The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1902-07-03
BACK OF THECOAL TRUST
Monopoly Built Upon Discrimi-
nation In Railway Rates.
UNION CARRIED BEYOND THE LAW
Omcial Description of the Coal Com
bination ms Given In Reports of the
Governments Industrial Commits
sion-"Aiinins IL business, Not Sem
timent."

We know now why the coal trust has
rejected, with sneers ut the Civic fed
Grafton and Mt Archbishop Ireland and
Bishop Potter, all the offers of the
miners to submit the contest to arbi-
tration, says the New York Journal
and American.
The trust knows that it cannot go
before disinterested Tribunal, court
of equity, with clean hands.
The coal trust is itself an embodi-
ment of the union principle, carried
beyond justice and law.
In declining to recognize the rights
of the miners to organize for their
business advantage the trust seeks to
prevent them from following its own
example even within lawful bounds.
Anthracite mining is business and
not religious, sentimental or academ-
ic proposition" wrote one of the rail-
road presidents in refusing to accept
as arbitrators 80 highly respectable
body as the Civic federation" or
Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Potter.
If all the mine owners had taken
that frankly cynical stand, holding
that "business is business" and that
private morals and public obligation
have nothing to do with 1t, the coal
trust would have been in a stronger
position than that in which President
Thomas of the Erie railroad places it.
at is the inalienable right of a man
to labor" writes this politico-economic
thinker and moral philosopher, ''and
this without regard to nationality,
creed or association. To seek to pre-
vent it Is a crime, and we cannot, even
by implication, sanction such course"
So is it the inalienable right of n man
to work coal mine to which he pos
sesses legal title. So is 1t the inaliena-
BILE right of that man to have his coal
transported to market by the common
carrier on the same terms as are given
to other mine owners.
But If the coal trust had gone before
the Civic federation to arbitrate, Presi-
dent Thomas-who is so nObly- pre-
W tNtIg buCIlICc loI tuC
nonunion principle-would have been
obliged to admit that his railroad, in
conjunction with seven Others had en-
tered into union whose character and
operations are thus officially described:
First.-By discriminating against in
dependent operators the railroads have
forced them to sell their properties, un-
til at the present time more than nine
tenths of the anthracite coal deposits
is owned and more than three fourths
Of the entire yearly product is mined
by eight lines of railroad that are sub
stantially in entire union Of Interest,"
Final Report of Industrial Commits.
sion. Page 654.
Second.-From the investigations Of
the commission 1t is apparent that the
most potent factor in establishing and
maintaining mopopolies has been pref
erential or discriminating rates of
freight by common carriers given by
rebates or otherwise. One e& our oldest
monopolies, though not Rominally in
the hands of a single corporation or
trust, Is that which controls anthracite
coal. This business furnishes conclu-
siye proof of the power of the railroads
through discriminating rates to estab-
lish monopoly. Forty-three
million tons of anthracite coal are
yearly carried by rail to market at
three-fourths of cent per ton per
mile in excess of the rates charged for
carrying bituminous coal. This is $685.
800 per mile of excess charge for the
years product, or 46,762, 500 annually
for the average haul of 145 miles to the
general market, or over dollar ton.
This overcharge, which is greater ev.
cry year than the interest on our ma.
tional debt is made possible by the
railroad oly.-Commissioner Phil
lips, Final Report Of Industrial Com
mission, Pages G54-655.
Third.-None Of the railroads, with
the exception of the Central of New
Jersey perhaps and the Delaware,
Lackawanna and Western, is permit
ted by law to operate it's coal mines
directly. The latter company is able
to mine and ship In its own corporate
capacity owing to the antiquity Of its
charter. The other railroads all make
use Of subsidiary corporations for this
purpose. 1t Is difficult to JUS
tfy this system OF indirect operation.
Some of the greatest fiscal abuses of
the time have been associated with
reprehensible methods of accounting
involved therein. The system has also
made it possible for the railroads to
discourage the development of inde-
pendent coal mining by individual op-
orators through the practice of charg-
ing excessively high rates for the
transportation Of the coal from the
mines to seaboard.-Final Report of
Industrial Commission, Pages 447-449.
Lawbreakers, mOnopolists and extor-
tionists banded together In a union for
mutual profit-these are the men who
have the unspeakable impudence to de-
ny to workmen the right to unite for
the protection OF their interestsl