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In Pennsylvania. While the President thus addressed all U. S. Labor, he was particularly mindful of 55,000 insubordinate Pennsylvania coal miners. These men had originally struck to force recognition of their union. United Mine Workers of America, by non-union operators. In the code and contract that became operative last week, the miners had won this objective. Their union chief had ordered them back to work, when they demanded something more: recognition of U. M. W. by the operators of "captive"' mines— those owned by the non-union steel industry. The steel men had agreed to give their miners the same treatment provided by commercial mines but without signing any contract. This arrangement the President approved, but still the insurgent miners stayed on strike (TIME, Oct. 9). They now demanded "recognition" of U. M. W. by introducing the "checkoff" system in the captive mines. By the check-off system the employer collects dues for the union by withholding them from the workers' pay envelopes. This the steel-masters declined to do lest it wedge the union idea into their non-union world. Led by red-headed Insurgent Martin Ryan, 30,000 diggers massed outside Uniontown, swore they would not work in any kind of coal mine until the captive owners granted the checkoff.
Although he might license out of existence any mine, shop or factory which violated its industrial code, no law empowered the President to make workers work. Personality and the prestige of his office were all the President could bring to bear. How he had tried these were revealed by Philip Murray, the United Mine Workers' white-haired, black-browed vice president, in a speech at Pittsburgh last week:
"The President of the U. S. has commanded you to go back to work. Any union or union officials who refuse to obey that command will not live long."
And United Miner Murray concluded his appeal even more strongly: "Today you are fighting the coal companies, but tomorrow, if you remain on strike, you will be fighting the Government of the United Slates. Today you are conducting a strike. But tomorrow you would be conducting a rebellion!"
At Washington, But the miners si ill stayed out and the President's next move was to summon a committee of captive mineowners to the White House. To U. S. Steel's Myron C. Taylor, Bethlehem's Eugene G. Grace, National's Ernest T. Weir and Jones & Laughlin's George Laughlin Jr. was presented an eight-point program, written in the President's own hand and scrutinized by General Johnson, which provided for a meeting between captive operators and union representatives. "Failing in agreement on any point . . . the President will pass on the questions involved, and will in making decisions use the principle that captive mines must operate under conditions of work substantially the same in the broadest sense as those which obtain in the commercial mines. ... In the meantime, and with realization that every effort at speedy ending of these matters is being sought, the President requests that work be continued and resumed and that order be maintained."