Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-12-06
Bituminous Coal Profits
From the New York Times.

Secretary Glass is usually so correct in his
figures that it is a surprise to find him appar-
entity, on the authority Of Others stating the
profits of the bitumnous coal industry for the
year 1917 at figure which exceeds the gross
earnings. There may have been companies
that made profits of 100 per cent, or even more.
but there can be no argument from few IN
dividual companies to the regulation OF the IN
dustry as whole. His response to the state
ment of the National Coal association will be
interesting in controversial sense, but the
wage dispute must be settled on present condi-
tons, not those of previous years. Secretary
McAdoo made similar statements, which are
even more open to criticism The report which
he made to the senate in 1918 covered several
hundred cases, but included less than score in
which the net before taxes was 1000 per cent.
The total capitalization OF these cases was less
than 100000 in a billion-dollar industry. All
these companies had investments larger than
their capital stock, and paid taxes not limited at
in Secretary McAdoo's statement of their in
come. The Wall Street Journal has analysed
these reports with results characterized by Sec
rotary McAdoo's adjectives, Shocking and in
defensible."
One $500 company earned 1859 per cent, ae-
cording to the allegation, but in fact, after de-
duction of taxes, earned as per cent on its in
vestment. A $4,000 company earned 2,134 per
cent before taxes, but its earnings on invest
ment were 20 per cent: The grossest case OF
ment.f was $4,000 company, with investment of
$15356 net of $84944, and taxes $50436 That
left for the extortioners $34,S08, or less for the
shareholders than for the tax collectors The
largest of these prohteers had invested capital
of only $4,000. 1t is obvious that conclusions
based ON the showing of these small concerns
would be very far out of the way If applied to
the industry as whole
Too much of the antagonism between labor
and capital is due to a suspicion about profits
The campaign in favor of naturalization of
various industries, and against exploitation of
labor, rests upon nothing stronger than the
Mexican notion that labor earns more than it
is paid and that labor would receive more it
profits were abolished. If profits are abolished
wages will go with them. Dollars will not work
for nothing any more than men, and the hope
of profit is the lure of capital to employ work
ers Probably there are more cases in which
capital is underpad than labor, for the COM
mercial mortality is higher than any battle
statistics The cases in which labor does not
get its wages are as unsuitable to argue from
in these matters as the figures given above. They
prove nothing as to the whole industry, what
ever they may prove in the given cases. When
capital escapes insolvency, after having paid all
the wages which the labor employed by it de-
manded, it is lain in wait for by radical agi-
tators who aege that capital and profit are
robbery, although there would have been no
work or wages without the capital risked. If
this seems parody of a frame of mind impos
sible for rational men it will suffice to quote the
resolution adopted by the British labor party
on Saturday declaring that "the only effective
way to end prohteering was to end the capital
ist system of production for profit, and advo-
eating the naturalization of all means of pro-
duction and the encouragement of municipal
trading" Nothing can be thought trivial which
gives encouragement to the supporters of such
a program.