The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-31

look to a proper enforcement by the
states of such laws and regulations We
must also go to the tap-root of the evil
that Is, we must improve the economic
conditions on which this great industry is
based. We must seek the needed i'm
provements-not simply through one or
two of these remedial measures, but
through each and every one of them.
Our coal industry in its phenomenal
growth has nearly doubled during each
succeeding decade of the past 50 years.
1t has had to do more than keep pace
with our increasing population, for, while
it supplied less than one ton of coal per
capita to the American people in 1870, 1t
has had to supply nearly six tons per cap
tia during 1907. Its growth has been too
rapid for systematic development; and
the industry today represents great host
of scattered, warning, discouraged ele-
ments, without organization or co-opera-
ton.
IF the rapidly increasing rate of coal
production and waste OF the past so years
should continue for another century and
a half, the end of the next century would
see the end of the supply of coal now
considered available for use. The nation
must perpetuate this supply by lessening
the waste and by more efficient use.
I'm this industry are now employed
more than 100000 miners, who work at
some 6O00 different mines, and produce an
nually nearly 500,000.000 tons of coal Not
only Is the nation increasingly dependent
upon this coal for its heat and light and
for power for Its varied manufacturing
industries, but this coal and other min
eral products now contribute more than
65 per cent of the total freight tonnage
of the country; and the coal and steel
are the essential factors in our transpor-
tation facilities.
1.-The economic conditions upon which
coal mining Is based in this country are
so fundamentally bad and the evil conse-
ouences are so far-reaching as to both
time and extent and are so essentially
national in character that this subject de-
mands the earnest consideration of our
best statesmen, as well as of our best
engineers. whether with the federal or
state governments or in the employ OF
private corporations.
In spite of the rapid growth in our de-
mand for coal in Alabama and in the
United States, the normal productive ca
pacity of our coal mines II operated con-
tinuously would exceed this demand and
a ruinous competition exists not only be-
tween the operators in the same field, bZ
between the operators of one neld as
against those in another field or in an
other state, where different mining laws
and regulations are in force.
This competition is, first of all. driving
out of the business the small operators,
except where they find protection under
local freight rates, and Is forcing even
the larger operator to mine coal under
conditions which he cannot approve, but
from which he finds no escape. If he and
his fellow operators endeavor to get to-
gether and place the price of coal at the
mine on reasonable basis, they may go
to iail under either a federal or state
statute, and, as the only alternative each
must live Cor succumb) by under-bidding
the other, which he can do only through
following the wasteful and unsafe mining
methods which prevail in this country to-
day in spite of the desire of every opera
tor to improve them.
Even when the demand for coal and
the prices are at their best, under exist
ing conditions the operator can mine only
that part of his coal which can be taken
out most cheaply and sold at the higher
prices, and the remainder must be left
underground in such shape as may pre-
clude its future recovery. And thus we
waste yearly 100000 to 10,000,000 tons of
coal in Alabama, and more than 10000. 0C0
of the nation fuel supply.
but great as 10 this waste or loss OF
coal In mining. still greater is the loss
In use of coal that Is consumed In our
furnaces. In the average power plant of
today less than 10 per cent Of the energy
of the coal IL converted into actual
work the other 30 per cent being used
up in the furnace, the boiler and the
engine. Worse still, Of the coal burned
in producing the electric lights Of this
university and your own residences. less
formed into light; the other. more than