New-York tribune., 1919-08-24

E0nUyVly GGttVi " COU! age,
Ne1o York
r ARGELY by reason of the
irregular working time which
- has afflicted, and in some
places is st'1 affecting the coal in
dustry, the uine workers have been
much disposed to absorb the doc
trines of irresponsible propagan-
dsts. The mine worker who is idle
is wroth, not with the operator, but
with society. Lockouts in the past
nave caused much violence and ere
ated great resentment against the
employer, but the feeling is not
much different when the consumer
Tocks out" an industry by waiting
for a decrease in wages.
The public has apparently for
gotten that the buyer has a duty.
just as have the employer and the
manufacturer. He stirs up no lit
tie Bolshevism if, in his anxiety to
lower prices - and incidentally
wages, he causes the workingman
to be laid idle. The mine worker
given work on only two or three
days week, at once looks for a
double wage, and it is largely for
this reason that in Indiana the dav
workers are demanding q minimum
Of ST a day. The mine workers of
that state seek to compel the
operation of all the mines in the
country by restricting the working
hours at all mines by the estab-
lishment of six-hour day and five
day week.
Want Triple
Pre-Wor Edges
In the State of Indiana the un-
derground day workers are asking
for more than three times as much
an hour as they received in the
pre-war period, and the surface day
workers are seeking over four
times as much as they were then
paid Unfortunately, the practice
Is to base wage demands, not on
the pre-war, but on the present
rate, and not on the hour, but on
the working day. Thus doctored,
the Increases demanded seem in
comparabiy more reasonable, 40
per cent for underground laborers
and 81 per cent for those above
ground. The Indiana men are by
no means alone in their demands.
The mine workers in nearly every
district have programmes almost
equally drastic for presentation to
the conferences that will arrange
the bituminous coal wage scales as
soon as the war is declared to be
over
Unfortunately, the public has
been slow to discern the excellence
Of the Goals of the Appalachian re-
glons, and in consequence the fields
OF the central province were in
earlier days extensively developed.
"nen preference for Eastern Goals
became general, the custom mines
In Illinois and Indiana operated
only lrregularly In 1913, the year
before the war, to get back to nor
NAL conditions the mines Of Illinois
worked only 194 days. The mines
IN one county worked only 113
Gays, while in one fortunate county
z4S days Of work were secured.
The public, of course, cannot be
olamed for changing the nature of
It's demands and learning to look
upon smokelessness, heat values
and ash fusibility temperatures as
more important than physical ap-
ro"iaice or SIZE or product. But
ane change in preference results in
unemployment, destruction of the
avlngs of the householding miner
and IN the advocacy of desperate
remedies.
With these conditions the public
races the convention of the btu
mlnous coal mine workers on Sep
sember 8, in Cleveland, and the
conference with the bitiminous coal
operators which is to follow in
buffalo September 25. The SEN
ument of the public should be
toward the making of a contract
mat Will in no case increase wages
any more than the cost of living
mas advanced, based on the pre-war
wage. A clause should be placed in
Tue contract making provision that