The Schoolteacher vs. The Coal Baron

I am teaching school in Newcastle and have been for about two years and four months. I have taken little interest in the question of Chinese slave labor until lately, and as a consequence, have felt of late that there were more Chinamen employed at Coal Creek than was necessary, when we had white labor lying idle in Newcastle so much of the gate. How to rid ourselves of these Chinamen is a question that should interest every white-worker in Newcastle; and yet the question that is so hard for us to solve is to be settled by Mr. John L. Howard by a mere stroke of the pen. If Mr. Howard would turn his attention to this important matter, and not devote so much time in trying to destroy the character of one of King county’s poorly paid school teachers, he could do much more good for our community.

I have looked with pity upon men who have had to trade at the Company’s store, where they have to pay such exorbitant prices. I felt, in common with others, the imposition of compelling single men to board at the Company’s cookhouse, thus depriving widows whose husbands had been killed in the mines of their only visible means of support. All of these things have been crushing to one who was brought up on a farm and learned the true meaning of the word freedom. In the face of these wrongs, I joined the Knights of Labor, hoping to be of use in a cause which is to benefit the working man. Knowing that the Company had helped to crush the life out of the last labor organization, I asked Mr. Howard if they were willing for this new lodge to live. He gave me to understand that they would leave us alone if we did them no more harm than the Masons, Odd Fellows and other beneficial societies are doing. If I told him that I would withdraw from the order at the pleasure of the Company, I certainly did not mean it. No man who claims to be free can afford to sell himself so cheaply. If Mr. Howard has succeeded in destroying my reputation as a teacher, I will go with them—not to China, but to a country where there is no slave labor, and where all white men have equal rights.