formed the majority in the other districts.  And yet West Virginia as a growing mining state soon assumed a high strategic importance.  A lower wage scale, the better quality of its coal, and a comparative freedom from strikes have made West Virginia a formidable competitor of the other districts in the central competitive field.  Consequently West Virginia operators have been able to operate their mines more days during the year than elsewhere; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.  But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in campaigns of organization.  In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while in the employ of the company.  The injunction was made permanent in 1913.  The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of the employers.

Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict adherence to agreements made.  This faithfulness to a pledged word, which justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union.  The first test came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint conference had adjourned.  Although they might have won higher wages had they struck, the miners observed their contracts.  A more severe test came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners in the anthracite field.  By a large majority, however, the convention voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the operators.  The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when, in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central competitive field.  However, as against the miners’ conduct in these situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or “stoppages” in violation of agreements.  The difficulty was that the machinery for the adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.