Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-23
Remedies for Coal Famine.

Many men who before the coal situation
became acute viewed the doctrine of the
national ownership of public utilities as
chimercal if not anarchic, have modified
their opinion. 1t is probably within reason
to say that the coal strike has drawn more
serious attention to this question than have
all the socialistic theses published in hum
dred years. Certain is 1t that more men in
the United States asking than have
asked before whether the life and
health business and success Of all men
shall be at the will of a few men whose
dollars invested in natural resources
and human necessaries. If the people shall
ever make negative answer to the question
they are asking the men who profess to re-
gard coal production or coal reproduction
as a private matter will realize their folly
! Estate real, and coal Is of this estate. Is
held subject to public right. The Supreme
Court Of the United States in the case Of
Mum Illinois handed down a decision,
from which is extracted the following.
bearing upon the doctrine of public right in
private property:
when private property Is affected with
public interest 1t ceases to be JuriS pr1Vatl
(the subject of mere private rights only.
This said by Lord Chief Justice Hale
more than two hundred years ago, and
has been accepted without objection as an
essential element in the law Of property
ever since. Property does become clothed
with a public interest when used in a man
ner to make it of public consequence and
affect the community at large. When,
therefore, one devotes his property to use
In which the public has interest he in
effect grants to the public an interest in
that use, and must submit to be controlled
by the public for the public good. to the ex-
tent of the interest he has thus created"
1t may please him to do. AS in England
the king was lord paramount, under whom
all land titles were mediately or Immediate
ly held SO with the state is sovereign.
Where public and private interest clash
public interest shall be paramount.
Men who have heretofore opposed any ex-
tension of the theory that the government
invade the province of private endeavor
favor the purchase of the coal mines In
Pennsylvania by the state of Pennsylvania
under the right of eminent domain. and the
operati ton of the mines on public account.
Other men have suggested that the state
classify the mines with reference to the
depth and thickness of the coal veins and
fix schedules of reasonable minimum prices
for mining and maximum prices for SELL
ing. Another suggestion is that Of a re-
yania statute.
Pennsylvania can interpose, but will 1t?
An uprising of the people would be needed,
for the men who own the mines and the
coaling railroads are influential In the poll
tics of the keystone state.
About decade ago political revolution,
having for It's basic principle the public
ownership of transportation facilities, broke
out In the west. That revolution caused
Intense alarm to the business interests Of
the country. 1t did not succeed, but it
might have succeeded. That great blaze of
political excitement has died down so that
its embers smolder only here and there.
No man can guarantee that such an expert
ence, even a more violent one, will not occur
again. The people of the west had no such
grievance against the railroad and tele-
graph companies as the people Of the east
have against the coal producers. 1t Is folly
for so few men to wantony provoke so
many.
Each side to the strike contends that it
has rights which the other would invade.
So too. the public has rights which are
being grossly invaded Each side to the
controversy would humble the other. Sup
pose the people, sovereign under the form
of government under which we elect to live
should go into the humbling business?