If the workers are organized, all they have to do
is to put their hands in their pockets
and they have got the capitalist class whipped.
-Big Bill Haywood
Hellraisers Journal, Friday November 29, 1907
Goldfield, Nevada – Miners Strike Against Scrip Peonage
The following reads like a report written by the mine owners themselves, and yet makes clear why the gold miners of Goldfield are now on strike.
From the Reno Evening Gazette of November 27, 1907:
Grievance Over Manner of the
Payment of their Wages
—–Rumor of Open Camp Results
—–(Special to the Gazette.)
GOLDFIELD, November 27.-Once again the miners of this camp have decided that they would rather be idle than work. This time the grievance is the matter of payment of wages, the miners taking exception to the cashier’s checks that have been given them in return for their toil. The strike was foreshadowed last week, but it was hoped that the working miners would be able to vote the motion down, as it was known that they were opposed to the action of the idle members of the union. The checks that have been given to the men are negotiable at every store in the camp, but this fact has not prevented the men from again tying up the camp.
The leasers are not affected materially as their time limit will be extended, and the operators themselves are not greatly bothered because they are willing to shut down until the smelters accept ore at reasonable prices.
It is whispered on the streets today that one result of this move of the miners will be the importation of Slav miners, such as are now being employed by the Tonopah Mining company. These men belong to the union but they are glad to get the high wages that are paid in the southern camps. Their presence in Tonopah has greatly affected the business men, as they live as cheaply as Chinese and patronize their own countrymen exclusively. Many Tonopah merchants have been practically forced to suspend business because of the encroachments of small Greek stores which get practically all the business of these imported miners. Goldfield business men fear that the operators in this camp will take similar action and that the doom of many business houses will surely follow.
There is also some talk that an open camp will be the result of this strike, because it is known that the operators have previously expressed the determination to run the mines as they pleased if the demands of the union become intolerable. It may be that this trouble will be the one that will precipitate a crisis.
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