Have you ever thought how common it is for the persons who work for
others to think that they do not have enough pay for what they do? The
boy who mows the lawn wants more than the landlady is willing to pay.
Thus it was in 1902 when thousands of coal miners in Pennsylvania
became dissatisfied with their wages and started a great movement to
force their employers to pay them more.
On one side were the rich men who owned the mines. They, eager to make
as much money for themselves as possible, were not willing to pay the
miners fair wages. Furthermore, they would not spend money to make the
mines safe for the men who worked in them. Accordingly, the living
conditions among the miners were wretched indeed. Poorly paid, they
were forced to dwell in houses that were little more than huts, and
were required to live on the coarsest fare. So dangerous were the
mines that accidents were of almost daily occurrence; yet nothing
could be done as the miners were without a leader. True, labor
agitators came and with silver speech aroused the miners, but they did
not tell them what to do.
For a long time the battle cloud grew darker until finally the whole
nation became alarmed. So grave was the situation that Theodore
Roosevelt, then president, was asked to help avert the crisis that
seemed inevitable. At once the president left Washington for the
scene of conflict. Day after day he sought among the sullen,
half-crazed men for some solution of the difficulty, until finally he
discovered a man big enough to bring order out of confusion.
Mr. Hugh C. Weir, in speaking of this discovery, says: "From the
inferno of the coal-strike dates the cementing of those ties of
friendship and comradeship which have bound John Mitchell and Theodore
Roosevelt. The president, plunging into the heart of the strike,
sought and found the man whose hand held the pulse of events. He found
him, haggard and white with the strain of a great exhaustion, upheld
by the inspiration of a great purpose, and forthwith John Mitchell,
coal-miner, son of a coal-miner, came into a place in the Roosevelt
esteem which few men have equaled and no man surpassed. When at the
White House conference of American governors, the president invited as
guests of honor those five Americans who, in his judgment, ranked
foremost in current progress, John Mitchell, the labor man, was high
in the quintette." To have a plain coal-miner thus honored by the
President of the United States is so exceptional that we cannot help
wondering what there was about Mr. Mitchell that earned for him such
distinction. To discover the source of his greatness it is necessary
to study his life.
John Mitchell was born in the cottage of a humble coal-miner at
Braidwood, Illinois, in 1870. In those days Braidwood was a dreary,
dirty mining town almost surrounded by broad stretches of swamp.
When John was but three years of age his mother died. His stepmother,
who no doubt meant well, was not affectionate; on the contrary she was
very severe. As they were very poor she had to take in washings, and
day after day it fell to John's lot to help his stepmother with the
washings.
When he was six years of age, his father, the only real friend he had
in the world, was brought home dead, killed in a mine disaster. In
speaking of this period in his life Mr. Mitchell says: "The poverty
and hardships that followed were marked by one circumstance that is
imprinted indelibly upon my memory and which has had an impelling
influence upon my whole life. My father had served a full term of
enlistment as a volunteer in the Civil War. When he was discharged
from the army he brought home with him his soldier's clothes, and I
remember so well that when we had not sufficient bed clothing to keep
us warm in the cold winter nights, I would arise and get the heavy
soldier's coat and spread it over my little half-brother and myself.
When we were snug and warm beneath it I would feel so happy and proud
that my father had been an American soldier. And through all the years
that have passed since then I have felt that same pride in the memory
of my father, and in the love of country which, along with a good
name, was our sole heritage from him."
When John was about ten, his stepmother married again. From the first
his stepfather did not like him, and soon he became so cruel that the
boy's heart was completely broken. With no home, with no one who cared
for him, the big world seemed cold indeed.
Finally, unable to stand the abuse of his stepfather longer, he
gathered his few belongings in a small bundle and started out to make
his own way in the world. For a boy of only ten this was by no means
easy. From house to house he asked for work until finally a farmer
gave him a job. Though the hours were long and the work heavy, John
stuck to it for more than a year when he went to a mine in Braidwood
and got a job as breaker boy. Here he remained until he was twelve
when he decided to go west. With no money and no friends he worked his
way by slow stages all the way from Illinois to Colorado. He had hoped
that mining conditions would be much better in Colorado, but found
them even worse than they had been in Illinois. Unable to earn enough
to supply the bare necessities of life, the miners were suffering
hardship and want.
Thus surrounded by misery, John, though but a lad, found himself
trying to think out ways of helping these unfortunate men and their
families, for he could not believe that it was right for them to
suffer as they did.
Finally conditions in Colorado became so bad that John, then twenty
years of age, decided to return to Spring Valley, Illinois. Here, for
the first time in his life, he saw a labor union so conducted that it
was a force. The members of this union, all working men, met each week
and discussed matters that were of interest to all. After discussing
the topics they passed resolutions which they presented to the mine
owners. In this way they were able to secure better wages, shorter
hours of work, and safer mines in which to work.
In these labor meetings young Mitchell took an active part and soon
developed ability as a public speaker. From the first his advancement
in the ranks of organized labor was rapid, so rapid in fact that at
thirty we find Mitchell president of the United Mine Workers of
America. At the time he became president the organization had but
about forty thousand members, but under his skillful leadership it
grew until in 1908 its membership numbered over three hundred thousand
men. Mr. Mitchell is still in the prime of life and is one of our most
skillful and trusted labor leaders.
Better to appreciate the worth of the man, let us consider the
following tribute to him: "He chose to use this unusual ability for
the many rather than for himself alone. It seemed better to him that
many thousands should eat more and better bread each day than that he
should have for himself ease and luxury.
"Andrew Carnegie, beginning as John Mitchell did, in poverty and
ignorance, made himself one of the foremost men of his time in the
finance of the world. Behind him lies, as the result of his life work,
a better system of refining steel, innumerable libraries--his gifts,
and bearing his name,--a hundred millionaires and more--his one-time
lieutenants--and personal wealth so great as to tax his gigantic
intellect to find means for its expenditure.
"John Mitchell, in a life much shorter, leaves behind him not a better
system of refining steel, not a hundred millionaires, not innumerable
libraries with his name in stone over the doors, but better living
conditions for four hundred thousand miners--more wages, fewer hours
of labor, less dangerous mine conditions, far-reaching laws for
greater safety, a better understanding between capital and labor."
* * * * *
"_Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but
our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself
become a vast and splendid monument,--not of oppression and
terror--but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world
may gaze with admiration forever._"
--DANIEL WEBSTER.