The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-01-18
Using War Crisis To Force an
Increase in Their Wages.
That Is Sensational Charge
Made by Emerson Carey.
MINES EXHAUSTED IN 10 YEARS
Soon Kansas Will Have To De-
pend Upon Illinois.
'Save a Shovelful Day." Is
Warning Issued Today.

Inspired by the successful bluff
which enabled railroad employees to
force passage of the Adamson law,
coal miners made a war baby" of
their Jobs and the war crisis to force
an increase in wages and higher coal
prices. That was the sensational state
ment today of Emerson Carey of
Hutchinson, state fuel administrator,
in a speech before the war conference.
Carey appealed to patriotic Kansans
to save shovelful of coal a day as
a war aid. Then he warned Kansas
her big mines would be exhausted in
ten years.
Carey, who had previously told the
war conference that the miners union
was law unto itself, walked over the
miners with hob nail shoes in today's
speech. He declared the miners. un-
der the Shrewdest, brainieSt leadership
in the world, adopted the policy en-
ployed by railroad men few months
earlier and compelled price advances
Nor did Carey heap all the blame on
the miners. He said they learned a
few of the tricks from the operators,
who in some instances advanced prices
/ 200 to 800 per cent previous to gov
ernment control.
Control of the coal situation was
made necessary largely by the opera
tors themselves" Carey told the war
Then Carey laid bare the program
of the miners, which he said called
for demands for wage advances
from $40 to S5 a day.
Miners "War Baby
"One of the chief reasons for regu-
lations,'' said Carey in explaining the
| necessity of federal action was the
unrest among the miners who saw the
wonderful fortunes being made by the
| operators The miners felt they were
| not getting theirs. The coal miners
seeing that coal was war baby
for the operators decided that it
| should also be war baby for them.
They went to Fuel Administrator
! Garfield late in September and de-
manded an advance from $3.40 to IS
day for eight hours work and cor
| responding advance per ton for mining
| coal. This Mr.. Garfield had to grant
to keep all the mines in the United
States from being tied up.
While the coal miner works under
the ground and looks dirty and grimy
when he comes to the surface, he has
the shrewdest and brainiest leaders in
the world. They had seen the rail-
road men go to President Wilson a
few months before and tell how they
would tie up the railroads of the coun-
try and the president yielded by pass
ing the Adamson law. If the rail-
roads could hold up big man ike
the president of the United states, why
couldn't they hold up a little man.
comparatively speaking, like Gar
field?''
This hold up" as Carey character
lied the action of the miners, has cost
consumers of the nation s6o0.o0O.OOo,
the state fuel administrator declared.
This advance caused hike of 45
cents in price, which, together with
two other advances to miners and Ia
borers, made early in the year. caused
an advance to consumers in price of
: coal aggregating 100000. 900
Warming to Kansas
Then Carey sounded this warning
to Kansas:
1.-The coal mines of southern Kan
sas, where most of the coal comes
from to supply eastern Kansas, east
ern Nebraska and the large cities up
the Missouri river, will be practically
worked out in ten years." Carey said.
IN ten years, you will probably be
buying coal in this section of the state
that is mined in illinois,
Carey urged every Kansan to show
| loyalty to the fuel conservation cam
paign by saving "a shovelful day"
He said new methods in his salt plants
enabled the saving of eight tons day,
as "hiS ShOyelfIIl" ;"