The Cambria Freeman

Mr. Buckalew and the Ventilation of Mines.

We publish below an extract from a powerful speech delivered at Pottsville, Schuylkill county, by Charles R. Buckalew, the Democratic candidate for Governor. It is a full and complete refutation of the repeated slanders made against that gentleman in order to prejudice the workingmen of the State against him. We ask the true workingmen, and especially the miners of Cambria county, to read Mr. Buckalew's remarks, and then tell us whether he is a demagogue and opposed to the interests of the honest, hard-working men of the Commonwealth. Here is the extract:

I came again into the Legislature of our State in 1870, by election from the Senatorial district in which I reside, and during that session a bill, of which you have heard so much—I mean the mine ventilation bill—was considered in the Senate. I voted for that bill, [applause], and proposed the twenty-fourth section of it as it now stands upon the statute book, by which a remedy effectual and stringent is afforded to any person whose right of person or property shall be affected by any violation of the law, by any person engaged in the business of mining coal. I proposed, pending the consideration of the bill, an amendment extending the time, during which particular time second openings in some mines might be made, because I thought that it was prudent and judicious to give a reasonable period of time to all persons engaged in the coal business, as operators or otherwise, to conform themselves to the new law, so that it could go into effect quietly and by common consent, and with as much of approval and endorsement as possible. My view was overruled in reference to the amendment, the opponents of the bill uniting with a portion of the friends of the bill against it. The matter dropped, but the practical result was that a great deal more time than that suggested by my amendment was actually taken before the law was enforced. I voted then for that bill, and contributed to it the material section which provided for the enforcement of remedies under it. That section also provided that in case of the death of a man whose life should be lost in consequence of any disregard or violation of that law, a right of action should accrue to the widow and children for the recovery of damages which they, in their relations to the deceased, should sustain.

At the session of 1871, a bill in relation to the bituminous coal region was presented, which took the law of the previous year for the anthracite regions, and proposed to apply it, with slight modifications, to the bituminous regions. I thought that the mining bill of 1870 was not adapted to the circumstances of the case in those other sections, and therefore I was induced to favor delay in legislation on that subject, to desire that some more matured measures should be presented to the Legislature for its action. Last session, however, I voted to adopt the elaborate bill which Mr. Wallace had presented in the Senate. At last a bill was passed through the Senate authorizing the appointment of commissioners to examine into the subject and report to the Legislature. What I say is that any fair legislation with reference to the mining interest of our State, east or west, that is required by the laboring men of our State, and appears to carry the sanction of utility and advantage with it, shall in future, whether I be in public life or not, receive my earnest and cordial support. [Cheers.]