Have you ever thought how common it is for the persons who work for others to think that they do not have enough pay for what they do? The boy who mows the lawn wants more than the landlady is willing to pay. Thus it was in 1902 when thousands of coal miners in Pennsylvania became dissatisfied with their wages and started a great movement to force their employers to pay them more.

On one side were the rich men who owned the mines. They, eager to make as much money for themselves as possible, were not willing to pay the miners fair wages. Furthermore, they would not spend money to make the mines safe for the men who worked in them. Accordingly, the living conditions among the miners were wretched indeed. Poorly paid, they were forced to dwell in houses that were little more than huts, and were required to live on the coarsest fare. So dangerous were the mines that accidents were of almost daily occurrence; yet nothing could be done as the miners were without a leader. True, labor agitators came and with silver speech aroused the miners, but they did not tell them what to do.

For a long time the battle cloud grew darker until finally the whole nation became alarmed. So grave was the situation that Theodore Roosevelt, then president, was asked to help avert the crisis that seemed inevitable. 156 At once the president left Washington for the scene of conflict. Day after day he sought among the sullen, half-crazed men for some solution of the difficulty, until finally he discovered a man big enough to bring order out of confusion.

Mr. Hugh C. Weir, in speaking of this discovery, says: “From the inferno of the coal-strike dates the cementing of those ties of friendship and comradeship which have bound John Mitchell and Theodore Roosevelt. The president, plunging into the heart of the strike, sought and found the man whose hand held the pulse of events. He found him, haggard and white with the strain of a great exhaustion, upheld by the inspiration of a great purpose, and forthwith John Mitchell, coal-miner, son of a coal-miner, came into a place in the Roosevelt esteem which few men have equaled and no man surpassed. When at the White House conference of American governors, the president invited as guests of honor those five Americans who, in his judgment, ranked foremost in current progress, John Mitchell, the labor man, was high in the quintette.” To have a plain coal-miner thus honored by the President of the United States is so exceptional that we cannot help wondering what there was about Mr. Mitchell that earned for him such distinction. To discover the source of his greatness it is necessary to study his life.

John Mitchell was born in the cottage of a humble coal-miner at Braidwood, Illinois, in 1870. In those 157 days Braidwood was a dreary, dirty mining town almost surrounded by broad stretches of swamp.

When John was but three years of age his mother died. His stepmother, who no doubt meant well, was not affectionate; on the contrary she was very severe. As they were very poor she had to take in washings, and day after day it fell to John’s lot to help his stepmother with the washings.

When he was six years of age, his father, the only real friend he had in the world, was brought home dead, killed in a mine disaster. In speaking of this period in his life Mr. Mitchell says: “The poverty and hardships that followed were marked by one circumstance that is imprinted indelibly upon my memory and which has had an impelling influence upon my whole life. My father had served a full term of enlistment as a volunteer in the Civil War. When he was discharged from the army he brought home with him his soldier’s clothes, and I remember so well that when we had not sufficient bed clothing to keep us warm in the cold winter nights, I would arise and get the heavy soldier’s coat and spread it over my little half-brother and myself. When we were snug and warm beneath it I would feel so happy and proud that my father had been an American soldier. And through all the years that have passed since then I have felt that same pride in the memory of my father, and in the love of country which, along with a good name, was our sole heritage from him.”

When John was about ten, his stepmother married again. From the first his stepfather did not like him, and soon he became so cruel that the boy’s heart was completely broken. With no home, with no one who cared for him, the big world seemed cold indeed.

Finally, unable to stand the abuse of his stepfather longer, he gathered his few belongings in a small bundle and started out to make his own way in the world. For a boy of only ten this was by no means easy. From house to house he asked for work until finally a farmer gave him a job. Though the hours were long and the work heavy, John stuck to it for more than a year when he went to a mine in Braidwood and got a job as breaker boy. Here he remained until he was twelve when he decided to go west. With no money and no friends he worked his way by slow stages all the way from Illinois to Colorado. He had hoped that mining conditions would be much better in Colorado, but found them even worse than they had been in Illinois. Unable to earn enough to supply the bare necessities of life, the miners were suffering hardship and want.

Thus surrounded by misery, John, though but a lad, found himself trying to think out ways of helping these unfortunate men and their families, for he could not believe that it was right for them to suffer as they did.

Finally conditions in Colorado became so bad that John, then twenty years of age, decided to return to Spring Valley, Illinois. Here, for the first time in his 159 life, he saw a labor union so conducted that it was a force. The members of this union, all working men, met each week and discussed matters that were of interest to all. After discussing the topics they passed resolutions which they presented to the mine owners. In this way they were able to secure better wages, shorter hours of work, and safer mines in which to work.

In these labor meetings young Mitchell took an active part and soon developed ability as a public speaker. From the first his advancement in the ranks of organized labor was rapid, so rapid in fact that at thirty we find Mitchell president of the United Mine Workers of America. At the time he became president the organization had but about forty thousand members, but under his skillful leadership it grew until in 1908 its membership numbered over three hundred thousand men. Mr. Mitchell is still in the prime of life and is one of our most skillful and trusted labor leaders.

Better to appreciate the worth of the man, let us consider the following tribute to him: “He chose to use this unusual ability for the many rather than for himself alone. It seemed better to him that many thousands should eat more and better bread each day than that he should have for himself ease and luxury.

“Andrew Carnegie, beginning as John Mitchell did, in poverty and ignorance, made himself one of the foremost men of his time in the finance of the world. Behind him lies, as the result of his life work, a better system of 160 refining steel, innumerable libraries––his gifts, and bearing his name,––a hundred millionaires and more––his one-time lieutenants––and personal wealth so great as to tax his gigantic intellect to find means for its expenditure.

“John Mitchell, in a life much shorter, leaves behind him not a better system of refining steel, not a hundred millionaires, not innumerable libraries with his name in stone over the doors, but better living conditions for four hundred thousand miners––more wages, fewer hours of labor, less dangerous mine conditions, far-reaching laws for greater safety, a better understanding between capital and labor.”

“Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument,––not of oppression and terror––but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.”

––Daniel Webster.