The fifteenth annual convention of the United Mine Workers of America
met at Indianapolis, Ind., January 18 and continued in session to and
including January 27, 1904.
The regular convention was followed by a special session (from March 5
to March 7 inclusive), made necessary by the failure of the regular
convention to effect a satisfactory renewal of the interstate agreement
with the operators, which expired March 31, 1904.
For a time a strike seemed imminent, there being intense opposition to
the wage-reduction which the operators declared to be their ultimatum.
The convention rejected the ultimatum of the operators, but the matter
was finally referred to the local unions, and the latter, yielding to
the importunities of the national officers, voted to accept the terms of
the operators, and the threatened strike was averted.
A few days later Eugene V. Debs wrote the following letter in reference
to the matter which appeared in the _Social Democratic Herald_ of
Milwaukee, Wis., in its issue of April 9, 1904: