VIOLENCE AT U.S. MINES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 111, 23 February 1950, Page 5

VIOLENCE AT U.S. MINES

Pickets Set J)ump On Fire NEW YORK, Feb. 21. Firemen fought their way through, a band of pickets to-day to put out a fire at a coalmine dump near Brookvilie, Pennsylvania. Pickets stoned another fire-fighting company and prevented the firemen from getting to the fire.

The owner of the mine said that pickets had started the fire and turned over workers’ cars. They had warned him' yesterday that they would come back if the mine continued working. Thirty State police were hurried to the- mine to prevent further trouble between ~striking coalminers and workers.

Police in West Virginia arrested 75 pickets, including one woman, after pickets had attacked mines and nonunion miners. The police said that the woman jabbed non-union workers with a hatpin.

Representatives of the striking miners said to-day that the men might return to work if the Government seized the mines. They believed that a Government seizure would lead to the signing of a wage contract. Mr Truman, however, did not have power to seize the mines, since the war-time Emergency Powers Act had expired. He presumably would have to ask Congress for special legislation empowering him to take such action.