The Cordova daily times., 1921-09-30

country when the tnulpNtf arms h'h self and goes out shooting his m n and the men arm them5clye5 and go out shooting him. That cannot endure forever What is the matter?
 The question Senator Kenyon asked then, he and his senatorial colleagues
 are asking today In the light of
 what has taken place in West Virginia recently the report Kenyon wrote eight years ago was lately dug from dusty senatorial archives and referred
 to the present committee as evidence
 that Kenyon's original question still remains unanswered.
 1 It was in January, 1914. that Ken yon informed the senate that:
 "The committee was directed to in vestigate the causes leading up to the conditions in the Paint creek and Cabin creek coal fields of West Nir- ginia. The condition found by the committee the employment of mine guards and the arming of them to go
 out and shoot and kill the employees.
 the arming of employees likewise to go out and kill their employers is a con dition that cannot continue to exist in free republic"
 But Kenyon realizes now that the condition he described and condemned in his report of nearly eight years ago has continued to exist in a free republic" and the testimony already i given before the present committee has disclosed the same kind of a con dition which startled the country when
 the Paint creek and the Cabin creek
 investigation was made
 i FEDERAL OWNERSHIP SOLUTION 1 It was Senator Swanson, chairman i of the first senate committee, who wrote in 1914:
 God has blessed West Virginia with
 a topography grand to contemplate; a
 wealth unparalleled in coal iron and
 oil, her hills fairly groan with unde-
 veloped resources. and all these at the
 very threshold of the great marts of trade and commerce of our country.
 Here should peace, plenty and happi-
 ness reign supreme. On the contrary your committee found disorder, riot. bitterness and bloodshed in their stead.
 In no spirit of malice or hatred. but with a view that the country. through knowledge of the true conditions. may
 right the wrong; I charge that the hiring of armed bodies of men by pri- vate mine owners and the use of steel armored trains machine guns and bloodhounds on defenseless men. wom. on and children is but little way re moved from barbarism. Asked what is my solution Of this and similar un- happy conditions would state: A millionaire owner of a great section of West Virginia calmly admitted on the witness stand that so long as he got his per ton lease he never in quired further Our duty under the premises is: Coal under our civiliza tion. is a necessity. This great com mOdty cannot be increased fraction of a pound. yet our population is mul- | tiplying by leaps and bounds each year thereby increasing the demands | for this article With this condition existing and. with avarice as the dominating characteristic in man, l at the risk Of criticism by many of my friends and countrymeu, unhesi- | tatiugIy say that government owner | ship of the mines is the only hope or { solution for those who may come after | us"
 Did Swanson's words fall on deaf | ears? They were heard by the senate | on January F. 1914. They referred to conditions now seven or eight years old but they appear equally applicable to similar conditions existing lately Tn West Virginia.
 Recently government control ot the West Virginia coal fields was given serious consideration by the present | senate committed The salutary ef- feet the intervention of the federal government in the mine war had was l regarded as an object lesson by the committee members.
 But will the recommendations Of the present committee have any more last
 ing place in senatorial history and in the bloody annals of West Virginia than did those of the old committee?
 Will still another senatorial investi- gation merely follow in the future when again the mines and hills Of