Standing, left to right: W. Searl, F. Wilson, A. V. Craig, M. Mestrovich, E. Martin, J. M. Peters, R. W. Beattie, J. Moskus, S. Coates, J. Manley, _Striker_, T. A. Harris, E. O. Gunther, B. J. Damich, _Striker_, C. Foley, M. Bellam, T. A. Daley, _Striker_, W. Z. Foster. Seated, left to right: J. Lenahan, F. J. Sweek, J. Klinsky, F. Wiernicki, I. Liberti, A. DeVerneuil, C. Claherty, J. N. Aten, J. W. Hendricks, S. Rokosz, R. W. Reilly, J. A. Norrington, F. Kurowsky, J. G. Brown, G. W. Troutman, J. E. McCadden, W. Murphy, S. T. Hammersmark.]
Then came the coal miners in November, 1919. During the war this body of men sent fully 60,000 members to the front in France. They bought untold amounts of liberty bonds and worked faithfully to keep the industries in operation. But no sooner did they make demand for some of the freedom which they thought they had won in the war than they found themselves crowded into a strike, and their conservative, old-line, trade-union leaders harshly assailed as revolutionists. For instance, said Senator Pomerene:[29]
Years ago the American spirit was startled because a Vanderbilt had said, "The public be damned." But Vanderbilt seems to have no patent on the phrase, or if he had it is being infringed today by men who have as little regard for the public welfare as he himself had. There is no difference in kind between him and a Foster, who, aided by the extreme Socialist and I. W. W. classes of the country, aims to enlist under his leadership all the iron and steel workers of a nation and to paralyze industry, or a Lewis (President of the United Mine Workers of America), who, to further his own ambitions, aided as he was by the same elements, calls 400,000 men out of the mines and says to the public, "Freeze or starve."
The Government condemned the strike as "unjustifiable and unlawful" and invoked against it the so-called Lever law. This law, a war measure against food and fuel profiteers, was, when up for adoption, distinctly stated by its author, Representative Lever, and by Attorney General Gregory, as not applying to workers striking for better conditions.[30] Moreover, since the armistice it had fallen into disuse,--as far as employers were concerned; but upon the strength of it the miners' strike was outlawed, Federal Judge Anderson issuing an injunction which commanded the union officials to rescind the strike order and to refuse all moral and financial assistance to the strikers. Rarely has a labor union found itself in so difficult a situation. The only thing that saved the miners from a crushing defeat was their splendid organization and strategic position in industry. On November 11, after the union officials had agreed to rescind the strike order, the Philadelphia _Public Ledger_ expressed an opinion widely held when it said: