Roslyn Miners End a Three-Month Strike — and Return to the Pits at a 20 Percent Cut

ROSLYN, Aug. 7. — [Special.] — A mass meeting of the late miners and drivers of the Northern Pacific Coal Company was held Monday afternoon. After a thorough discussion of the situation they decided, by an almost unanimous vote, to go to work. A committee waited upon the company and was informed that all the men, with the exception of about four, would be given an opportunity to sign a contract and would begin work. The report was favorably received, and the office was open until late at night to give the men an opportunity to sign. Wednesday morning the works will start with full force, and assurance is given the mines will operate five, if not six, days in the week. General good feeling exists over the turn of affairs, and an impression has been formed on substantial grounds that in the future Roslyn will do better than at any time in the past.

Gov. John H. McGraw visited Roslyn today and was the guest of Mayor W. H. Harris. It was his first visit to this city. He was agreeably surprised at the magnitude of the coaling industry here and the air of prosperity that prevails, in view of the fact that the large force of men employed by the Northern Pacific Coal Company had just concluded a three months' strike. He arrived in the town unannounced, having ridden on horseback from Cle Elum, but he was soon recognized by all his friends and acquaintances, to whom he expressed great satisfaction over the adjustment of the differences between the coal company and the old employees. Shortly after his arrival the governor was escorted to the mine by Mayor Harris and W. H. Ryland, late of Olympia, by whom he was introduced to Superintendent George B. Harrison. The latter showed the party through the outer works, and the governor was given a pretty general idea of the largest coaling plant in the state. During the morning he met many of the miners, to whom also he expressed his great satisfaction over the fact that the works would resume on Wednesday morning. After lunch Superintendent Harrison placed the motor train at the disposal of the governor and his party, and he returned to Cle Elum to await the west-bound train for Seattle.

One of the reasons alleged by the Northern Pacific Coal Company, which operates the Roslyn mine, for the 20 per cent cut in wages to take effect May 1 was that it had contracted to supply the Union Pacific with coal at a low rate, and under that order there would have to be a reduction in the price paid for mining. It is not known as yet just how many tons per day the Union Pacific will require, but it is believed it will be delivered 300 tons per day. The Roslyn mines will also supply the Spokane, Walla Walla and Yakima companies, besides the Oregon Improvement railroad. When everything is shipshape it is expected the Roslyn mines will turn out over 1,000 tons per day. Some of its output will go as far as Butte.

In choosing Mr. Norton as the state organizer for the miners, Mr. McBride, the president of the miners in the country, appears to have made a grave mistake. Some of the miners refused to recognize Norton. He is not a mining man, but it appears that when the cut in wages was made at the Roslyn mines he wrote McBride and asked to be made the state organizer, which request was complied with. He did not succeed in organizing the state at all thoroughly.

The new contract which the miners have signed provides for work for one year at the price agreed upon. When the handful of negro miners appeared from Franklin and went to the office of the company, they were marched, or rather marched themselves, to the office and began signing the contract to go to work. This seems to have had the effect upon the Roslyn miners of the lead sheep to jump the fence. It sort of stampeded them.

Franklin colored miners walked over to Palmer and took the night overland train from that point, arriving at Roslyn early in the morning. The white Roslyn miners, it is understood, dreaded the arrival of negro miners, and the appearance of the "Bucks," as they are called, from King county, set them to thinking. The managers of the company knew of the departure of the Franklin colored miners, and while it is not admitted by the representatives of the company that they induced the negroes to go over to Roslyn, it was nevertheless considered a clever move on the part of someone to send the handful of negroes over from Franklin in order to help the company induce the strikers to make up their minds to go to work. The white miners who worked at Roslyn, it is understood, do not take kindly to the proposition of the company to make Roslyn a colored, or scab, camp, provided they refused to accept the 20 per cent cut.

The contract signed by the miners is to be in force for one year from May 1. Among points of importance contained in it are an agreement by the company to pay for each ton of coal mined and delivered; and a clause by which the miner agrees that he will not engage in any strike or combination for the purpose of causing the company to advance the rate of wages beyond what is specified, or in any way aid or countenance any such strike.