The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-07-19
By DAVID LAWRENCE.

neutrality-suspicious. Might Agree.
By DAVID LAWRENCE.
Especial Despatch to The Reformer.
Copyright 1922
WASHINGTON. July 19.-President
Harding still has an opportunity to set
tie the coal strike by personal interven-
ton.
This correspondent has been given an
authoritative outline of the miners POI
sition which would seem to indicate that
if Mr.. Harding win assemble Joint
conference of miners representatives
and operators Of the old central competi-
tive field and propose as he did once be-
fore that the miners return to work on
the old wage scale until next April or
thereabouts, pending a COMMISSIONS in
quiry, the proposal would be Immediately
accepted by the miners.
Miners officials. who do not wish to
be quoted at this time but whose views
are absolutely final in their own head
quarters. pointed out that the President
in reality has never brought to Wash
ngton enough operators to embrace the
union fields and that in dealing with
\. NJ. Ogie, president of the National
Coal association Mr. Harding was in
group of operators who reflect the view
point of the non-union coal fields. Mr..
Ogle. it is contended, was elected pres-
dent of the coal association ON the plat
form of no-interstate conferences and
when Mr.. Harding teegraphed him to
bring operators to Washington he
brought the men who believed in that
platform, a group dominated by consid
etations arising in the non-union rather
than the union fields
Hard;ng's Alleged Weakness.
Tie miners state positively that Pres
itlent Harding has had really no contact
with the majority of the operators of
the union fields who desire to negotiate
for an immediate return of the miners
on the old scale of wages. The arbitra-
ton proposal was rejected chiefly be-
cause it did not embrace enough of the
operators from union fields. let alone the
non-union districts.
What is sought today by the miners
is conference of operators from the
central competitive field or a national
conference of all the operators. Mr..
, Harding they say, has received accept
ance of his arbitration proposals from
an unrepresentative group of operators:
Fully 100000 900 tons of coal are mined
in districts whose operators declined to
accept Decentralization.
As for the suggestion that coal will be
fields to protect the strikebreakers. this
is flouted as the heighth of absurdity by
union officials. There are 315,O0O men
on strike in Pennsylvania alone, say the
miners officials. and even if 1000 mines
were surrounded the amount of coal that
would be mined would be infinitely small.
| The surest way to keep union miners
| from going back to work is to send
troops to the mines"
Would Work Under Government.
So the practical side of the question
| is still unsettled. If the government
took over the mines and agreed TO pay
1.-THE old scale of wages, the miners would
go back in a jffy They argue that
| they want to deal with single body or
at least with a group whose policy Will
| would render simple any wage scale
/ negotiation as the governments word
would be back of the agreement. The adj
| ADMINISTRATION here doesn't want to get
into the coal mining business. Mr.
| HaFding'S next move, of course. IS to
| protect miners who viii work but after
/ a lapse of a short time the futility OF
| this plan viii be realized, because the
nations coal supply will not be visibly
| increased. That's why the miners IN
sist that Mr. Harding can settle the
strike by addressing invitations not to
one man or small group but To the
operators in every one of the 30 mining
districts, so that miners and operators
! can negotiate directly. The prediction
is made that enough of the operators
would come to make possible an agree
ment along the lines of the present wage
| scale with a provision for a commission
to inquire into costs and facts on which
| future scales could be based.
4