Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-05-10
HE COAL WIN ER S
Independent Company Stands But Little
Show in Pennsylvania,
The Railroads Are in the Mining
Business and Fix the
Rates.

The industrial commission today exam
ined two witnesses representing coal min
ing companies Tomorrow the examination
into the trusts will begin, when Mr.. j. W
Lee. state senator of Pennsylvania will
appear, and it is anticipated that he will
give evidence against the Standard OIL
Company.
The first witness today Mr.. r. C.
Brooks of Scranton Pa, who is largely
interested in the anthracite coal business.
In the anthracite regions, he said, II
would not be possible to have the employees
work full time. The capacity OF these
mines Is 6500O.0O0 tons year. while the
demand of the market is 100000 tons. At
present in that region there are ten railroad
companies. some of which had consolidated
and nearly all of them are running coal
mines, which are controlled by them either
directly or through their officers. Indepen-
dent operators are at a disadvantage be-
cause of this competition. He said the
railroad companies charge ten mills a ton
per mile to place anthracite coal In New
York or Philadelphia while they charge ~
or pa mills ton per mile for bituminous
coal The price should be the same.
Fixing the Price OF Coal.
The independent coal companies have
nothing to do with fixing the price of the
coal. the railroad companies do that. and
take the coal from the companies and dis
pose of it. paying these mining companies
60 per cent Of what they get for it. In that
way the Independent companies are entirely
at the mercy of the railroads. They can
only get their coal to the markets as the
railroads please to take it. A schedule had
been arranged between the roads and mines
by which the former would take a given
percentage of the product of the indie
pendent mines. This arrangement did not
work satisfactorily to the small mines, as
they complained that the schedule was par
tial to the big mines. where they managed
to employ their men over no days a year.
while in the small mines the men could
work only a hundred or less days a year.
This created dissatisfaction among the
men, and the witness thought the per-
centage should be arranged to keep the
men in all the mines busy the same number
of days in the year. At present on the
average the men In the anthracite region
work 141&6 days year, this average COW
erfng 314 mines.
Power of the Railroads.
The railroads could afford to lose money
in the mines they run because of the profit
they secure in carrying the coal This fact
allowed them to depress the profits of the
Independent operators to very low level.
When asked whether the railroad compan-
les could not fix the price so that they
replied that they had that power, but did
not exercise it. he supposed, because it
would be too fragrant a violation of what
was right, and would result in legal restric-
lions which would break their power. They
preferred to merely allow the independent
miners to exist and their low prices forced
the mine operators to grind down prices for
mining coal.
Organization OF labor had given stability
to labor. He thought that in the anthracite
region they had not had much effect on
wages
Speaking of sanitary laws regulating the
mines he said they had been Of advantage
to operators in the long run. well as to
the miners, although they had thought II
was hardship at the time to make costly
Changes in the mines.
After the Recess.
The commission reassembled at O'Clock
after recess, when Mr.. Walter j. Muller.
a mine owner of Ohio, went on the stand.