Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1922-08-03

Eoison. And each year they find their prospects
better The Administration has been SO busy with
Russia that it has little time to give to America
Who is it, anyway that is interested in keeping
our national eyes overseas when they should be
scrutinizing affairs at home?
AS to the coat SITUATION the cQAditiohs Sod coal
mining are ahdalways have been q disgrace to al
civilized people. We have enjoyed our coal at too
great cost of flesh and blood We have permit
cd our public press to degrade the name of miner
until it means little less than outlaw. We have
forgotten that the best of the British stock com
prise the bulk Of our mining forces-Irish, Welsh
and Scotch-men whose minds are fit soil for the
seeds OF liberty and Christian justice. We have
thought, because they belong to one of the most
ancient trades in the world the trade of mining
that anything was good enough for them and that
they must somehow be themselves to blame or thew
would not have many sufferings. And that is
about the total extent of the publics contribution
Of thought to the mining problem.
The mine owners want strike because it will
reduce stocks, make coal scarce and raise prices.
here is colossal irony in the fact that the country
faces coal famine because there is too much coal.
There is SO much coal produced and so MANY mines
running that in spite of the high wages paid to the
miners, the days work are SO few that in West Vir
gInia last year miners earned $500 and in Illinois
Sl,0OO-the lowest and highest figures for a years
income. And in earning that pittance, $500 we're
killed and 10000 injured!
The miners produce coal at the highest cost of
$Z.9l ton, often at much lower cost And that
coal sells for $l1 and $l4 When the Federal
trade Commission tried to discover where the So
and the $ll difference went, an Injunction stoned
them. The President knows all this-it is before
him in reports!
And yet the owners of the mines do not get all
this excessive profit The owners and miners pro-
duce only 100000 tons. Fully 40 per cent of
the coal mines are not needed But thew are all
working. And the anxiety of mine owners to sell
their coal is as great the anxiety of the consum
ers to get their winters supply. What is the ex-
PLANTATION of this strange state of affairs The man
between, the Broker, the Coal Speculator-he is
the explanation. 1t is the old story which Dear
born Independent readers know very well bv this
time the breed of those who wedge themselves be-
tween the producer and the consumer, to make
them both enemies, start them both fighting and
reap shameful profits from the struggle. That is
the heart of the coal strike. And the President
knows this, too!
There is philosophic view OF all this chaos
which Is difficult to take when one considers the
mental distress of the country and the colossal
stupidity which causes it yet the true American,
retiring from the heat of anxiety'of the present
tumble of things, must reflect that perhaps all these
things must come, and must grow increasingly
worse until the blindness of our people be broken
through and until they see that they are not the
helpless victims of universal law but the sport of
greedy men. These thoughts have been hushed of
recent years because some have denounced them
as bearing kinship to the "reds" Let all those who
think to shelter greed behind the plea of LOYALTY.
let all those who would cloak commercial sin in
Iariotic pleas, learn this and learn it we'll; when
the overturn comes which shall tighten up our
country and drive forth from its bounds all things
that corrupt and strangle it, it will not come from
the reds" The reds" never yet destroyed an
evil, they have only increased the tale of evil But
when the overturnng comes it will be due to the
awakening OF a Christian conscience in our people,
{ Christian conscience and nothing else, con-
science that will refuse to be the beneficiary of
blood and tears wrung out of any race of men.
hat conscience has awakened before with swift
and final judgment upon entrenched wrongs and
bitterness it will come again Today it is the main
hope of the nation.
THE PRoFITEER1NG SEE SAW Now we
hail the neriod ri rrocoar;+,y An,I,,s, ~ ~. -