The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-10-28
THE COAL STRIKE
PRO AND CON
six-Hour Day, Shay Week and In
creased Wages Asked by Miners.

The chief demands of the soft coal
miners are for a six-hour day from
bank to bank" five days week, in
place of the existing eight-hour day
and six-day week; a so per cent in
crease in the wage scale; the elimina-
ton of penalties for unauthorizeu
strikes, and the change of the tim
of expiration of contracts from April
to November l. In support of these
demands President Lewis said at one
of the conferences with the operators:
THE mines of this country can and
will produce in six hours day all of
the coal that can possibly be called
for; therefore, why should a man
spend eight hours on a job if he can
do the work in six hours ?" Mr.. Lewis
went on to prove his point by noting
that we attained our peak of coal pro-
duction in 1918 with eighty thousand
miners in the military service and
with a demand for coal the greatest
in history. Next years demand will
be 135, 100000 tons less than for 1879,
and the miners who went to war are
back, ready to take their places III
the mines.
Mr. Lewis justified the demand for
go per cent wage increase by noting
in the first piece that the cost of liv-
ing has increased IS per cent since
1914, while the increase in coal min
ers' wages has been much less than
that. But the average increase in those
foodstuffs which are most generally
used by miners has actually increased
over 100 per cent. Prices of clothing,
household furniture and tools and ma
terials used by miners have gone up
more than 125 per cent. In the mean
while wages have advanced 40 per
cent for machine miners (who com
prise so per cent of the mine work.
ers), 1852 per cent for pick miners
and 10 per cent for mine laborers.
THE coal miner cannot support
himself and his family on his present
wages as well as he did previously to
1914 on the wages which he received
at that time" Mr.. Lewis said. The
miners believe that the American
public is willing that the miner shall
have a square deal and that he shall
be permitted to afford his family
better standard of living, in keeping
with the general tendency of the
times. He cannot do this, however,
without very substantial increase of
his wages, and the miners insist that
a so per cent increase is necessary
in order to bring about this condi-
ton"
The United Mine workers Journal,
indianapolis, asserts that six hours
is long enough for any man to work
in a coal mine in any one day. The
Socialist Milwaukee Leader declares
that hosts of mine workers are idle
part of the time because there is not
enough work to keep them busy I'M
der the Shour schedule, The 6-hour
day would be a boon to them, enabling
them probably to keep all their mem
bers employed"
Another Socialist paper the Appeal to
Reason, Girard, Kan, argues that the
miners wage demand is amply justi-
fled by the high cost of living. that
the 6-hOur day would stabilize the
employment in the coal industry, and
that the 5-day week lis simply de-
signed to give the miners one business
cay a week in which to trade and to
attend to their personal and families
affairs as well as to give them greater
leisure"
In reply to the mine workers de-
mands the operators asserted that the
reduction of hours of work would
mean "only twenty-five hours or less
of actual work a week" which would
be a reduction of possible productive
effort to ractically one-half of pres
ent and altogether reasonable stand
ards with resulting great increase in
costs Acceptance of the demand for
increased wages with the indirect
increases inherent to other items
would, say the operators, more than
double the already high costs of pro-
ducing coal with consequent large di-
rect and indirect additions to the cost
of living of every citizen and a de-
moralization and prostration of the
industry"
On the floor of the United States
senate, Senator Frelinghuysen, Repub-
hcan, New Jersey, has said that the
miners demands would add from So
to $3.50 to the price of every ton of
bltuminous coal marketed and one
billion dollars would be taken from
the pockets of those who can IL af-
ford any such tax in view of the innu-
merable other demands made upon
the family purse"
Coal trade journals like the Black
Diamond. Stewards Journal New
York; and the Coal Trade Journal
New York; take the same stand, and
the American Coal Journal (New
York; tells the miners that if they
won their demands they would be no
better off than they are at present,
for everything they have to buy
would cost more to manufacture on
the account of the high cost of coal,
so that their cost of living would be
beyound the elasticity of their in