River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-08-03
PUBLIC GRIEVANCES
The Monopoly in Coal.

luxury 10 the seaside or mountain re-
sorts, and when the masses are study
ing how to avoid heat, the managers of
the coal combination have pushed up
the mercury of prices in the anthracite
tube. 1t is a singular phenomenon in
the struggle of monopolists to advance
values, that the price of ice, which Is a
summer commodity, and the price OF
coal, which is a winter necessity, must
go up side by side. 1t is only within
very few days that an official announce
ment was made that the coal trade is
in more prosperous condition than ever
before. The coal barons, surprised at
their generosity in giving an advanced
pittance to their employees, said in their
official organ.
IN the matter OF the advance of the
wages of coal laborers at Scranton and
other places, officers OF the leading
coal companies having offices in this
city say that this action on their part
is due to the prosperous condition of
the trade. They say that their men
have worked faithfully at low wages
and on reduced time, and that nov,
when everything looks promising, they
feel it but just that the men should
derive some benefit from the improve
ment. Further than this, the compa-
MES do not wish to be forced into the
advance by the strikes. The wages
were raised 10 per cent, making the
pay for outside work about $1.40 per
day.
No sooner was this permission given
to the dusky miners to work in the
mines from surise to sunset, six days
in the week, for 81 .43 day, or 1888 a
week, than the managers of the an
thracite coal fields, whose combined
wealth foots up hundreds of millions OF
dollars; who never know what it Is to
be denied q luxury, much less neces-
sity; who waste in their households
enough to subsist one of their en-
ployes for week, and who pay their
meanest lacquey more than col
lier receives for his ife-periling
labors, boast that they have fixed
a schedule of prices at the mines
tina tbs far below what the Italians receive
on the dumping scows which carry
city refuse to the sea. While making
this munificent (?) confession to honest
labor, these arch-monopolists cody
advance the price of coal to the ordln-
airy consumer at the rate of twenty live
cents on ton each month, so that at
present stove coal, which is the grade
that enters into family consumption, is
scheduled at tidewater in cargoes at
S4.15 a ton. Add to this the profit of
the broker, the middleman and
the yardman, and before winter fuel
can be laid down in midsummer it will
cost nearly Sc. ton.
With the price of labor at the mines
reduced to minimum; with the rail
way leading from the anthracite fields
to tidewater in the hands of the coal
combination; with even the retail
depots run BY the various companies
which make up this vast monopoly, it
is readily seen that the people who
must have coal, sooner or later, are
bound hand and foot to the will of as
INSCRIPTIONS monopoly as ever was
organized by selfish and heartless capt.
alists. At the same time, with sense
of regard for..the,wellfare of co-monopo-
lists, the price of lump and steamer
coal, which enters into use in factories,
rolling mills and on railways and other
transportation routes, has been fixed
at much lower rate thus forcing the
mass of consumers to pay an excessive
tribute. If it becomes necessary to
advance wages at the mines; if manu-
facturers demand q decrease in price
on the thousands of tons of coal they
consume; if drawbacks and rebates are
to be met, or excessive dividends must
be paid, the coal barons take another
twist in the thumbscrew applied to
the mass of consumers, and ali the
burden falls upon the latter class.
The New Jersey Central, Lehigh, and
Wilkesbarre, New York and Erie, Del
aware and Hudson Canal and Coal
Company, Delaware, LackawaEna and
Western, Pennsylvania and Philadel-
phia and Reading Companies compose
this monstrous monopoly, and at their
secret meetings, held monthly, manip-
ulate prices at will. Controlling the
mines, as we'll as the modes of transit,
it is within their power to prevent the
accumulation of coal at tidewater, and
in face of the fact that mountains of
the mined product impede the pro-
gress of the miners, and miles of laden
cars obstruct the tracks, switches and
turnouts, they recklessly create fam
inc in the midst of plenty, for no other
purpose than to levy blackmail upon
those who can i'll afford to meet their
outrageous demands.
Strikes are often purposely fomented
and by this cowardly plan thousands
of families are reduced to starvation
diet, and barefooted children suffer
from the winter blast, in order that Goa
barons may roll in wealth. When
Franklin B. Gowen, president of the
Philadelphia and Reading companies
demonstrated against the combination
and entered the lists as an advocate o.
free competition, the remaining mem
bers of the coal monopoly set about to
crush him. They severed the bonds
of union, glutted the market with coal.
and reduced the price so as to make
the production non-renume rative, and
in the end Mr.. Governs company be
came bankrupt and he was cast out
of its management. The free compe
tition which was the result of this con-
troversy, however, established the fac
that anthracite coal can be mined
and landed at tidewater, and be de
livered to families at So or $3.50 8
ton. and pay to the com panies engaged
in the traffic a renumerative profit or
their investments. Not content, how
ever, with ust and equitable return
on the capital invested, the men who
control this vast monopoly have ad.
vanccd the price of coal for family con-
sumption to over SIS a ton. Only a year
ago the republican party in New Jer-
sey selected as their standard bearer
Mr.. Frederick A. Potts, the body, SOU
and inspiration of the coal monopoly
He had been the moving spirit in or.
ganizing the unholy combination; he
fixed the price of this commodity al
every public sale, and within ten years,
from a comparatively obscure clerk.
ship, he has risen step by step, until
he now counts his wealth by the mill
ions-every dollar of which has been
wrung from the sweat and blood of the
toilers. The people of New Jersey saw
and felt this, and Mr.. Potts received q
fitting rebuke at the polls. The les.
son, however, had no apparent effect
for to-day this coal monopoly is more
strongly intrenchei than ever, and its
impudent message to the perpetual
complaints of the people is:
"Buy your coal at the prices we see
fit to establish, or shiver in cold unit
death by freezing ends your sufferings.'
The properties possessed by the Goa
monopoly represent a4n aggregate value
Z a