Relief Orders While the Strike Funds Were Awaited

For strikers needing help in July 1902, the wait for outside money mattered. A Shamokin dispatch in the Wilkes-Barre Times on July 23 quoted George Hartlein, secretary of the Ninth District, saying that the first assessment from the bituminous fields would take about three weeks to collect.

Hartlein explained the delay through the miners' pay arrangements. In the meantime, he said, the local unions would continue issuing orders to people in need, as they had already been doing. The report describes a continuing local relief practice rather than a new fund whose money was immediately on hand.

The short dispatch gives no names of recipients, cash total or final collection figure. Its human concern is the interval between promised support and immediate need: local organizations were keeping aid available while a wider network of miners was expected to contribute. The anticipated assessment remained a future collection in this account.