The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-04-20
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC ,. HAsKn. DlrectoF.
Washington, ID. G.
WHAT THE COAL STRIKE COSTS.

eminent intervention in the coal strike
or some effectual action to relieve the
situation, was promised when the sit
uation becomes acute" or when the
public begins to feel the pinch of the
coal shortage. There are experts who
contend that the public was pinched
from the moment the strike was
, threatened, and such Of these experts
as are not engaged on one side or the
other of the wage controversy are now
busy computing the costs of the strike.
Their figures are at once interesting
and startling.
The average citizen probably goes
his serene way without a thought that
the coal strike is hurting him until
suddenly he finds that he cannot get
coal when he wants it, or must pay a
higher price than he was charged for
his last order, and it is at this average
citizen that the experts are aiming
their broad sides OF statistics Thus
David L. Wing, who has studied the
coal problem for years, says:
Since every cost or waste in coal
production, whether it be of natural
resources, or man power, or of capital,
must eventually be borne by the coal
consumer, it is not enough for the
man in the street merely to read the
news of threatened strikes, grumble
over high prices and talk of profiteer-
ing and summary legislation. He must
realize that this is a problem which
he too must cooperate in solving, by
bringing about an intelligent public
opinion without which no sound and
equitable settlement of the coal prob
lens of this country is possible"
From 1910 to 1918 strikes caused
1916 per cent of the idle days in the
bituminous coal industry. The figure
for the year 1919 was still larger,
and for the current year it may be
one to challenge public attention. At
any rate, the prospect warrants con-
sideration of the cost of the strike that
began April ].
Exact compilations of strike costs
are impossible. The bureau of labor
statistics long since abandoned efforts
in that line, for even this government
agency could never secure complete
reports on such concrete items as
loss in wages and loss in products,
and at the same time there are so.
many items entering into the cost of
strike that are indefinite and suscep-
tible only of estimate or approxima
ton.
Giving the Public a Jolt.
However, in the case of a basic in
dustry such as coal the statisticians
have more informing data with which
to give the public a jolt. First of all,
they point out that a total cessation
OF coal production and exhaustion of
coal supplies on hand would result in
the complete industrial and CONNER
cial paralysis of the nation: famine
and death would speedily stalk the
land and chaos ensue. Government it
self would break down and civilization
totter and fall. That is the possible
ultimate cost of a. coal strike. and is
beyond reckoning in money. Nothing
like that would ever be permitted to
happen, of course. but the picture is
one to be borne in mind.
Getting down to dollars and cents
the first item is the wage loss of the
mine workers. If there are 100000
miners idle as a result of the strike
3afv 1,a.- 81, 1rrr
200, 600 on the basis of their average
earning per day worked in 1920. Next
comes the loss in wages to workers
outside the coal industry upon whom
idleness is forced by reason of the
strike. Thousands of railroad work
ers were laid off the first week of
the Strike-one system alone laying
off 16,000-and their number will be
added to as the strike continues or be-
come more effective. Other thousands
of workers who handle coal some
where along the line between the rail-
road terminal and the consumers bin
will have idleness thrust upon
them, and passing from them to the
workers in manufacturing establish
mentS that cannot operate without
coal yet another wage loss item is to
be chalked up.
In the early days of a strike such
as the one now under consideration
only the haziest estimates can be
made as to its direct effect upon other
industries. for reports of ShutdoWns
are of necessity incomplete and no
toriously inaccurate. 1t may be sig
nifioant to note, however, that a large
steel mill in youngstown, Ohio, that
had been closed down for a lonG
period was scheduled to resume work !
the first week in April and did not do |
so because of the strike and threat
ened coal shortage, and that other |
large steel plants in the Pittsburgh |
district were closing down or reducing |
their scale of operations within a few
days after the strike was called.
To the wage loss of all these work !
ers is to be added the productive value |
of their labor had they been en- |
ployed, for every man at work pro-
duces something of value to society |
that is lost irrevocably when he is
idle Naturally each mans produc- |
tive value depends upon the nature of
his work. and to arrive at this item
in tho cost of the coal strike one
mans estimator guests as de-
pendable as the next's. Perhaps the |
most Illuminating conception of the |
value Of time when usefully employed |
is conveyed in the old copybook |
aphorism, Lost, yesterday, some |
where between sunrise and sunset, |
two golden hours, each set with sixty |
diamond minutes; no reward is Of |
fered for they are gone forever"
A Loss Everybody Shares.
But every member OF society, be
he business man, professional man, |
farmer. workman or parasitic idler.
must share in this loss occasioned |
when a days wage is not earned and |
hence cannot be spent and the prod /
uct of a days labor has not been 4
realized and is gone forever. Every /
body has seen a town or small city /
largely dependent upon one business
or manufacturing esta blishment Ego 4
dead when that establishment sus- /
ponds operations for a period, and a
serious, must be felt in every section /
of the country when so essential an
industry as coal suspends operations
or is only partially productive and
hundreds of thousands of wage earn