President Harding on Tuesday invited the 680,000 unionist miners, who
struck on April 1st, to return to work and promised to protect those who did so. He had offered to appoint arbitra- tors in the dispute, but his offer was rejected. The United Mine Workers, it will be remembered, ordered a strike because the coalowners refused to pay a minimum wage of 7i dollars (33s.) for a six-hour day to im'killed workers. The union leaders must have known that such wages were impossibly high, but they would not abate their terms or even confer with the coalowners. As five-eighths of the bituminous coal used in America comes from non-unionist- coalfields, the country has not been greatly inconvenienced until now. But stocks are being exhausted and violent riots in Illinois and West Virginia have shown that the strikers, most of whom come from Eastern Europe, are getting out of hand. The American public, therefore, desires the end of the strike, and the President has responded to the general demand that something should be done.
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