Call Miner's Union A War Organization

CALL MINERS' UNION A WAR ORGANIZATION

Operators tell the Coal Commission that United Mine Workers prevent Industrial Peace.

Special to The New York Times April 25, 1923

Washington, April 24- In their attempts to break down the open shop the United Mine Workers of America
have been accustomed at times to start violent attacks against of any form of industrial relations not approved
by them and substitute war for industrial peace, it is charged in a brief filed today by the bituminous operators'
special committee with the coal commission.

The brief prepared by Henry L Stimon and Goldthwaite Door, counsel for the operators, outlines alleged activities
of union agents of Northeastern Kentucky, and centers it's arguments on events at Van Lear and Thealka, mining
communities, near Paintsville where the brief alleges, the politics of The United Mine Workers halted progress and
peaceful industrial relations for decades.

The event of coal mining in Johnson County, of which Paintsville is the seat. Brought paved streets, recreation centers, hospitals, shower baths at working quarters an abolition of typhoid fever, and double dages in what was formerly a poor farming section, according to the brief. There had never been trouble between the workers and employers, improvements in working conditions had been steady under shop committee systems or on the employers' initiative and the companies at Van Lear and Thealka had employed union and non-union men alike.

Then in 1922 as part of an alleged in a nation wide attempt to starve the public into submission, the union minority
among the miners, the brief charges by "systematic intimidation and violence, culminating in two murders succeeded
in terrorizing the much larger of contended men who wished to work and in paralyzing to a large extent the operation
of the companies and the production of coal". It is alleged that there were no local grievances or issues of any kind.


Documentary evidence of the cases accompanies the brief and a former request for open hearings at which to produce witnesses is reiterated.

In summing up the brief asserts that the effort to resolve the labor question by methods of democracy an co-operation can not be successful unless protected against the force of this war organization of mine workers. Unless such protection against the use of force is given by Government and by law there is no recourse left to the operator but to protect himself.