The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-01-18
STARVING COAL MINERS.
A Topeka Mans Idea on an Intricate La
Dor Problem.

A Topeka Mans Idea on an Intricate La
Dor Problem.
To the Editor Of the State Journal:
Eight thousand five hundred miners
and their families are starving to death
in the Hooking valley because the mine
owners have closed their mines.
The mine owners have closed their
mines because there is no demand for
their coal. We can not allow the miners
to starve. but neither can We afford to
support $500 people in idleness.
What is it that confronts US; plainly,
the fact that there are too many miners
How then is the number to be reduced?
These $500 people must go to raising
chickens, or celery or hay, or something
that the people want The law of sup
ply and demand regulating labor
as it does everything else, $50 we
are told) these miners must study the
question of where their services are
most needed and there apply their labor.
OF course they are liable to starve to
death while they are making
these arrangements, but that makes
no difference to the law of supply and
demand;" that is memorable. In year
or two, after these $500 people have gone
into the chicken raising business, all the
furnaces and factories may open again,
and thea these skilled miners will be
needed once more. They can then leave
the chicken raising business, throwing
away the time and capital they have in
vested and go back to mining. See how
beautifully the plan works? What could
be easier? Of course this chain of rea-
soning is on the verge of idiocy, but that
is the way large majority of our poor,
dear, stupid people who don't think, rea-
son about it. They always say when a
large body of operatives are thrown ont
of work, swell, let them go into some
other business How easy to say this, but
how futile, also They simply can't go
into any other business.
Now, we are back to whore we started
What is to be done in case like that of
the Hooking miners. 1t may be dan
gerous proposition, but suppose
that the coal miners of the United
States are all under the supervision
of one executive head; suppose
that a careful estimate be made of the
amount of coal needed by the country
for one year, then let an estimate be
made of the number of miners needed to
mine this coal.
With these estimates completed, all
the miners could be furnished work.
After the first year or two. the estimates
of coal and men to mine it could be made
so closely that no coal miner would be
out of work, and there would be no lack
or overabundance of coal The amount
| of coal mined and the miners to mine it
could be increased as the increase of
| population and business demanded it.
This executive head of the C. al mining
industry: what about him? SXdll he be
the head of a private corporation, with
liberty to raise prices on the consumers
as he sees fit, or shall he be an agent of
the government representing all the
| people whose interests he serves? leave
| this question with the reader.
Either we must have some means of
regulating the coal mining business on
some such sensible, business-like meth
! DDS, or we must have thousands of our
fellow countrymen in a starving and riot
| Gus condition from time to time. 1t isn't
! so much question of what the people
of America would like to do, as it is what
they must do The miners won't submit
to starvation, They will arm and com
! nit murder and pillage. The "law of
supply and demand" that has been prated
into our ears since Adam Smith, doesn't
work in practice, no matter how we'll it
sounds in theory. II. HOLLIS