The Kaiser’s Radical Solution for Mine Safety
A Tacoma newspaper looks to Germany to argue that recognizing labor unions makes mines safer and more efficient for everyone.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The country still stands in danger of just such an upheaval in the coal mining industry as that which struck terror to industry when Roosevelt intervened, appointed a commission, and stopped the great strike a few years ago. The miners demand the recognition of their unions, and some different conditions of labor. The operators refuse to recognize the union, and will not consider the miners' demands. They say it would revolutionize the coal business and work terrible damage and wrong if they did it. Would it? Do the miners demand anything that is on the face of it unreasonable? We are all vitally interested in industrial peace. We all hope that the strike, which coal magnates and labor magnates both say is still imminent in spite of the present truce, may be averted. Let us see how this matter of mines and miners is looked at in Germany. The kaiser is not a radical, but he takes quite a different view from our own on the matter of the recognition of miners' unions. There was a terrible mine horror at Radbod, in Germany, in which hundreds of men were killed. The emperor sent his son to look the scene over. When a bill was presented to him for signature governing the mining business, the kaiser refused to sign it unless it was amended: THE KAISER INSISTED THAT THE BILL COULD NOT BECOME A LAW UNLESS THE MINERS' UNION WAS RECOGNIZED, AND GIVEN THE SUPERVISION OF ALL ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE SAFETY OF MINERS IN THE PITS. The mine owners kicked, but the kaiser was firm. The capitalists yielded, and the miners' union now runs the mines as to the important matter of safety devices. No trouble has resulted. After all, the people who are the most interested in the proper management of mines are those who do the suffering when they are unwholesome, and the dying when they blow up.
“The people who are the most interested in the proper management of mines are those who do the suffering when they are unwholesome, and the dying when they blow up.”
This 1909 editorial highlights a historical moment where even conservative leaders recognized that worker-led safety oversight was common sense. It echoes modern debates about labor's role in corporate accountability and the inherent tension between profit and the safety of essential workers.
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