“When can the men have an answer?”

“Not for a day or two, I suppose.”

“But they must know immediately, Mr. Trueman.  You are aware that they are dependent upon the Company Stores for their food.  Well, the notice has been posted that no more credit shall be extended after next Saturday.  This means that, for the men who are laid off, there is nothing left but starvation.”

Trueman is troubled at this statement.  He has always been an opponent of the “Company Store” system; now he sees that it is likely to be the potent factor in exciting the miners to revolt.

“All I can promise you, is that I shall work in your interests and get as speedy a reply as possible,” he repeats.  “By the by,” he adds, “will you come with me to my office now, I want you to go over some of the details of the ‘Homestead Strike’ with me.  I want to see what lessons I can gather from it which will help me to advise Purdy in the present trouble.  You were in the Homestead strike, were you not?”

By a nod of his head, Metz answers in the affirmative.

They are seated in the office of the young attorney for the next hour, during which period they review the events of the great iron strike of ’92; the reasons that led to it, and the similarity of the conditions that exist in Wilkes-Barre.

Having given Trueman the details of the Homestead affair, Metz explains the existing grievances of the miners of Wilkes-Barre as follows: 

“The question raised by the miners is not one for advanced wages; it is not one of reduced hours; it is not a demand for proper protection for themselves in the mines.  These things they have asked for time and again—­little enough for men who wear out their lives in the darkness and damp of the mines.  But these things they have never been able to obtain.

“A bare living is all that the mine owners would concede to the miners.  This living, meagre as it was, sufficed to keep life in the miners and their families.

“Now the miners are to be deprived of the crust of bread.  You cannot snatch the bone from a hungry dog, without danger.  Do you imagine that a man has less spirit than a beast?

“The whole trouble, Mr. Trueman, arises from the formation of the Coal Trust.  I have all the facts in regard to this matter.  And so far as that goes, there is not a man in the labor organizations of this country who does not keep in touch with the events of the day.  The education of the masses is a dangerous thing in a land that is ruled by force, fraud and finesse, as the United States is to-day.

“It is the Coal Trust that has brought on this threatened strike.

“When there were independent coal companies, the condition of the miners was better by far than it is to-day.  The unrestricted operation of mines made it impossible for any two, or even a considerable number, of the mine owners to unite for the purpose of reducing the wages of the mine operatives, and of increasing the price of the coal to the consumer.