The Scab Who Spoke Out: A Newcastle Miner’s Defense Against the 'Ring'

To the Editor:

I take the liberty to address you on a subject which will no doubt be interesting to many at this time. Upon referring to the previous number it will be the same to whom I refer.

It is not my intention to discuss the merits of the strike, but the manner in which the employees were treated by their employers and their officers were conducted towards them. It was not our fault that we broke the union, but the cause of the trouble lay in the conduct of the officers. We had no other means left us than to remain at our posts until the matter could be adjusted.

It is not true that I am a scab, but I have been called one by those who would see the company succeed at any cost. The company and their agents may reason in this way: 'We will take advantage of the strike market to tyrannize them.' But in the present state of affairs, I believe the employees will make this we were as secure as anything out of place if we were to request them to allow us to share in the advanced price of coal. Therefore, I moved to take steps in that direction.

The motion created considerable comment. Mr. Williams, the third workman, took offense at Mr. Smith's words and after making quite a pathetic speech, vacated the chair. This created quite a babble during which time I had all kinds of abuse shouted at me from all parts of the hall. While the fan came up one fellow shouted out 'I'll kick the scab through the window.' When quiet was restored, I prayed the indulgence of the meeting for a few moments and said, 'I claim the right of a free American citizen to voice my opinion, no matter if those opinions differ from every other person here, so long as I express them in a gentlemanly manner, and in asserting this right, I ask no more than has been wont to be allowed to every individual, no matter where I have found him.'

I did not attend any more of these meetings for three months and did not intend to go to any more. A week or two after I concluded to stay away from those meetings, the fire house, etc., the mine down. Then the engine could be restored again, one side of the mine was on fire. When everything was in shape to light the fire the superintendent was obliged to take every man in his turn who had some time to attempt to subdue a mine fire with men who did not know enough to take care of it in a mine.

At one of these mines were no new hires whatever but they were getting three dollars per day. About this time the superintendent laid off one of the foremen for having hay on top of the loader, sometime prior to the fire. I will now give you a sample of the arbitration the people of Newcastle led by that individual who claims to be master workman, gave the Oregon Improvement Company. They sent no committee to investigate, but requested him to maintain that Armstrong in his refusing to comply with their request... they ordered the mine down, at the same time stopping payment and freezing out.

About this time most men having families have some means were limited considered there would be no harm in going elsewhere to work for a month or two until the mine was in running order again. When the mine commenced operating again these men returned to their families thinking they had nothing else to do but resume their places in the mine and glad that they had had a little work elsewhere to help them to maintain their families during the stoppage. Imagine the surprise of these men when they learned that this gentleman and a few of his associates had notified the superintendent to fill their places with slate pickers from the bunkers, the miners to go picking slate and wait their turn to get into the mine again as if they were just newly hired.

All these men belonged to the Knights of Labor here—with two exceptions—and they resolved that if that was the kind of treatment they were to receive at the hands of their brother Knights the sooner they pulled out from them the better. This is what sounded the death knell of the extreme in Newcastle.

These people were in the habit of meeting every evening to discuss their plans and a miner named Thomas Nayler came to my room and asked me to go to the meetings with him himself and others who had joined hands to break up the tyrannical ring that was ruling Newcastle more despotically than any body of the company had ever done. I at first demurred and at last consented. We went to the meetings and outvoted these parties every occasion, as you see this was a case of forming one ring to burn another.

These parties were always shouting that we would have to abide by the majority as long as their combination was the majority, but as soon as the above got on the other foot they wished their party to be the ruling power anyhow. Through some disgraceful proceedings in March last, this Terrace and others were suspended from all the rights and privileges of K. of L. This sentence has never been revoked by any competent authority.

The reason he master workman of that company was not attending the meetings after the master workman decided that the local assembly could not do legal business until that sentence was complied with, and as he threatened to kill the first person who attempted to put him out of the meeting, the people here concluded that he was one of Sheriff Corcoran's deputies the best course they could pursue was to give him and his friends the saloonery to themselves. They left them and started a trade union, but that don't seem to satisfy them.

The proposition he is reported to have made to his friends from Kelton and Mr. A. Miller is that, seeing that he and I are the cause of the present trouble that we both leave the camp. He can please himself concerning the matter, but I do not know of anything I have done that I should leave the place for, so I believe I will all leave when I am ready. That is if he don't bring his friends here again to hang me or run me out, as they threatened to do when they visited us the other day.

I want to correct a few of the statements he made to you. In the first place the people who were forced to cease work on Saturday are no scabs but the regular employees.