; and despite the lower rates per ton, the West Virginia miners
have earned but little less annually than union miners in other States.
But above all the United Mine Workers have been handicapped in West
Virginia as nowhere else by court interference in strikes and in
campaigns of organization. In 1907 a temporary injunction was granted at
the behest of the Hitchman Coal and Coke Company, a West Virginia
concern, restraining union organizers from attempting to organize
employes who signed agreements not to join the United Mine Workers while
in the employ of the company. The injunction was made permanent in 1913.
The decree of the District Court was reversed by the Circuit Court of
Appeals in 1914, but was sustained by the United States Supreme Court in
March 1917.[56] Recently the United States Steel Corporation became a
dominant factor in West Virginia through its ownership of mines and lent
additional strength to the already strong anti-union determination of
the employers.

Very early the United Mine Workers established a reputation for strict
adherence to agreements made. This faithfulness to a pledged word, which
justified itself even from the standpoint of selfish motive, in as much
as it gained for the union public sympathy, was urged upon all occasions
by John Mitchell, the national President of the Union. The first test
came in 1899, when coal prices soared up rapidly after the joint
conference had adjourned. Although they might have won higher wages had
they struck, the miners observed their contracts. A more severe test
came in 1902 during the great anthracite strike.[57] A special union
convention was then held to consider whether the bituminous miners
should be called out in sympathy with the hard pressed striking miners
in the anthracite field. By a large majority, however, the convention
voted not to strike in violation of the agreements made with the
operators. The union again gave proof of statesmanly self-control when,
in 1904, taking into account the depressed condition of industry, it
accepted without a strike a reduction in wages in the central
competitive field. However, as against the miners' conduct in these
situations must be reckoned the many local strikes or "stoppages" in
violation of agreements. The difficulty was that the machinery for the
adjustment of local grievances was too cumbersome.

In 1906 the trade agreement system encountered a new difficulty in the
friction which developed betw