The idea of a joint partnership of organized labor and
organized capital in the management of industry, which, ever since the
fifties, had been struggling for acceptance, finally showed definite
signs of coming to be materialized.
(1) _The Miners_
In no other industry has a union's struggle for "recognition" offered a
richer and more instructive picture of the birth of the new order with
its difficulties as well as its promises than in coal mining. Faced in
the anthracite field[50] by a small and well knitted group of employers,
generally considered a "trust," and by a no less difficult situation in
bituminous mining due to cut-throat competition among the mine
operators, the United Mine Workers have succeeded in a space of fifteen
years in unionizing the one as well as the other; while at the same time
successfully and progressively solving the gigantic internal problem of
welding a polyglot mass of workers into a well disciplined and obedient
army.
The miners' union attained its first successes in the so-called central
bituminous competitive field, including Western Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois.
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