LABOR: At Mather, Pa.

The dark unrest that lurks at the bottom of the coal industry, even at its best, broke out again last week in Mather, Pa. The Mather mine, owned and operated by Pickands, Mather & Co. of Cleveland, is one of the model mines of the U. S. In its shafts are all the modern appliances for air, light, production, safety. Run on an open-shop basis, it employs some 750 men steadily, 300 days in the year. The town is clean. The Mather men are contented.

One afternoon last week, just as the night shift was going down to its subterranean duty, a convulsion shook the galleries, a blast of air rushed up the shafts followed by a belch of hot, black smoke. The night men scrambled back for safety. Some were killed in the tunnels by falling roofs. Some bratticed themselves in offsets and telephoned for help. Then came the deadly “afterdamp” (carbon monoxide).

How many men were killed, how many trapped and perhaps dying slowly, it was impossible to tell. Perhaps 200 men had been in the workings when some improbable spark ignited the lurking mine gas. Rescuers pressed in, passing by corpses, to look for survivors, carrying canaries to test the air. At the shaft mouths, miners’ families waited in silence. A score of bodies were taken out, then a dozen more. Rescued men told their stories. The neighborhood and the industry mourned, condoled, tried to forget. ..