THE MINERS OF SCRANTON.
A few years ago I visited Hyde Park,—a mining division of the youthful city of Scranton. Besides boarding in the family of an operative, I talked with citizens, from miners to ministers, and took notes of these conversations. Upon the information thus obtained the following article is founded.
There hangs in our house a large map of the State of Pennsylvania of the year 1851. Scranton is not marked upon it. A little village named Providence is, indeed, to be found, which is now an inconsiderable part of consolidated Scranton. Nine years after the date of this map, by the census of 1860, the population of Scranton is given at nine thousand, and in 1870 at thirty-five thousand. This very rapid increase was caused by the working of the immense coal-beds which underlie the narrow valley of the Lackawanna, in which the city is situated.
Forty-five per cent. of the population is given as foreign, or fifteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven. The miners are almost all of foreign birth, the Irish being the most numerous, next the Welsh, then the Germans, and lastly the English and Scotch. Among the Welsh-speaking population there are, however, nativesof Monmouthshire, not now a portion of Wales, but belonging to England. Among the miners there are some Pennsylvania Germans. With the exception of these, there is scarcely to be found at Scranton a native of this country working underground, either as miner or laborer.
Gaelic is extensively spoken by the Irish here, there being women, I am told, newly come over, who do not speak English. The Welsh language is more extensively employed. There are seven churches of which the services are in that language, a Welsh newspaper, and a literary or scientific society.[166]But as the Pennsylvania German employs many English words in speaking “Dutch,” so does the Welshman introduce many into his vernacular, as “all right,” “exactly,” “you know,” “twenty per cent.,” “mortgage,” “explosion,” “universe.” In speaking English, those from South Wales treat the letterhas the English do, and speak of Mr. ’Iggins, and of picking ’uckleberries, or say, “That’s a hodd name,” “I have a hell kitchen to my house.” The Welshman frequently emphasizes a statement, as, “Yes, sure,” “Yes indeed, man.” He says, “Dear to goodness!” “I ’on’t do it, whatever,” etc., etc.
The Welsh have been accused of bearing malice, and of being clannish, or of “keeping together.” “I think,” says a Scotchman, “that that is why they keep up the Welsh language.” For themselves they claim that they were never subjugated. They are Republicans almost to a man, and equally Protestant; lovers of liberty, stubborn and enduring, not fickle. The Welsh churches atScranton belong to the three following sects: Independent or Congregational, Baptist, and Calvinistic Methodist.
The Welshman is an experienced miner in his own rugged country. We are informed that the coal-field of Glamorganshire, in Wales, is one of the most important mineral districts in the world, and that in this small district more iron is manufactured than in all the United States. The Welsh here work more exclusively at mining than do the Irish and Germans. The Welshman is the miner, who blasts and takes down the coal, while the Irishman loads it upon the cars, a certain number of car-loads forming his daily task.
The Irish are more volatile. They do not practise much domestic economy; their motto is more, “Come day, go day.” On a long strike they have generally nothing laid by for the emergency. A Catholic clergyman says, “The Irish are not fit forbossing; they are kept in too much subjection at home.” But the rule is not without exceptions. I visited a mine of which the inside foreman was an Irishman, and from Connaught too, that wild western district. Besides having attained to this position, he was a landed proprietor, the owner of a farm. He was more interested in politics than my Welsh acquaintances, saying that a friend of his, a miner, could speak as well as any politician.
The Irish are inclined to superstition. An Irishman tells me that some years ago a man having been killed in a mine by the falling of the roof, the story afterward got round that if persons would go on a moonlight night to a certain spot—a back road at Scranton—the fairiesmight be met there, and the lost man with them; then by throwing something, his friends could get him back all right. Some went there in fun, and some in earnest.
This is like the idea in “the old country” when a child dies, that the fairies have changed him, leaving another in his place, and that he might by some means be recovered. “Some tell it for a fact that they used to do so in Ireland.”
A Scotchman tells me that if a child, a cow, or a pig suddenly begins to decline in health, or a cow in milk, the Irish accuse some one of “looking over it.” They say that such persons do not know when they do it. This is doubtless “the evil-eye.”
An Irishwoman was telling us of her son’s losing a leg, the result of an accident when mule-driving in a mine. When she learned that the person hurt was her “Jamesey,” “Oh!” said she, “it was to be. I dreamed it a year ago.” She told us her dream, but it was very unlike the circumstance.
Germans, especially Catholics, are said to retain some of the superstitions of their native country, and to find “spooks” or spirits. A harmless superstition, if there be any such, is mentioned of them. They generally have gardens, and plant things “by the signs.” Beans planted in the decline of the moon they do not think will take to the poles.
A German foreman says, “I have sat and listened to the miners of different nations telling of spooks and ghosts seen in the mines and other places, but, if one questions them closely, it is a brother or an uncle who saw it, and not the man himself.”
The Welsh were formerly very superstitious, but theyare not so now. Says one, “We do not believe in signs or omens, or that any flesh can see spirits.” Another tells me that the belief in hobgoblins, ghosts, witches, fairies, and all kinds of signs and omens prevailed in Wales in his childhood, until about thirty years ago a very eminent Baptist minister, Robert Ellis, brought out a work calledOfergoelion y Cymry(or Superstitions of the Welsh), which attracted a great deal of attention, and had great effect upon the minds of the people in banishing all these ideas.
In spite of the efforts of their clergy the Irish still keep up wakes at funerals, watching the body of the dead. I am told that the friends of the family do not feel like sleeping, being sorrowful. In the old country neighbors would gather whether invited or not, and games would be introduced to keep them awake, but this custom is not followed here.
A Scotchman says that he thinks the Irish attend “buryings” better than any other nationality. At Scranton they impoverish themselves by the train of carriages hired to attend funerals. “It was a funeral of fifty carriages;” thus they estimate the honor and glory of the occasion. But that number was exceeded at the funeral of a poor Irishwoman at Scranton, when there were about one hundred and forty “rigs,”—the name given here to turnouts.
The Welsh do not make such display. A prominent Welsh citizen, a man of means, apparently wishing to set an example, hired only one carriage when burying his son, and walked himself in the funeral procession.
The chief hardship of the miner is the insecurity ofhis life. He is liable to accidents at any moment, either in blasting the coal, or from the falling of the roof in the passages and chambers of the mine, or from the explosion of fire-damp,—carburetted hydrogen gas,—an extremely explosive substance generated in the mine.
By an awful accident which occurred in the Avondale mine, more than one hundred men were suffocated below. At Scranton are interred the remains of about sixty of these sufferers. The fatal accident is supposed to have occurred thus. Over each of the mining shafts is erected a breaker or cracker,—an immense wooden structure,—to the top of which the loaded cars are drawn up and then “dumped,” the coal in its gradual downward progress being sorted, the greater part of it broken, sifted, and delivered into the cars beneath. The mine at Avondale was ventilated by means of a furnace or great fire, causing a draught. From this it is generally supposed that the breaker took fire, and this in turn set to burning a great body of coal; and as there was at the Avondale mine only one way of egress,—that is, up the shaft,—the men perished below.
At Scranton I saw a sad though simple ballad upon this disaster:
“But all in vain. There was no hopeOne single life to save,For there is no second outletFrom the subterraneous cave.No pen can write the awful frightAnd horror that did prevailAmong those dying victimsIn the mines of Avondale.”
“But all in vain. There was no hopeOne single life to save,For there is no second outletFrom the subterraneous cave.No pen can write the awful frightAnd horror that did prevailAmong those dying victimsIn the mines of Avondale.”
“But all in vain. There was no hopeOne single life to save,For there is no second outletFrom the subterraneous cave.No pen can write the awful frightAnd horror that did prevailAmong those dying victimsIn the mines of Avondale.”
“But all in vain. There was no hope
One single life to save,
For there is no second outlet
From the subterraneous cave.
No pen can write the awful fright
And horror that did prevail
Among those dying victims
In the mines of Avondale.”
The Ventilation Act passed by the Legislature ofPennsylvania after this great disaster forbids the working of any mine without two outlets. In one that I visited, instead of a furnace for ventilation, there was employed an immense fan, worked by a steam-engine, and supplying sixty thousand feet of pure air per minute.
Great precautions are also taken to prevent the explosion of fire-damp. Nevertheless, accidents do still occur from this cause, and, as we have said, from the falling of the roof, and this although one-third of the coal is left in for support for the rock above. Some companies will not insure the lives of miners, and when they do insure they demand a very high rate,—about like that charged for those engaged in the manufacture of gunpowder.
Besides the more fearful sufferings to which the miner is liable, it is not uncommon to see him working in water, perhaps up to his knees, and at the same time water may be dropping upon him from above. Sometimes, on account of powder-smoke from blasting, he must feel his way rather than see it. Yet it is a general impression that the miner’s health is good.
It must be accounted one of his hardships that he has not regular employment. At the time of my visit more than half the mines were not working at all, and the rest only on half time.
The miner’s luxuries are those of other poor men,—his pipe and glass of ale or beer,—though I must acknowledge that the Irishman has not dispensed with whiskey. “I do not think,” says Father ⸺, “that he drinks more than the Welshman, but perhaps he is more frequently seen intoxicated in public.” The Welshman, it has been said, does not drink so much here as athome, for he has bidden his native land farewell with the intention of making money. The use of malt liquors is very common in this region, and beer is abundant in the hardest times.
The Irish are fond of singing, dancing, and carousing. The saloons on Lackawanna Avenue have two rooms, the front one for drinking, the back for dancing and general amusement. On the contrary, dancing is generally considered a heinous sin among the Welsh. Says a friend, “The ministers denounce balls and dancing parties as they would manslaughter or murder.”
The German is fond of hunting. He has a gun and dog, and on a Sunday or other holiday, or when there is a breakdown in the mine, he goes hunting on the mountain, and brings home partridges, rabbits, or perchance a deer. Nor does he have to go far to find his hunting-ground. The valley of the Lackawanna is only about two miles wide, and lies in the Moosic Mountains, a part of the Alleghanies. The Germans are fond, too, of fishing. Their picnics and musical festivals generally begin on Saturday afternoon and conclude on Sunday evening. About two-thirds of the Germans go to church on Sunday morning, and many visit the beer gardens in the afternoon with their wives and children. They observe the church holidays, Good-Friday and Easter-Monday.
No Irish miners will work on St. Patrick’s Day. They generally go to church in the morning, and immediately after service, or about half-past nine, organize and form processions composed of their various beneficial societies,—the Father Mathew, St. Mary’s, St. Joseph’s, Young Men’s Beneficial, etc. They do not have a ballon St. Patrick’s Day, considering it to be somewhat a desecration. On the parade day of the Miners’ Union the different branches frequently have balls in the evening, and often with a charitable object, as for the relief of a poor woman whose husband or son has been killed in the mine. But since the unsatisfactory termination of the great strike in 1871 the parade day of the Miners’ Union, August 1, is not generally observed.
Our national holiday, July 4, is kept with great zeal by the Irish. It is an outlet for the expression of their animosity to England. In 1874 there was a great parade of several thousand persons, about two-thirds of whom were foreigners.
The Welsh have only one national holiday,—St. David’s Day, March 1. On this day, in Wales, they form processions and carry the leek, the national emblem. I saw it growing at Scranton, very much like the onion when standing. On this day in Wales they also have meetings for literary pursuits and for vocal music, being a great singing nation. St. David’s Day is still observed in some American cities, but among the people at large the celebration has died out here. Christmas is a great day among the Welsh, and is observed by meetings of theEisteddfod, a very ancient national gathering, which can be traced back for nine hundred years. The word means an assembly, and is pronouncedIce-teth-vod, theddbeing likethinthee.
These gatherings are literary and musical. At Hyde Park it is announced in the Welsh paper, in the spring of the year, that the Philosophical Society will, at the ensuing Christmas, give prizes for the best essay or the best poem on given subjects, and the best piece of originalmusic for given words, also for singing and recitation. But although, as I have stated, these meetings are generally held on Christmas, yet sometimes a neighboring town may prefer to fix upon New Year, thus enabling parties to attend both; and St. David’s Day is sometimes celebrated by an eisteddfod. From the exercises of these gatherings women are not excluded. The eisteddfods are very generally attended by the Welsh, and are held in some large public hall, the greater part of the performances being in the Welsh language. Some of the observances are described to me in simple language by one who has been a miner. He says that church choirs attend the eisteddfods, and some very difficult piece is selected for them to sing, the prize being about sixty to eighty dollars. Then there are singers alone, and in parties of three. “They get their poets there; they meet on Christmas morning about ten, and adjourn about twelve, and then give out subjects for the poets,—likely the Lackawanna River, or some subject they had never thought of before. At two o’clock these poets will be called upon to recite their verses,—two, perhaps,—and a small prize is given (about a dollar), principally for amusement. Again, they call for compositions in music on some given subject. They must be sent in beforehand, about two weeks before the eisteddfod, with the proper name under a seal, the judges being allowed only to see the fictitious name. Also they read, and the best reader gets a small prize, the piece being given out at the meeting where it is read. Another thing causes a good deal of laughter,—they ask who will volunteer to sing a musical composition from the notes; some half-dozen will throw in their names (fictitious), and then onewill be called out,—perhaps ‘Greenhorn;’ the other five will retire from the room, while he picks up the difficult piece, and begins to clear his throat and show his embarrassment, which is a subject of amusement to the spectators; then the second comes on, perhaps equally unskilful; and when all have finished, the remarks of the judge upon each performance are also very amusing, the prize being only about fifty cents. In order to avoid the singers being previously acquainted with the piece, sometimes a person may be sent out half an hour beforehand to compose one. The piece chosen is generally one very difficult to sing. They hold these eisteddfods in Wales. The Welsh bards have for centuries back been accustomed to poetry, and so forth. In London they invited, I think, nearly all the musicians in Europe to sing on a certain day, all nationalities, for a prize of one thousand pounds,—a silver cup. There came a choir of singers from Wales to compete with the best talent they had in England. The lords and members of Parliament were there. The English selected some of their most cultivated people, and the Welsh singers were miners and men of very little education, and they had to go from their own country; but they won the prize by a great distance, and then sang through different towns and cities in England. There was money raised here in Hyde Park to support them while they were training, and to take them up to London.”
A minister at the Welsh Congregational Church in Hyde Park gave me some explanation of this subject. He said that a company of musical persons connected with the Crystal Palace offered a prize for competition for vocal choirs, the reward being a silver cup worthone thousand pounds. In 1872 a choir of five hundred persons from South Wales, called the South Wales Choral Union, men, women, and children, principally miners and their children, appeared, and took the prize without competition. The next year, 1873, a trained band of English musicians, three hundred and fifty in number, appeared to compete for the prize, but without success, for the Welsh won it again. The English were from London, and were called the Tonic Sol Fa Association.
I heard nothing at Scranton, however, of the harp, once thought indispensable to the bards, two men on the street at Hyde Park, with pipe and bagpipe, being the only peculiar instrumental performers that I remember.
It might be supposed that so dangerous a pursuit as mining, with the horror of beholding accidents sometimes mortal, the uncertainty of obtaining regular employment, and, more than any of these, the working so far from the excellent light of the sun, would repress the buoyant spirits of the Irishman; but, says my Connaught acquaintance, “Working in the mines does not dull an Irishman’s spirits,—not a bit of it.”
A German also says that he does not think that working in the mines makes the Irish and others less fond of jokes, for they get together more. The mine is cool in summer and warm in winter, and if there is a lull, from want of cars or other cause, the men will squat down, miner fashion, and tell stories and crack jokes.
On a like occasion the little blackened slate-pickers swarm out of the cracker, like children let loose fromschool or like bees from the hive, and play at boyish games. Sometimes they get hold of an empty truck car, and ride down grade full speed, having the labor afterward of getting the car up again. When a loaded car is coming up the shaft, they can hear the warning whistle of the steam-engine, for soon the coal will be running down the chutes, and their labors recommence.
When the circus comes to town there is danger of a stampede among the boys who drive mules and perform like labors. They will come to the mine in the morning and gather together, and unless the “boss” is on the watch, they may be off in a body, and all work be at an end for the day, as the men cannot get on without them. On the contrary, if they are separated and started at their work, they will stay. But even the little fellows lately spoken of, “the boys in the cracker,” who pick the slaty refuse from the coal, have been known thus to stop mining operations.
The Welsh are not a humorous and jocose people like the Irish, though I am told that they are inclined to mirth when speaking together in their own language. A faint smile was caused at the Congregational church by a remark of the preacher. Translated, it amounts to this: “Some men drink a quantity of beer, which does not affect the brain, as they have so little brains;” and the application seems to have been that in a like manner the trials and vicissitudes of life affect some men little, as they have but little sensibility.
I am told that among the works of the Welsh poets are many epigrammatic stanzas. Of one of these, an epitaph, I received the following prose version: “In this life she told all the untruth that she could. Becareful not to wake her: if you do, she will say that she has been to heaven.”
The late hours which have been kept by our “Pennsylvania Dutch” whenFanny has a beau oncedo not prevail among the Welsh at Scranton. A gentleman who leads a large church choir, of which all the men are miners, and not half of these church members, tells me that the young men wait upon the young women home before nine, chat a while on the front porch or steps, and generally leave at ten.
A physician says that most of the courtship of the Welsh is begun, and often finished, while walking the streets after church. “This street is thronged,” says he, “on Sunday nights in summer. At first the young men walk behind, but after a while one step is quickened or the other slackened, or both, and they come together, and form lively parties, until ten or after. Courtships are brief, and the marriages early and happy.”
I asked a Welsh acquaintance whether his son married young. “No, he didn’t marry young; he was twenty-three.” Says another, “Young women among the Welsh miners marry from eighteen to twenty-two. At the latter age they are joked about being old maids.”
Miners’ wives generally hold the purse. As soon as he gets his pay and his fill of beer, the miner hands his wages to his wife, who acts as treasurer with much discretion, making all the purchases of the house and transacting the business of the family. A miner’s wife said to me, “My husband is a good workman. He never lost any time by drinking or anything like that. I nearly supported the family by my own sewing and bytaking boarders. Ever since I have been married I tried to keep our own table, and could generally do it unless I was sick. I ’most always had a good deal of my own way, but I always consulted him. He always gave me his wages. I think when a man gives his wife his wages she feels more interest. I’d kick up a big fuss if he did not give me his wages. Whenever he was going away, I’d remind him, ‘Charley, haven’t you got any money in your pocket?’ He knew where the money was, you know? We always had one purse. My purse was his, and his was mine. We have always lived in good unity together.
“This is not always the way with miners. We have a neighbor who must always go to the office on pay-day to get her husband’s money. He’ll go and take the pay, and hand it over to her. She says he always gives it to her. If she did not go and get it, he’d go to the saloon and spend it. It looks to me as if a man was so weak-minded, to do the like of that!”
The Welsh boys, too, hand their wages over to their mother. Germans, on the contrary, do not give their pay to the feminine head of the family; and, alas! a physician says that Germans are the best pay.
The Welsh woman is ambitious for her husband’s shoes to shine, and on every Saturday evening she blacks the shoes of the family (all set in a row), until the girls are old enough to relieve her. Another corrects this statement, saying that by the old Welsh rule Monday is the day for cleaning and putting away the Sunday’s shoes.
Mrs. ⸺ says that she sets a tub of warm water for her son when he comes home from picking slate at themine, and gives him soap and a woollen cloth, that he may “wash all over.” To bathe in this manner is almost a universal rule with the men on leaving the mine, and a physician says that he considers the daily bath beneficial to their health. Says an acquaintance, “Many think, ‘I would not have miners to sleep in my beds, they look so black and dirty.’ But there is scarcely one in five hundred that does not wash all over when he comes home from his work; the general rule is, before he eats his supper. He washes his head, and puts on his clean clothes, and looks more like a clerk in a store than a miner.”
When first I attended a Welsh church at Scranton, I was surprised at the nice appearance of the congregation, and I afterward inquired whether there were any miners there. But on my late visit I learned an almost invariable means of discovering who have worked in the coal mines. On the back of my host’s hands were many blue spots, looking like faint tattooing. These were marks where he had been cut by the coal. Miners frequently have one or more of these blue scars upon the face. The coal-dust doubtless remains in the wounded place, like Indian ink in tattooing; and by these marks you can perceive that men have been miners, though their occupation now be quite different.
The Welsh have three suits of clothes, one for work, one for evening, and another for Sunday. Their children look very neat when going to church or Sunday-school. The Irish mother, too, loves to see her children look fine on these occasions, but she does not show so much taste. Both are much attached to their churches and Sunday-schools. The Germans are not so devotional.
The education of miners’ sons is often much neglected. The law does not permit them to enter the public schools before the age of six; and although the Ventilation Act prevents children from working within the mines under twelve, yet no such prohibition exists as regards the breaker, or “cracker,” above the mine. A superintendent says, “I have had them to come at six, and their mothers with them, to get them taken on.”
Most of the recent Welsh emigrants, and those who are still poor and have large families, send their boys to work at the mine. But very few that have been in this country ten years are so poor as to be obliged to send them at an early age. We except those of dissipated habits, who spend their money in the saloons.
A German tells me that the children of German miners are generally sent to school, but so great is the demand for boys to pick slate in the breaker, that they generally go there at about eight or ten. Boys’ wages in the breaker begin at thirty-five cents per day, and go up to seventy-five or eighty-five. A mule-driver gets from seventy-five cents to a dollar. Even the little boys in the breakers are proud to receive their month’s wages, not to spend themselves, but to take home.
A friend says that as soon as the boy earns fifty cents at the mine, his sole ambition is to earn seventy-five, and then to be a driver. From driving one mule his desire is to drive a team, then to become a laborer, and then a full miner. To be a “boss,” or superintendent, is a distant object of ambition, like being President—
“Alps on Alps arise.”
“Alps on Alps arise.”
“Alps on Alps arise.”
“Alps on Alps arise.”
Almost every one has to work for some time as alaborer, loading coal, before he becomes a full miner. The sons of miners generally follow in their fathers’ footsteps; but those who have been here many years often look higher for their boys, and give them trades. I met a lawyer, an intelligent young man, whose father is a miner.
For the benefit of the boys in the mines here, the Catholic Church has organized night schools, open during the six colder months of the year. The boys, if able, pay from twenty-five to fifty cents a month. A Catholic clergyman estimates that over two-thirds of the boys attend these schools. As a general thing, the use of the public school buildings has been granted them, but the rooms are often overcrowded. Though principally organized by the Catholic Church, none are refused on account of their belief. But after working all day, the boy cannot bring so much animation to the night-school as if he were not fatigued. The girls have better opportunities, but they are often put out to domestic service at twelve or fourteen.
The fare of the miner is from necessity simple, not luxurious. He breakfasts at about five or six o’clock on bread, butter, and tea. In a little tin can he carries his dinner of bread and cheese, perhaps with the addition of a bit of pie or cake, and in a tin bottle cold tea without milk. Even this simple luxury is sometimes discarded, and water taken in its place. The miner proper finishes his work about four o’clock, and finds his best meal at home, often a “good cooked meal” of meat, potatoes, etc. We may call this dinner, and the former meal lunch. A miner tells me, however, that he has oftenbrought his food uneaten out of the mine from want of time; for he must have his car loaded when the driver comes for it, or lose one of the seven car-loads which form his daily work.
It is the Welshman who eats bread and cheese. His companion or laborer is generally Irish. He is detained longer in the mine, and wants meat for his noonday meal. Late in the fall, if the Irishman has not a pig, he generally buys from the country farmer a part of a beef, which he salts. Fresh meat from the stalls is too dear for him. When his beef runs out, he buys mess pork from the store; but I fear that he is not always able to take his bit of meat to the mine. Rather than cheese, he will take a couple of boiled eggs, for he is very fond of what he calls “a fresh egg.” He carries milk in preference to tea, and he loves to own a cow. Cows are often seen pasturing upon the commons or the unfenced land belonging to the companies, the surface of which is not yet sold for building-lots. The Irishman is very fond of keeping geese and ducks. When he has a lot, he raises potatoes and cabbage, for here, or at home, he dearly loves cabbage with his boiled bacon.
The German takes for his lunch bread and butter, and perhaps a “chunk of sausage,” and piece of pie or cake. His tin bottle holds coffee. The miner’s dinner-kettle and bottle are slung on a rope over one shoulder, and on entering the passages of the mine are hung on one of the props that support the roof. The men often play jokes on each other by stealing pie or cake. Of course, the German makes sauer-kraut. He keeps pigs, and sometimes buys a quarter of beef, which he smokes.
Great simplicity in food seems to exist among themining people in Wales, where it is said that they never think of eating butter and cheese at once; they would think it sinful. Mr. E⸺, of Scranton, says that he offered cold meat to an old Welsh lady who was visiting him, and she thanked him, but she had bread and butter. And Mr. J⸺, of Welsh birth, a miner from fourteen years to forty-six, tells me that if the streets were lined with meat, he could not eat it oftener than once a day, though he admits that he sometimes takes an egg or two for breakfast.
The Welsh miners who come to this country almost invariably bring one or two feather-beds. The German who can afford it sleeps in cold weather on one feather-bed and under another; if he cannot, he sleeps on straw and under feathers.
At his work the miner generally wears a woollen shirt, pantaloons of bed-ticking or stout linen, and heavy boots. I have seen the sole studded with iron lest the coal should cut the leather.
As to the number of miners who own their houses, I have heard various estimates for Scranton, as from one-third upward, the highest estimate being in one district seven out of ten of the married.
The German’s house is a good one, painted or whitewashed. Germans cultivate flowers and vegetable gardens, principally worked by the women, who carry produce in baskets for sale. The Welshman, too, when he has a home, has a comfortable one, looking quite pretty with its surroundings. But though the Irish often own their homes, these are of a ruder kind.
Has the miner aspirations? This question has been put, and I have been tempted to reply by another, Is he a man? Mr. L⸺, of Scranton, came to this country when about twenty. He worked a few months at Carbondale, in this Lackawanna region, and afterward in Ohio, mining bituminous coal by the bushel,—one hundred and twenty bushels a day, at two cents each. Here he laid by one hundred and thirty dollars, which he sent to Wales to bring his parents over. “I was,” said he, “the only son they ever ’ad.” At twenty-five he married, and soon after took a contract in a mine in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Here the failure of his employer threw him into debt, from which he was not clear until about thirty. He took contracts on coal slopes, working always as a miner himself, but hiring hands to help him. For twenty years he was a foreman, a foreman’s salary averaging twelve hundred dollars. He also went to California, and mined gold to profit. He bought, too, a farm in Pennsylvania for three thousand five hundred dollars, and tried farming himself for two years, but found it harder work than mining.
“Some eight of us,” he says, “all miners, bought some years ago about five and a half acres of ground here for eight thousand and fifty dollars. We sold it out in building-lots, in about two months, for nearly the cost, and retained the mineral, which we value at twenty thousand dollars.” By mineral is meant, of course, the coal, of which several valuable veins underlie Scranton at the point alluded to.
Mr. L⸺ continues: “Another company of us, all miners and all poor men originally, have bought a tract of four thousand acres of coal lands near the centre ofAlabama. I have been down twice to see it.” He has now retired from active business, and lives in a neat house surrounded by a large garden, which he cultivates with pleasure and profit.
Another instance of success in a more intellectual field is Mr. ⸺, editor of a Welsh paper. When he was eight years old his mother was left a widow, with nine children, from three years of age to sixteen, and with nothing but a few household goods. By putting her children to work early at the mines she kept her family together. She herself spoke nothing but Welsh. Mr. ⸺ was a precocious laborer, if I may use the expression, he being well grown, and becoming a driver at ten years, and a miner at sixteen. He never had but thirty-two days’ schooling; but having great delight in books, he got a Daboll’s Arithmetic, and went through it twice, and found some one to set him copies for writing, making use afterward of copper-plates. One great advantage which he had was the leisure which the miner often enjoys. He says, “When I was working at Carbondale two years, I could generally get my day’s work done by noon. When a miner, I wrote essays three times for the eisteddfod, and two of them drew prizes. These were each twenty-five dollars; but the pecuniary reward was not what we aimed at,—it was the honor. I gave up mining in 1869, and have been connected with a newspaper ever since.”
The miner occasionally attains to great wealth. Such, at least, was the case of Richard Care, of Minersville, of whom I hear that he came to this country a poor man, and died worth a million and a half.
But all these cases are exceptional. The chief ambition of the miners in general is plenty of work and good wages. “They’re death on the wages,” says one, “as the last suspension showed.” As to their desiring to improve their condition, a German tells me that there is always such a desire among his people. “I can take you up,” says he, “to Elmira, New York, and show you, I guess, a whole township of farmers who have been miners. The Germans who work here are very rarely from the mining districts of Germany, but from the agricultural. The German will take his boys into the mine to lay up a little capital, and having done this, he will buy a farm, or go into merchandise, or open a saloon.”
What provision has the miner for times when he is out of work?
I might answer after the manner of another,—credit, credit, credit. The miner is paid monthly, but by the smaller companies not always so often. Could he once tide over the first month, and enter upon the cash system, he might be pecuniarily benefited by the change, but he seems wedded to the credit system. Should any trader advertise that he would sell goods for cash twenty per cent. lower, I am told that the other store-keepers would throw their influence against him, and also that several cash stores have been tried in Scranton that did not succeed in the long-run. One of the main provisions against misfortune is the Beneficial Society. The miners do not, however, often join the Freemasons. Many of the Welsh belong to the following societies: Odd-Fellows, Foresters (a secret society of foreign origin), Ivorites (named for Ivor Hael, the Welsh founder), RedMen, and the “Philanthropic Institution.” There are other societies, Irish and German. As for the miner who does not belong to any of these, and who has no other means, if he meets with a serious accident or a protracted illness, he must go to the poor-house; but if I may credit good authority, he very rarely goes there.
Father ⸺ says, “We need hardly use the word poor-house here, for I never knew a miner to get there. The Irish have a horror of it; but occasionally some aged, dependent person goes. The law here forbids out-door support for the poor.” A young lawyer says, “No Welsh miner ever goes to the poor-house. He has a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a nephew or niece, who will not intrust him to the cold charities of the public. If his wife is industrious, she and the children can take care of him.” Mr. L⸺ says, “Very seldom does a miner get to the poor-house, unless he be a drunkard; for if he be sober, his fellow-workmen in the mine, in case of accident or long sickness, make a collection for him.” And Dr. H⸺ says, “A kinder set of men never walked the earth. When one of them meets with an accident in the mine, the men put in their hands and raise a little purse for him. They will divide their last dollar with a wounded comrade. The Irish extend their care to the widow of their unfortunate companion, whom they frequently set up in a little saloon, where she vends candy, pea-nuts, and various drinks.” Since, however, the beneficial societies have become popular, there is not so much need of resorting to succor by subscription.
When urged to insure his life, the reply of the Irishman almost invariably is, “What do I want to insuremy life for my wife for? When I am dead, I don’t want another man to spend my money.”
In these dull times, when so many were out of work, I frequently saw quoit-pitching, which seemed to be a favorite amusement; some leap and some play marbles with the boys; but neither men nor boys spend their time in play. Some work for farmers, some pick berries, some “fuss about their gardens,” or one, perhaps, has a sickly wife, and will stay at home and help. A young Cornish man whom I met was going to haul stone to build an addition to his house. I visited a young Scotchman, a foreman, who was employing himself in another manner. In the middle of his sitting-room stood a surveyor’s compass upon its high tripod, and upon the table lay a book,—A Conversation on Mines, by William Hopton: Manchester and London. I said to him that he was differently situated from other miners, because he was interested in books, and could study in an idle time like the present. He replied that it was the fault of the others if they did not want to read and study; he had never heard of any one in any profession who could say that he had become perfect, and in his own case the more he learned, the more he found that there was to learn.
Among the Welsh, however, I learn that there is considerable culture besides that of which I have already spoken. In the Welsh Baptist church at Hyde Park a society meets once a week for reading and debating. They read the Bible and discuss its history and geography, for six months reading the Old Testament, and for six the New. In reading the Book of Samuel, the question arose, “Did the witch of Endor raise Samuelfrom the dead?” After some discussion the debate was found to take up too much time, and it was referred to disputants, two upon each side. The question brought up spiritualism, in which very few of the Welsh believe, but they love to discuss subjects of general interest. After an evening’s debate, the chairman put the question, and it was decided that Samuel was not raised. With this decision the preacher does not agree.
About six years ago the same society argued the question whether the world was created in six days, and decided that the days were not periods of twenty-four hours. After the decision, they had a lecture upon geology from a former preacher, in which he took the same view.
The Welsh, without sectarian distinction, support the Philosophical Society at Hyde Park, its proceedings being in the Welsh language, and its meetings held every Saturday for eight months in the year. By voluntary contribution they are establishing a free library. Some of the Welsh miners also have considerable private libraries, of three hundred volumes and over.
The miners in this region are generally peaceable. Order is preserved in the mines by very strict rules. If one man strikes another, he is immediately discharged. If one insults another, the latter is to complain to the foreman, who acts as justice of the peace, and reports difficult cases to the general superintendent. Properly speaking, however, there are two foremen to a mine, one above and one below. On an average, there are about one hundred and fifty hands employed at each mine.
Even in idle times there is very little disorderly conduct. “The men,” says R⸺, “will sometimes get tight, two or three of them, but as for getting up big rows, there is nothing of it. In the time of the great suspension there were threats of burning some buildings belonging to the Lackawanna Coal and Iron Company, and I went to guard one of them; but we never saw anybody.”
To this general good order, however, there seems to be a notable exception. One evening my landlady sent her son to escort me with a lantern, the lamps along a principal street being “smashed.” They had been broken, it appeared, for some time. I asked the boy why there was not a reward offered for the discovery of the persons who had done it. “Oh,” said he, “the Molly Maguires will kill men!”
The Molly Maguires are the “Ancient Order of Hibernians,” of whose doings in the coal regions dreadful stories have been told. Although when I was at Scranton it was said that the priests had broken up the society, yet I saw, one Sunday, members of the “ancient order” in handsome green and white or silver regalia, who seemed prepared to take part, with many other persons, in laying the corner-stone of a church near Scranton. Hence I inferred that the clergy had not broken up the society, but might have obliged them to give up their pledge of secrecy. After I left Scranton, however, a man was killed in that region, of whose murder I understand that the Molly Maguires were suspected. But so great at one time was the fear of the people at large of the Mollies, that two hundred or more revolvers were sold in one day.
There remains to be considered a subject of more general public interest than perhaps any other in which the miner is concerned, namely, strikes. “Suspension” is the genteel name among the men. In 1870 a great strike occurred here, which finally involved not only the whole of the anthracite, but a part of the bituminous region of Pennsylvania, which lasted near six months, bringing coal to an immense price in the market, and seriously embarrassing business, and which deserves the name of the great suspension. To make the matter perfectly clear, it is worth while to revert to the opening of our civil war in the year 1861.
The standard price paid to the miner in July, 1874, was ninety-three cents per car-load. At this rate he could make about three dollars and fifty cents per day for himself, and pay his assistant or laborer about two dollars and thirty-five cents. But before the breaking out of the rebellion the price of mining was as low as forty-five cents per car, or less than half the price in 1874.
During the war so great was the demand for iron, and consequently for coal, that prices had risen by 1864 to one dollar and sixty-eight cents per car, not very far from double the present price, but payable, as it will be remembered, in greatly depreciated paper money. In spite of this fact, this was the miners’ flush time. I have been told that many were earning from one hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars a month, and that some of these bought homes, and afterward increased their landed property.
The manner in which this great advance in wages was obtained is especially worthy of note. The Miners’ Union, or Working-Men’s Beneficial Association,—theW. B. A.,—began here, during the war, among the employés of the three great mining companies, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company; the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company; and the Pennsylvania Coal Company. At the time the W. B. A. was organized, coal was rising in price, but the companies were not raising the men’s wages. The miners felt themselves entitled to a share, the tenth or twelfth part of the advanced price, but they did not receive it until they called a convention. This, as I understand, was thus organized: The hands in each mine formed a branch of the W. B. A., and each branch was entitled to send two delegates to local conventions, and these in their turn appointed delegates to a general convention when one was held.
In order to obtain an advance in wages, the men appointed at their conventions committees to wait upon the general agent of each company, and to make the same demand upon the same day, and it was always granted, until the price had risen, as I have already stated, in 1864, to one dollar and sixty-eight cents, its greatest height. In September of that year, when the war was drawing to a close, and the price of coal had begun to decline, the wages of the miners were reduced eight and a half per cent., without causing any disturbance. By July of 1865 gradual reductions had brought wages down from one dollar and sixty-eight cents per car-load to one dollar and nine cents. On this decline there was a strike among the miners in the Scranton and Wilkesbarre region.
In the preceding May a convention had been called at Scranton to take action on the fall in wages. Many wereopposed to striking. But in July another convention was called, and on the 15th the hands of the three great companies struck, from Wilkesbarre to Carbondale, and “stayed out” eleven weeks. The companies did not raise their wages before they resumed work, but they began again with the understanding that their pay would be raised, and an advance of five cents per car-load was made in a few days, bringing the price up to one dollar and fourteen cents.
After this the men were quiet for over three years, but as wages declined, by January, 1869, great discontent was felt among the miners. There was no outbreak, however, until April, when the men of the two greatest mining companies suspended. These companies, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western; and the Delaware and Hudson, when in full operation, sent at that time one hundred and eighteen thousand tons of coal weekly to market. The withdrawal of a mass like this must, of course, influence the price, and the Pennsylvania Coal Company (the third in size here, and employing about one-sixth of the hands) profited by the withdrawal of the other companies, and, figuratively speaking, made hay while the sun shone. The Miners’ Union could not have been strong then, or the men of this company would not have worked while the others were out. It has been remarked that while prices continued to rise, the miners were delighted with the Union, but when wages began to fall, their interest in it fell too. However this may have been, the Pennsylvania Coal Company, in the strike of 1869, continued to work, and raised the men’s wages about once a month, until they amounted to one dollar and thirty-one cents the car-load.
The two other companies probably tired, if corporations can be said to tire, of seeing the Pennsylvania Coal Company carrying on business thus, and it seems that hints were conveyed to the outstanding men by agents of their employers that they had made no organized application to the companies, informing them of their wishes. At length committees from the men called upon the agents of the companies, and offered to go to work at the rate at which the other men were working. To these the agents answered, “We are always ready to pay what our neighbors are paying;” and the men went to work at one dollar and thirty-one cents. This was not a long-protracted strike, and the men were successful in obtaining nearly all which they demanded.
These good prices continued for over a year, partly it seems, for a reason to me unexplained, and in part because the price at which the men went to work, although a high one, was actually not so high as the companies could then afford to pay, so greatly was the stock of coal reduced and the market-price raised.
Wages continued then at one dollar and thirty-one cents, when, in November, 1870, the three companies united in notifying the men that in one month there would be a reduction to eighty-six cents. This decline was an immense one, over thirty per cent., and the news came upon the miners like a thunderbolt. It would have been much better policy for the employers to reduce the price gradually as coal declined in market.
This state of things may indicate that there is not much sympathy between the miners and the corporations, and I am told that the men feel bitter toward their employers from their showing so little respect for theirmanhood as not to be willing to consult with them. These are tender points with some in the Scranton region. You will find the foremen not very anxious to talk about them, but you will be able to obtain the admission from some here that the men feel their interest to be at variance with their employers’.
When the end of the month of notification arrived, the men declined to take the sum offered, and suspended. They claimed that the matter of wages should be determined by a sliding-scale, adjusted to the price of coal in the market, and this they called a basis. They also desired to have an agent to examine the books of the companies, and to see what their profits really were. The first demand is so reasonable that we can scarcely see why it should be refused, and it is granted in the Schuylkill County region.
This sliding-scale, or the basis, became a rallying-cry during the long and trying conflict which followed. And they stuck to this until they were starved out.
On their side, the companies thought that strikes were coming too often (the interval having been about sixteen or eighteen months); and now, as we have said, the three companies were united.
The miners, however, had not all been in favor of suspending work. Some of the leading Welshmen would have preferred to compromise by offering to go on at a reduction less than that demanded by the companies, but these were overborne by others, who were very violent in the meetings of the W. B. A., crying out, “Strike! strike!” until, I was told, it was as much as a man’s life was worth to oppose them. So the pacific or conservative Welshmen were outvoted by the more recklessof their own nation and the rest. But once engaged, the Welsh were the most determined, being unwilling to yield until they had effected something. Says one, “I believe they would have held out to this day;” and another, “I believe they would have emigrated: they had strong talk of going out West in squads.” As it happened, if we may call it chance, the only blood shed in the struggle was that of two Welshmen.
The Miners’ Union did not anticipate that the companies would hold out as long as they did; but they seem to have been firmly banded, like the men, and they had the power of capital on their side. “It was like a big war,” says an acquaintance,—“a six months’ war.”
It seems to the writer that in this contest, however, the men were struggling against fate; for as paper money advanced in value and approached to gold, so, as a general rule, must the price of everything decline that was paid for in that paper money, including wages, the price of labor.
The men were not literally starved out, it seems; for one interested says, “I heard of no miners that were suffering for provisions, though some of them were pretty hard up. The store-keepers took the miners’ side, because it was their interest to do so. The bigger pay the miner got, the more he had to spend in the stores.”
Of course the time must have come when the tradesmen could no longer give credit, and we readily infer that that point must have been nearly or entirely reached when the men had been out near six months.
During this period families were, of course, much restricted. They could probably get along with nonew clothing, or but little; and the store-keepers trusted them for flour, tea, sugar, tobacco, and the other littlenecessariesof life. Such, too, as had lots, could raise potatoes, cabbage, etc., but some of them became deeply involved in debt.
However, the times had been so good that probably at least half the men had means to support themselves for a little time, and they grasped at any work they could find anywhere. As the strike began in December, however, the amount of work must have been small. Had not the other anthracite regions become involved, their comrades might have sent them funds, or given them a share of work; but this was impossible. The funds of the Miners’ Union, the W. B. A., were very small. They were unable to support the men in such a time. Nor were they supported by the public. Says a friend, “Not one miner in this region went to the poor-house, nor do I believe that one applied to the commissioners of the poor for out-door assistance. They would not have thought of such a thing, for they believed that the sympathies of the commissioners were with their employers.”
About once a month a committee would call upon Mr. ⸺, the agent of the ⸺ Company (and doubtless upon the agents of the others also) and inquire whether the company would grant them a basis on the former prices, but they effected nothing.
The Irishmen were poorer, and they were sooner ready to yield. At length a gentleman of Scranton induced thirty men to “break away from the Union,” and to go to work in a mine belonging to a company smaller than the three mentioned. These men were almost entirelyIrish. They went to work daily about seven in the morning, returning about five in the evening, carrying arms, and were accompanied by soldiers, and led by their employer.
When the news spread among the miners that a body of men had gone to work in a certain spot, the miners would gather upon the way to see who these were, and the on-looking crowd was swelled by boys, and perhaps by women. As the men who had yielded made their appearance, the cry arose among the spectators, “Here come the blacklegs!”—i.e., the turncoats or traitors. One evening as these men were thus returning along the street in Hyde Park, it is said that a boy on the street threw a stone. One of the men attacked turned round, and, discharging his musket, shot two men through the body with the same ball, and killed them instantly.
At least one of these men was a miner, and was or had been a Methodist local preacher; the other was going to get medicine for a sick child. Both were Welshmen. There was immediately an immense excitement. While the man who fired the shot was being taken to the magistrates, some one cried out, “Kill him!” but others waved them back, saying, “Let the law do him justice.”
The magistrate, a Welshman, committed him to jail at Wilkesbarre, whence he was bailed out, and when brought to trial was defended by the companies, was acquitted, and lives peaceably in the neighborhood now. I tell the tale as it was told to me.
So the men gave in. This bloody scene and the ensuing funerals probably broke the doughty spirit of theWelshmen. They gave in and went to work in the latter part of May, not entirely six months from the outbreak of the contest. They began at eighty-six cents, the price which the companies had fixed; but on the 1st of June their pay was raised to ninety-three cents.
Can strikes be prevented? In speaking to a miner about the great suspension, I asked whether it would not be better for the company and the men to meet and settle these matters.
“It could not be done,” he answered. The miners do not seem to have any desire to buy into the stock of the companies. Is it for fear that, as a miner’s wife said, “the big fishes would eat the little fishes up?”
But if the miner does not thus co-operate with his employers, or in the manner that the poorest sailor on a whaling vessel once did with the owners, the principle of joint-stock is not unknown to them. An intelligent man, once a miner, tells me that all working men are now aspiring to form co-operative associations for the purpose of carrying on mining and iron-works themselves. There are iron-mills on this system, he said, at Danville, and a number of furnaces and rolling-mills in Ohio. These are on the same plan as the renowned works at Rochdale, England, that have been in successful operation for many years.
There is, too, a co-operative store at Hyde Park, Scranton. This store has been in operation for several years, and pays stockholders from twelve to fifteen per cent. on stock and purchase. The majority of the stockholders are Welsh, and nearly all are miners.