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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 8, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1901, Part II
Found Ready to Answer Call for Annual Convention of Coal Miners
From The Indianapolis News of December 23, 1901:
TO MINE WORKERS
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Call for Annual Convention Next Month.
———-NEARLY A THOUSAND DELEGATES WILL ATTEND.
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GREAT LABOR ORGANIZATION
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PRESIDENT MITCHELL ON CIVIC FEDERATION PLAN.
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He Sees Great Promise in the Proposed
Meeting of Capital and Labor.
———-[Mother Jones to Take Part.]
The call for the annual convention of the United Mine Workers of America and the joint conference of the miners and bituminous operators of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, who are now represented in the interstate agreement, was issued to-day. The convention of the mine workers will be held in Tomlinson Hall. It will begin January 20, and will continue until January 30, when the miners and operators will begin their joint conference.
President Mitchell said to-day that the convention will be the largest that has ever represented any single body of organized labor. Numerically it will exceed the convention of the American Federation of Labor, held recently at Scranton, Pa., as there will be nearly one thousand delegates. Preparations are being made throughout every bituminous field in the United States now for the meeting. It is also expected that every operator of the four States concerned in the interstate agreement will be represented.
The operators of Virginia and West Virginia, who thus far have refused to meet the miners, have been invited and it is thought that a number of them will be present and will pave the way for a joint agreement between them and their men. Secretary [William B.] Wilson, of the miners, says that Ben Tillett, the famous English labor leader, will be present throughout the proceedings. “Mother” Jones, a national character among labor unions, will also take part in the convention…
At their convention, the miners will determine on the basis for their scale for the coming year and will also prepare other demands to which they will ask the operators to agree. All the proceedings except when the scale is fixed will open to the public. The operators also will probably meet in Indianapolis a few days before the date of the joint conference for the purpose of arranging for the presentation of their side. The night of January 30 at banquet will be given at Tomlinson Hall for the miners and operators.
The mine workers compose the largest labor organization in the world. The membership is now above 275,000.
President Mitchell, who has just returned from New York, where he attended the meeting of the National Civic Federation, says the work it contemplates is the greatest thing of the kind ever attempted, and that its magnitude can not be overestimated. He thinks that the fact that men like Senator Hanna and President Schwab, of the steel corporation attended the meeting is an acknowledgment of the fact that there is a labor problem to solve. He is also encouraged because men like Senator Hanna expressed a willingness to meet with representatives of organized labor in joint conference for the purpose of signing annual agreements. It is the opinion of President Mitchell that the Federation will try to work out a scheme whereby representatives of labor and capital everywhere may meet and perfect an annual agreement, “Whenever the representatives of capital and labor meet on an equality,” he declared, “then they will reach at agreement.”
President Mitchell thinks it probable that the Civic Federation will have another meeting in New York in February.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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