The Prescott Daily News

Favor Immediate Steps to Solve Labor Tangle--Mine Whistles Today Will Bring Decision in Coal Strike.

Chicago, Nov. 2.--The crucial test of strength in the great strike of soft coal miners, which already has made idle more than 425,000 men, according to union leader's claims, was awaited tonight by both operators and miners to develop tomorrow morning when the mine whistles sound the call to work.

Although the strike went into effect at midnight Friday night, both sides to the controversy, which many believe to be America's greatest industrial upheaval, accompanied, as it is, by the strike of steel workers and other ramifications, including many lesser strikes throughout the nation, have agreed that on Monday, the first full work day for miners throughout the country since the strike edict went into force, would prove power or lack of it on the part of the United Mine Workers of America to stop production of bituminous coal, in the general sense. In some sections, notably Western Kentucky, union miners have continued to work under an agreement entered into several weeks ago.

Washington, Nov. 2.--Immediate steps for assembling at Washington an industrial commission to deal broadly with present turbulent conditions was suggested today by the advisory board of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

Deploring "attempts at government by injunction" as a means of settling the coal strike, the board, speaking for 85,000 members, declared injunction proceedings would only make conditions worse "and defer, if not defeat, a peaceful settlement."

The board stood out for an industrial commission that would "recognize the rights of all citizens and not be pledged to oppose collective bargaining." Its statement, the only formal one bearing on the strike issued here during the day, was considered a direct outgrowth of the miners' walkout, and was prepared after full and careful consideration of all questions leading up to the break between operators and mine workers.

The government's next move in the effort to keep the country supplied with fuel will depend upon what happens in the coal fields tomorrow. Attorney General Palmer and his associates were cheered today by confidential reports, which were said to show a tendency in some districts to call off the strike. Some locals were asserted to be making efforts to this end. In other places, however, the miners were reported apparently determined to stay out until their demands were granted.

In a general way, confidential reports were along the same lines as press dispatches showing that union miners, almost to a man, had quit, while in the nonunion mines work went on without apparent interruption.

Attorney General Palmer's instructions to district attorneys to watch sharply for the first evidence of conspiracy to restrict the output of coal or profiteering was taken to mean that the Department of Justice was preparing to open war on agitators who might invade the mine fields and attempt to keep out miners willing to return to their old jobs.

With all strike benefits cut off by the court, officials believe the miners, or a large number of them, will go back to work, provided they are not urged to stay out and swayed by agitators.