-Caveat Lector- Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk The forgotten anniversary Matthew Engel Monday September 09 2002 The Guardian America is entirely obsessed with The Anniversary this week, so it seems right to honour the spirit of the moment. Perhaps, though, it would make a change to look at a different anniversary, one being almost entirely unmarked. We might also consider why so many Americans hate the British and all other Europeans. It has, believe me, nothing to do with September 11 or Iraq. This autumn is the centenary of the "great strike" of 1902, the five-month shutdown of the anthracite coalfields which threatened to paralyse the country. Theodore Roosevelt's biographer, Edmund Morris, described it as "the greatest labour stoppage in history". A visiting British economist, Alexander Lowen, predicted that if the strike were not settled, it would cause "such social consequences as the world has never seen". There is a two-day conference being organised by some museums in Pennsylvania next month. Apart from that, no one seems to have noticed. About 150,000 men, mainly Slavic immigrants on the Pennsylvania coalfields, went on strike, demanding a nine-hour day, a 20% pay rise and union recognition. This was a response to conditions generally recognised even at the time as disgusting. The mines themselves were unspeakably dangerous; the company towns were tyrannically run; child labour was normal. The owners' leader, George Baer, was not what you might call a conciliatory figure: "The rights and interests of the labouring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labour agitators," he said, "but by the Christian men of property to whom God, in His infinite wisdom, has given control of the property rights of this country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends." The strike was bitter and murderous (on both sides). In October 1902, President Roosevelt - exasperated by the "wooden-headed" owners and fearful of the consequences of a winter without coal - called the two sides to the White House and eventually persuaded the owners to send the case to an adjudicating commission. The adjudicators heard the great attorney, Clarence Darrow, representing the miners, proclaim: "They are fighting for slavery. We are fighting for freedom." And six months later, they gave the union most of what they wanted, though not, crucially, full recognition. It was an early and significant breakthrough in the "progressive era". It was, thereafter, no longer automatically assumed that if government intervened at all in industrial matters, it would intervene only on the side of capital. Four years later, Roosevelt read The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's ferocious exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry, and initiated legislation against adulterated food. (Sinclair was actually arguing for socialism, but over the years has probably produced more converts to vegetarianism.) When the Triangle blouse factory in New York burned down in 1913, with 146 deaths - mostly of migrant women workers who were effectively incarcerated inside - factory legislation followed. Still, there was no golden age for the American union movement, and never has been. The contest between labour and capital has been nasty and violent. Collective action is supposedly frowned upon in a country of individualists. Perhaps more to the point, in a country formed by migration, uppity workers are always at the mercy of the next wave of incomers. Still, it is assumed that, in the richest, most powerful (etc etc) country the world has ever seen, that nothing like 1902 could ever be repeated. Actually, people still live much like the Pennsylvania miners all over the US, under the noses of everyone else. Vaguely under cover, the writer Barbara Ehrenreich went out into low-wage America a couple of years back, and did a series of menial jobs - waitressing, scrubbing, selling - for wages above starvation levels for anyone who didn't care what they ate or whether they had a home or not. As a waitress in Key West, Florida, she was paid $2.15 an hour (about £1.40). What finished her off was an especially faddy and irritating British party of 10. Ehrenreich's book, Nickel and Dimed, is a bestseller. It has been an eye-opener for many Americans, but especially for outsiders. The European view of tipping is that it is some quasi-optional extra, a reward for pleasant service. In the US, a country with no health service, it is (and sometimes this may well be literal) seen as a matter of life or death. Many Americans now habitually tip 20-25%. European visitors get hurt when their 10-15% largesse is greeted with a filthy look. The whole system makes us feel deeply uncomfortable. But maybe it helps to see the modern American waitress as the spiritual heir of the Pennsylvania coalminers. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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