Broad Top Strike

What the fact check changed. SUBSTANTIALLY TRUE, and the real story is better than the one that was queued. CONFIRMED: about 3,000 bituminous coal miners in the Broad Top field of District No. 2 idle on a strike order issued by the district officers and approved by the international president of the United Mine Workers. CORRECTED, 'more than 3,000': every paper says 'About 3,000' or 'About three thousand'. The post upgrades the source's own hedge into a floor. The rewrite says 'about three thousand'. CORRECTED, the July 10 date: no source supports it. The AP dispatch is datelined Johnstown, Pa., July 11, 1920 and reports the men 'are idle', so the walkout began on or before July 11 but the day itself is not established. This is the publication-date-versus-event-date trap in a new form. The rewrite says 'By July 11, 1920'. The Nogales reprint redates the same wire copy 'July 14', which is a reprint artifact and not a second event. DROPPED, 'near Dudley': no source opened mentions Dudley, or any specific mine or town. The dispatch describes the Broad Top field as a whole, filed out of Johnstown. DROPPED, 'Most locals today don't realize our backyard was a flashpoint in America's coal labor wars': two invented scope claims in one sentence, neither with a source. CORRECTED, 'for higher wages': this is the real find. It was not a demand for a raise. The miners alleged the operators refused to pay the full mining rate already due under the government agreement that ended the previous winter's general strike, plus the district wage scale signed after it. The operators held that the new scale wiped out a Broad Top sub-district rate of ten cents a ton above the district base rate that had been in effect since early in 1917. Men walking out over ten cents a ton they said was already theirs is a sharper and truer story than 'higher wages'. OCR NOTE: the Ward County Independent prints 'District No. 3'. Three other papers print District No. 2, and Johnstown is UMW District 2, so No. 2 is correct and the Minot copy is a typo. NAME NOT ASSERTED: all four papers say only 'International President Lewis of the United Mine Workers'. None gives a first name, so the rewrite says 'the international president of the United Mine Workers' and names no one. Almost certainly John L. Lewis, but that needs its own source before it goes in print. LEAD FOR A LATER TICK, NOT ASSERTED: the Evening World copy carries a closing sentence the other three lack, to the effect that the Broad Top field had the shortest haul to Philadelphia markets of any bituminous field and that its output mattered because of a coal famine. Worth confirming from a cleaner copy. It would make a strong post on its own.