, that the state does not give them sufficient protection. Men who do service as mine guards cannot be expected to be "ladylike." They deal with desperate characters and are constantly in peril. The guards act on the principle that they must strike first if they are to strike at all, and evidence shows that they have not the slightest hesitancy about striking first. The operators also say that it is necessary to require explanations of strangers in order to keep out labor agitators and to prevent the miners from being annoyed and threatened by them.

No class of men on earth are more cordially hated by the miners than these same mine guards who are engaged to "protect" them from annoyance by outsiders. Before the state troops went into the region and took their rifles away from them, the mine guards went about everywhere, gun in hand, searching trains, halting strangers, ejecting undesirables, turning miners out of their houses and doing whatever "rough work" the companies felt they needed to have done. Stories of their brutality are told on every hand along the creeks. Some are unquestionably exaggerated, but the truth of many can be proved and has been proved.

In spite of the work they do some of these Baldwin men seem to be decent enough chaps to those who are not "undesirable," and they are, for the most part, intelligent. But they are in the mines for a definite purpose. They understand what that purpose is and they have no hesitancy about "delivering the goods." They seem to have no illusions about their work. It pays well and if brutality is required, why, brutality "goes." Whenever possible they are clothed with some semblance of the authority of the law, either by being sworn in as railroad detectives, as constables or deputy sheriffs.

But for all that a number have been indicted for offenses ranging from common assault to murder. In every case, however, bail has been ready and it is rare that charges against them have been brought to trial. Some of the assault cases in which they have figured have been of great brutality, yet rarely has any serious trouble resulted for the guards. They go about their work in a purely impersonal way. If a worker becomes too inquisitive, if he shows too much independence, or complains too much about his condition, he is beaten up some night as he passes under a coal tipple, but the man who does the beating has no feeling against him personally; it is simply a matter of business to him.

Just what the services of the guards cost the coal companies is difficult to learn. The companies contract with the Baldwin-Felts agency for them and the sum they pay is kept a secret. It is generally understood that the guards get about $5 a day, or between $100 and $125 a month. A man in the mines who knows one of them intimately told me he "picked up his gun" for $105 a month. When a man joins the Baldwins he "picks up his gun," and that stamps him forevermore with his former associates if they were of the laboring class as an enemy and a man who has turned his back on his class and his kind.

A GROUP OF STRIKERS' CHILDREN]

Unless the miners are beaten in this fight, and utterly and completely beaten, there will never be a settlement of the difficulty here until the mine guards are driven from the region. "The mine guards must go," is the slogan of the striking miner everywhere. His going is of more importance than an increase in pay. There will be no lasting peace in the region until they are gone. All over the state when the situation in the Kanawha valley comes up for discussion you are told that the mine guards are at the bottom of the trouble. They are the Ishmaelites of the coal regions for their hands are supposed to be against every miner, and every miner's hand is raised against them. They go about in constant peril--they are paid to face danger and they face it all the time. But they are afraid, for they never know when they may get a charge of buckshot or a bullet from an old Springfield army rifle that will make a hole in a man's body big enough for you to put your fist in. A number of guards have been killed since the trouble began, and it is generally understood that some of these were buried by their fellows and nothing said about it, there being a disposition down in the mines not to let the other side know when either side scores and gets a man.

_Beginning of Hostilities_

Preparations for the warfare, which began in April of last year, had been going on for months before the actual opening of hostilities. The miners on Paint Creek began buying old Springfield rifles which the government had discarded and which were offered in quantities by junk dealers and department stores in Charleston. There had been rumors of trouble, and the Paint Creek miners who were organized had received intimations that Cabin Creek conditions would be established in their operations. There had been no mine guards on Paint Creek for they are seldom seen in union operations. The miners had received information that the operators would not sign the scale for the new year but would repudiate the union and bring in the guards.

Their information proved correct. When the Kanawha Operators' Association met to consider the scale, the Paint Creek operators declined to sign it and withdrew from the association. The miners struck and the guards appeared over night. A big fight took place at Mucklow when the first blood was spilled in the trouble. It has been spilled in quantities since with more or less regularity.

The companies immediately prepared for a long fight. Miners were evicted from their homes and many of them have since been living in tents furnished by the United Mine Workers. Machine guns were imported and mounted in concrete fortifications that were hurriedly built on the roofs of the company stores and mounted in positions of vantage in the hills. Whisky, cartridges, rifles and machine gun ammunition were brought in in large quantities.

The strike spread at once to Cabin Creek and from the beginning the warfare has been more serious on Cabin Creek than it has been on Paint Creek. More machine guns were established on Cabin Creek than had been planted in Paint Creek. The situation grew so threatening that Governor Glasscock ordered out the militia early last August at the solicitation of the mine owners. By that time almost every man on Cabin Creek had his rifle and ammunition, hidden but where he could get at it without trouble. For the most part the arms were smuggled in over the hills. The mine owners informed Governor Glasscock that the miners were armed and were threatening to wipe out the mine guards, one of the guards, William Stringer, having been slain in a most brutal manner. The miners did not ask for protection, saying they could protect themselves. It is generally believed that they were waiting for some particularly bad move on the part of the guards, when they proposed to exterminate them if possible. The mine owners expected that when the troops came they would disarm the miners but allow the guards to retain their rifles, in other words, and to put it very plainly, they expected that the militia would be used as an additional force against the miners. But when the troops began disarming the guards as well as the miners they protested most vigorously. But for every rifle taken away from a guard in the early days of the trouble, dozens of new ones were brought in.

A TENT VILLAGE OF STRIKERS

The deserted town is in the background]

_Martial Law_

Governor Glasscock's attitude pleased neither the operators nor the strikers. The miners at the outset wanted him to proclaim martial law, to search the whole place, run out the guards, take their arms away from them and take the machine guns out of the improvised forts. They received the soldiers with open arms--no set of soldiers ever went into a strike region and received a heartier welcome. In the presence of the troops, the guards had no terrors for the miners, and even the children were unafraid.

When martial law was really proclaimed, however, the strikers did not like it. The law was enforced with vigor and a number of the strikers were put in prison for violating the law against unlawful assemblages. The shoe had begun to pinch and it pinched pretty hard before the soldiers were withdrawn. It was a mistake to take away the troops before the strike had been definitely settled. It would have cost the state a good deal to have retained them after things quieted down, but if a comparatively small force had been kept, it is hardly likely that the recent trouble would have occurred, and it would not have been necessary to send the soldiers back and proclaim martial law a second time. Then many lives would have been saved.

The trouble that followed the withdrawal of the troops could have been, it seems, foreseen by almost any one. One of the miners said when I was in the mines:

"Hell is going to break loose here as soon as the troops are
recalled unless the mine guards go out at the same time. They have
it in for us and we have it in for them. As soon as the troops go
out, we fellows who have been working to unionize this region are
going to catch it. But when they start something the fun will
begin.

"If you want to see some hot doings just wait around until the
troops go. Conditions such as prevail here are a disgrace. The like
of them does not prevail in any civilized country on the globe. And
we are not going to stand them any longer. I have never had to kill
a man and hope never to be compelled to kill one, but I would kill
a dozen of these guards as I would kill so many rats if they should
attempt to lord it over us as they have been accustomed to do. And
I would do it with a perfectly clear conscience."

The man who made this statement was killed in one of the recent fights in the valley. I saw his name in the list of the dead.

One of the things that give the coal operators such complete control of the men who work for them is the ownership of great tracts of land. Everywhere you are confronted with a notice that you are on private property.

_Landlordism_

Because the West Virginia mining villages are nearly all on private property, the operators owning the highways as well as the houses of the miners, they can control their going and coming and determine who may or may not visit them and talk with them. It is idle to say that the men can come and go as they please, as the operators claim. Each individual among them has the right to go from his home to the mine and back again and to travel on the county road, which is merely an excuse for a highway. But he has not the _right_ to go from his own home to that of a fellow workman nor has his wife and children. When they do so, it is by the sufferance of the mine owner, unless they go by the county road and then half the houses cannot be reached. It is idle to say that this power is not exercised by the operators. It is. I have seen it exercised, and this very fact contains a serious menace to the country. I talked it over one day with Governor Glasscock in the early days of the trouble.

"How can it be remedied?" he asked. "The whole situation bristles with problems like this. In this case you are up against a man's constitutional right to control his property as he sees fit and to keep trespassers off it."

Such a situation offers a serious problem in government. Take Cabin Creek alone, with its branches to Kayford and Decota. There are more than twenty square miles of territory in which live ordinarily about 12,000 persons. In all that territory there is scarcely a place in which a man may go without being under surveillance, and except at the little "free" or incorporated town of Eskdale, hardly a house into which a friend may be invited for a drink of water except by the grace of the coal companies.

The miners say that such a condition is un-American. They want it solved and they do not care how it is to be solved. While this matter is not put in the list of their demands, it is one of their serious grievances. Here are the things they are demanding:

Abolition of the mine guard system.

A reform in the system of docking.

The employment of check-weighmen on the tipples to represent the
miners and to be paid by the miners. The law provides for these
check-weighmen, but this law is ignored by the coal companies.

Permission for the men to trade where they please without
discrimination against them for so doing.

The payment of wages in cash every two weeks and not in script or
credit cards.

Improved sanitary conditions, with the requirement that the
companies remove garbage and keep the houses in condition.

Payment for mining coal on the basis of the short ton on which the
coal is sold and not on the basis of the long ton, on which it is
at present mined.

Rentals of houses based on a fair return on their cost with
allowance for upkeep and electric lights on the same basis.

The nine hour day--the men now work ten hours.

Recognition of the union. This implies, in the bituminous districts
of the middle West, the check-off system by which the companies
deduct from the pay envelopes of individual miners not only the
charges for powder, rent, medical attention, store accounts, etc.,
but also for union dues which are turned over to the union
treasuries direct. This method of recognizing the union has been
most vigorously opposed by the operators in the anthracite
district.

An increase in pay. This last the miners regard as the least vital
of all their demands as a present issue.

_Charges as to Peonage_

It has been charged that a condition of peonage exists in some of the mining districts of the state. This is a subject on which the operators are very sensitive. They deny vehemently that such a thing is possible.

Peonage, as it is usually understood, means compelling men to work under duress until debts they may owe are paid. It is a violation of state and federal laws.

Men who come into the mines usually have little or no money. Sometimes their transportation into the mines is paid and they are charged with the cost of it on the books of the companies employing them. They are given a cabin to live in and if they have no money when they start and seem to want to go to work in good faith they are given credit for small amounts at the company stores. Accordingly, unless the miner is an unusually thrifty fellow, he is usually in debt at the start.

Miners have told me that in the Cabin Creek region they are paid only once a month, but when they start in, they are not paid any cash for sixty days, the first month's pay being held back. In the meantime, however, after they have earned sufficient money to pay the rent and other charges in connection with their cabins, their school tax, burial tax of twenty-five cents a month, their assessment for the maintenance of the mine physician, and sometimes an item for "protection" which is an assessment for the pay of the mine guards they will, "on application" be given a "script card" entitling them to purchase from the company store goods to the amount indicated on the card. On the edges of the card are figures and the amounts purchased are punched out very much as the waiters in a quick lunch restaurant punch out the amount of a customers order on his check.

SOLDIERS IN CAMP AT CABIN CREEK JUNCTION]

These script cards will not, it is said, be given to a miner for the total amount which stands to his credit on the books of the mine company, but is usually for $2 or $3 if the man has that amount due him after deductions are made for rent in advance and other charges. If a man is very anxious however, to have some cash, a clerk in the store, will, it is said, discount his script card, charging him 25 per cent.

For the first two months, then, the miner, who starts out in debt, has to get everything he needs from the company stores. The prices at these stores are high, much higher than the miner would have to pay elsewhere for exactly the same grade of stuff. For the most part, the grade of goods sold at the company stores is much higher than is usually purchased by laboring men and their wives when they buy where they please. Here are some of the prices I found prevailing at stores along Cabin Creek:

Eggs 35 cents a dozen; "white bacon," pure fat and popularly known
as "sow belly" 18 cents a pound; smoked bacon 22 cents a pound;
white sugar 20 cents for a two pound bag; lard 15 cents a pound;
brown sugar 15 cents a pound; coffee 30 cents a pound; tomatoes 15
cents a can; peas 15 cents a can; corn two cans for 25 cents;
cheese 30 cents a pound; bread 5 cents a loaf; flour $7 a barrel,
and salt 5 cents for a two pound bag. Salt is not sold in bulk.

Compelled to buy at high prices, it can be readily seen that a man cannot save much money, although it is a fact that a few of the very thrifty ones have rather respectable bank accounts. So when the average fellow starts out in debt, he usually stays in debt. His work is hard and he eats heartily when he can. Then the miners' wives have never been taught how to make much out of little or to conserve their resources, so there is naturally much waste in cooking, much is spoiled and much is poorly prepared.

All this tends to keep the man in debt. At the end of his two month's work he may have couple of dollars coming to him or he may be still in debt and if he is in his house a day over the first of the month, rent in advance is charged against the first money he earns even though he and his family may be in need of food. Sometimes he does not get any cash for months, and you have to have cash to get out of the mines for the railroads will not permit the miners and their families to travel without paying fare.

Most of these people have no one outside on whom they may call for help in leaving the district, and without money, they must stay in the mines and work. Heretofore their best means of getting out was to develop strong union tendencies and to talk about the necessity of organizing. Then, if they were not beaten up, their fare was sometimes paid, and their furniture and families moved to some other point. Once out, however, it would be unpleasant for them to try to get back.

A point is made by the operators that they have offered to pay the fares of any of their men and of their families, including transportation charges on their household goods, to Charleston or to fields operating under union conditions. It is a fact that such offers have been made and because the miners did not avail themselves of the offer, it is cited against them as unreasonable, and that they did not care so much about bettering their condition as about harassing the operators.

As a matter of fact the men do not care to leave the region. They are engaged in a fight to unionize it and are as anxious to succeed as are the operators to prevent them from doing so. "Stay where you are and unionize your district but do not crowd into organized operations," is the advice given by the union organizers. That is why the unions in the other districts are supporting the strikers and have been doing so for a year.

_The Glasscock Commission_

Last summer after the mine companies refused point blank to be a party to the appointment of a commission by the governor for the investigation of the situation in the mines, Governor Glasscock appointed one anyway. Bishop Donahue, the Catholic bishop of Wheeling, S. L. Walker, and Fred O. Blue were appointed as commissioners. Extracts from the report of this commission are interesting:

"From the cloud of witnesses and mass of testimony figuring in the
hearings, there emerges clearly and unmistakably the fact that
these guards [the mine guards referred to heretofore] recklessly
and flagrantly violated in respect to the miners on Paint Creek and
Cabin Creek, the rights guaranteed by natural justice and the
constitution to every citizen howsoever lowly his condition and
state.... Many crimes and outrages laid to their charge were found
upon careful sifting to have no foundation in fact, but the denial
of the right of peaceable assembly and of freedom of speech, many
and grievous assaults on unarmed miners show that their main
purpose was to overawe the miners and their adherents and, if
necessary to beat and cudgel them into submission. We find that the
system employed was vicious, strife prompting and un-American. No
man, worthy of the name, likes to be guarded by others, armed with
black jacks, revolvers and Winchesters whilst he is endeavoring to
earn his daily bread.... We are unanimously of the opinion that the
guard system as at present constituted should be abolished
forthwith."

The commission also found that the company stores overcharged the miners, that the system of docking was unfair to the miner, and that a system of blacklisting of miners prevailed.

On the other hand the commission found that in a general way, the miners in the Paint and Cabin Creek districts were fairly well off, that their wages were above the average prevailing in the organized fields, that their cabins were above the average, and that the rent, while "slightly excessive" was not exorbitant, and that the sanitation was "as good as can be expected." On the question of wages, the commission found that the annual wage of miners in West Virginia for the years 1905-1911 was $554.26 while the average annual wage of miners on Paint and Cabin Creeks "is from $600 to $700." It will be noticed that in the first instance a definite, fixed figure is given for the average. In the other the statement is a general one "between $600 and $700."

The statement is also made that "a minute examination of the pay rolls discloses the fact that 16 or 17 days' work a month constitutes a high average and that many engaged in the mines _decline_ (the italics are mine) to labor more than 12 or 14 days."

There are two sides to this. The "unwillingness" of the miners to work more than a certain number of days a month is proved to the satisfaction of the commission by an "examination of the pay roll." As a matter of fact in most instances the reason the men do not work more days in a month is due to the system of "crowding" which prevails all over the non-union districts of West Virginia. This is one of the things the miner complains about most bitterly. It is worked in this way: An operation has, say a capacity of 200 men. On the pay roll of that operation may be anywhere from 300 to 400 men. All these men cannot work in the mine at one time, but the company always wants to have plenty of men on hand. So the men are allowed to make but little more than half time. The advantage to the operators is that the more men they have the more cottages they will rent, the more mouths there will be to feed from the company stores, and the more money collected for physicians' fees, insurance and other things for which the miners have to pay. It is absolutely true that the men do not work more than from 12 to 17 days a month, but the pay roll will never tell you the real reason. The men want to work, but they are not permitted to do so.

As to the cabins being above the average--they may be. I went into some of them. I would want a more comfortable stable for my horses. The greater number of the cabins contain four rooms each and are absolutely without any sanitary or other arrangements for the convenience of the occupants. Some few are larger and some are smaller but the four room cabin is the type. They are nearly all alike, built of rough lumber and roofed with a composition roofing such as is bought by the roll. The rental is on the basis of $1.50 per room per month. A four room cabin costs $6 a month, a six room cabin costs $8 or $9. But take the average four room cabin at $6, the yearly rate is $72. That is interest at 6 per cent on $1,200. The labor cost on these houses was not more than $40 each on the average. Including the land on which the houses stand they did not cost the companies more than $300 each. Six per cent on $300 is $18.

Now, the houses are put up as much for the convenience of the companies as for the miners. There would be no coal mined unless the miners had houses in which to live, so a 6 per cent rate on the houses would seem fair. But even allowing 10 per cent, the rate would be $30 instead of $72. At the rentals charged these houses have paid for themselves over and over again and everything the companies get out of them now is pure "velvet." I would call the rental charges exorbitant rather than "slightly excessive" as the commission finds.

As a matter of fact, that Glasscock commission report will not bear close analysis. It is a straddle, made so perhaps in order to protect "the good name of the state." I do not believe that it is accurate in a number of particulars. I do not believe that the average wage of the miners on Paint and Cabin Creeks is between $600 and $700. A good miner will average $2.50 to $3 a day for the days he works. The impression is sought to be created that many of the miners have money in bank. Some of them have, undoubtedly, but they form an exceedingly small percentage of the whole number. I know that as soon as the strike was called the vast majority of the miners and their families had to be supported by the union. I saw wagon loads of provisions sent up to the head of Cabin Creek to feed those who were hungry and who had nothing coming to them according to the books of the companies and who could get nothing at the stores.

As a matter of fact the whole truth has never been told of the real conditions existing in the mines of West Virginia. One of the most illuminating pieces of testimony available to the non-partisan investigator is that of former Governor W. M. O. Dawson. Governor Dawson sent a special message--a rare document and hard to find now--to the legislature of 1907. Three cases of peonage in lumber camps had been called to his attention by Secretary of State Elihu Root at the request of the Italian ambassador. In his message Governor Dawson declared without equivocation that a system of peonage existed under the guard system. One of these cases resulted in what he called a "wanton murder" as a result of a controversy as to whether the murdered man owed $1.50 for the railway fare of his son. The man was killed by a guard. The governor goes on:

"The use of guards in this state is not restricted to cases like
these under investigation. They are used at some of the collieries
to protect the property of owners, to prevent trespassing, and
especially to prevent labor agitators and organizers of the miners'
union from gaining access to the miners.... Many outrages have been
committed by these guards, many of whom appear to be vicious and
dare devil men who seem to aim to add to their viciousness by
bulldozing and terrorizing people. It is submitted in all candor
that it is not to the best interests of the owners of these
collieries to employ such lawless men or to justify the outrageous
acts committed by them.

"In certain parts of the state miners are oppressed and wronged.
They are compelled to work in ill-ventilated and otherwise unfit
mines. They are cheated in the payment of the compensation for
their labor. They work on the condition that they receive so much
per ton for the coal mined by them, the coal is not weighed but is
calculated by the mine car. These cars, at least in some of the
collieries, are rated at a capacity of two and one half tons,
whereas they often have a capacity of four tons and in some cases
even up to six tons, but the miner is paid for only two and a half
tons, for all above that he mines, he gets no pay whatever. This is
robbery of the poor and oppression of the weak. At some of the
stores conducted by the collieries the miners are charged
extortionate prices for merchandise. This is likewise robbery of
the poor and oppression of the weak."

_Mother Jones_

The developments of the winter have been under the regime of a third governor, who came to the state house at a season when part of the commonwealth was under martial law. In March came the trials of a number of the strikers and their sympathizers--approximately fifty--by a military court on charges of inciting to riot, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to destroy property. Among those in prison is Mother Jones, the "Stormy Petrel of Labor" who is always present in big labor disturbances, especially those of the miners and the railroad men. She has given the best part of her life to the cause of laboring men and they adore her.

This old woman, more than 80 years of age, was in the mines when I went there and I got to know her well. She passed the word along to the men that I was "all right" and reticent as they are to strangers, they told me their side of the case without reservation.

I have been with Mother Jones when she was compelled "to walk the creek," having been forbidden to go upon the footpaths that happened to be upon the property of the companies and denied even the privilege of walking along the railroad track although hundreds of miners and others were walking on it at the time. She was compelled to keep to the county road although it was in the bed of the creek and the water was over her ankles. I protested to the chief of the guards saying that no matter what her attitude might be, no matter how much she might be hated, that she was an old woman and common humanity would dictate that she be not ill treated. I was told that she was an old "she-devil" and that she would receive no "courtesies" there, that she was responsible for all the trouble that had occurred and that she would receive no consideration from the companies.

I was with her when she was denied "the privilege" of going up the foot-way to the house of one of the miners in order to get a cup of tea. It was then afternoon, she had walked several miles and was faint, having had nothing to eat since an early breakfast. But that did not shut her mouth. She made the speech she had arranged to make to the men who had gathered to hear her although they had to line up on each side of the roadway to avoid "obstructing the highway," a highway that was almost impassable to a wheeled vehicle and on which there was no travel. And in that speech she counseled moderation, told the men to keep strictly within the law and to protect the company's property instead of doing anything to injure it.

I had several long talks with her. When she speaks to the miners she talks in their own vernacular and occasionally swears. She was a normal school teacher in her early days, and in her talks with me in the home of one of her friends in the "free town" of Eskdale, she used the language of the cultured woman. And this is the old woman whom nearly all the operators in the non-union fields fear, and whose coming among their workers they dread more than the coming of a pestilence. They now have her safely in jail.

When I left the field[11] the conflict was still on. It seemed likely to continue until one side or the other gave in. The presence of the military could only bring about a peace that is temporary. Having held out through the winter, the miners were preparing to hold out through the spring and summer and autumn if necessary, and the United Mine Workers of America were preparing to back them up with all the resources of the national organization.

[11] Since the writer left the district an unavailing effort was made to secure from the civil courts an order restraining the military commission from conducting the trials of those held on charges of participation in various deeds of violence in connection with the strike. Later, however, Governor Hatfield who, as head of the military forces of the state, has the power to review the acts of the military commission, discharged from custody a majority of those held.

Recently negotiations have been carried on between the miners' union and one of the large companies involved in the strike with the result that there is a possibility of a settlement being effected in that quarter, though the matter remains _in statu quo_ until the return from the tropics of the president of the company. Recently some of the troops have been withdrawn from the strike zone, though martial law is still in force.

MILITIAMEN ESCORTING PRISONERS TO COURT MARTIAL]

SOCIAL FORCES

By EDWARD T. DEVINE

CONSTRUCTIVE RELIGION

Greed, selfishness, privilege, injustice, exploitation, ignorance, and neglect are the seven deadly sins of modern civilization. These evils are alike in this, that they all have their roots in defective or abnormally developed character. Weakness and pathological strength are their opposite but closely related and interdependent poles.

Revolution will not exterminate them, except that revolution within the soul of man which transforms weakness and moral disease into health and normal vigor; which eats away the abnormal excrescence of harmful qualities and transforms the monster into a sane and self-controlled individual.

Laws will not of themselves exterminate the least of the social evils, save as they correspond to a previous clear recognition of their wisdom and justice in the free minds of citizens. If graft and privilege express the habitual manner of doing business, the natural mental reaction of the average man of the community, then it will be true, as an investigating committee has said, that there is no virtue in the legislative printing press.

Philanthropy is no cure for the evils which cause crime, poverty, squalor, and degeneracy. It is a necessary means of dealing with certain definite conditions, but those conditions are symptoms of ulterior maladies which the charitable relation does not reach. Neither alms-giving nor preventive measures touch the real sources of regeneration and health.

Education, in the specific sense of preparation for efficient work and the development of the mental powers, such education as by mutual consent we expect from our public schools, does not begin early enough, or last long enough, or go far enough into the fields of personal habits, ideals, and motives to guard even against ignorance, at least that kind of wilful and appalling ignorance which prevents half the world from knowing how the other half lives, even when the facts are spread abroad equally in official reports and in popular literature; that kind of ignorance which blinds the eyes of the more favored of fortune and blasts the tender shoots of altruism which their hearts here and there put forth. If education cannot prevent even ignorance of this kind how much less can it be regarded as a remedy for deliberate exploitation and conscienceless greed.

If neither revolution nor laws nor yet formal education can cure these root evils, is there no cure? There is one potent, wholly efficacious cure, and that is such teaching and such an experience as will supplant selfishness and greed by generosity and compassion, the desire for privilege by the desire for equal opportunity, the instinct of injustice by the passion for justice, the tendency to exploit by the tendency to nobly serve, ignorance and neglect by a clear-eyed and persistent determination to know and understand and to act on that knowledge and understanding. This teaching, wherever it is carried on and in whatever name, is essentially religious teaching, and this experience, seizing upon the individual, is nothing else than a religious conversion. This is not to distort words from their established and usual meaning but only to apply them as they must be applied.

No rich and educated Jew can justly claim a share in the glorious traditions of his religious faith if he oppresses the poor and crushes the needy; if, lying upon beds of ivory, inventing instruments of music, drinking wine in bowls, and anointing himself with the chief ointments, he is not grieved for the afflictions of Joseph, if he afflicts the just, or takes a bribe, or turns aside the poor in the gate from their right. The afflictions of Joseph are different in these days, the form of bribery has changed, the rights of the poor from which they are turned aside are not precisely those which the prophet Amos had in mind; but the teachings remain, and the curse upon those who "rejoice in a thing of nought" may not unprofitably ring in the ears of Jews and Christians with all the old time authority and effect.

But how about the position of the prosperous and influential Christians professing a law of love, the son-ship of all men to a common Father, a gospel of good will embracing justice and implying obligations stretching in all directions infinitely beyond justice, but never denying it in the least iota? If this profession is not arrant hypocrisy or pure self-delusion, the faith which he holds will instantly expel the very evils from which we suffer, and nothing else except such faith will expel them. Religion goes to the very roots of character, cleansing the evil nature, revealing new motives, illuminating the mind, trans-valuing values, strengthening the will, lessening the power of temptations, setting the feet on safe paths, giving a new meaning to common experiences and a new zest to life.

The question remains whether this kind of constructive religion, this vital, living and vibrant faith, is to be found today in the churches and synagogues, or whether it has departed from its ancient altars, perhaps to reappear in strange disguises in the labor movement, in art or poetry or philosophy, or among humble people who do not have the means as yet of expressing the new impulses.

It is a grave question--for the churches. One interesting indication that it is to be answered in favor of the continued claim of the existing religious bodies to represent the main current of flowing religious faith, work, and thought is to be found in a new journal which appeared on the news-stands in March with the captivating title _The Constructive Quarterly_. Silas McBee, former editor of the _Churchman_, is its editor, but it is to have no "editorial pronouncements."

What is distinctive about this new periodical is that it is to work for a better understanding among the various communions of Christendom, building on what the churches are actually believing, doing, and thinking. It is not seeking neutral territory where courtesy and diplomacy would tend to avoid issues and round off the sharp edges of truth and conviction, but rather common ground where loyalty to conviction will be secure from the tendency to mere compromise and to superficial and artificial comprehension. In the first number there is a striking array of able articles from Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Protestants, from Europeans and Americans, clergymen and laymen. It will be difficult to maintain so high a standard; but the idea is an inspiring one and deserves to succeed.

The tragedy of ecclesiastical history in all ages is the spilling of blood and treasure by the churches in warfare against other forms of faith. It is true that the decay of religious controversy has usually meant a decay of interest in religion. A writer in the _Quarterly_ quotes Tennyson as having said, "You must choose in religion between bigotry and flabbiness." What the present venture is in some measure to test is the possibility of laying aside hostility while yet maintaining _esprit de corps_, to act in the spirit of Von Moltke's dictum, "March apart, strike together!"

The success of the effort will depend on the clear perception of the enemies against which the allied forces of religion are to strike, or dropping the figure, on the concentration of effort on the positive results which the forces of organized religion are to seek to secure in the social order. These lie partly at least, avoiding dogmatic exaggeration, in those social relations in which the evil tendencies to which we have referred are so apparent. The religion which is constructive is one which makes men unwilling to exploit the vices or weaknesses of their fellow men, and at the same time makes the other men unexploitable, which destroys privilege through just laws, impartially enforced, and upheld by enlightened public opinion, which dispels ignorance by full and exact knowledge bearing fruit in sound measures of social reform, which protects the sub-normal and emancipates the handicapped from their limitations, which permeates education, business, politics, and eventually the entire social life.

There may be other tests of true religion, but these are concrete, easy to understand and to apply. They have ancient and sufficient sanction. They are unsectarian and non-controversial.

STRANGE INCENSE

CARY F. JACOB

_A tiny, tangled head bent down
Within a city's gutter--
A laughing face of tan and brown
Amid the rubbish of the town._

_Mud-pies and broken glass all day
Bring fairyland from far away
To thee, sweet innocence, at play._

_But mud-pies blacken; glass gives pain,
And laughing eyes are turned to gain
'Mid cold and hunger, snow and rain._

_God shield thee, tangled head bent down
Within a city's gutter!
Poor lily of the noisome town!
Strange incense, shed o'er stranger ground!_

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple typographical and spelling errors were corrected.

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this work; otherwise they were not changed.