The New York herald., 1922-07-03
MONDAY, JULY 3. 1922.
This Is the Time to Solve the
Great Coal Problem.

From the way the coal mine own
ers and the coal strike leaders have
gone straight to the negotiations en-
Joined upon them by President HAIR
DING the conclusion is warranted
that the operators and the workers
both want to patch up some arrange
ment that will resume the digging
of coal in the now idle union mines.
They want to start up the coal again
because the President Of the United
States told them in so many words
en- Saturday that if they did not the
Government would.
So to keep this momentous ma
tional situation in their own hands
for while longer the operators and
the miners may resort to any make
shift arrangement that will satisfy
the Chief Executive of the American
nation by getting out the coal.
But no patched up truce is going
to stop the habitual turmoil and
strife among the owners and the
workers. No makeshift agreement
ss to wages and working conditions
is going to correct the deep seated
evils and dangers in the bituminous
coal industry of the United States.
No business can be nationally and
soundly maintained for it's owners,
its workers and the public when it
has employment for great proper
tion of its labor only two or three
days week at seasonal periods.
No industry can give square deal
tc the public supporting it when that
public has to pay for the product of
that industry price based upon
giving a weeks living to hundreds
of thousands of wage earners when
they work only third of a week
and upon yielding a years profits to
plant when it operates only 100
working days out of 300
No commodity price can be de-
Tended under the laws of economics
and under the laws of plain sense
when it is fixed for all the product
Of the whole industry on the frac-
tional proportion that costs the most
to take out of the ground.
This country must have coal and
L is going to get it. But the whole
bituminous industry must have
complete and fundamental reorgani-
y zation. The industrial safety of the
nation requires this. The permanent
welfare of the industry calls for il.
The right of workers to have steady
employment, at reasonable annual
earnings, demands it,
Ard never will there be a better
time than now to set in motion, with
the sanction and under the regula-
tion of the United States Govern
ment, that fundamental reorganiza-
tion of the soft coal business which
IS the only solution of the great
national problem growing more
pressing and more ominous with
every avoidance Of the real question,
no matter what the excuse for letting
the crucial issue drift.
Readers of THE New YORK HERALD
are familiar with the general plan OF
reorganization which this paper fire.
quently has set forth for the soft coal
industry OF the country. 1t is not
necessary at this moment to reiterate
1t except in respect of the following
reminder:
To give the country its coal sup
ply, pending the working out Of
the sweeping changes imperatively
needed in the whole industry, the
mines could be reopened and the
men could go back to work on almost
any adjusted terms and conditions
This matter would he OF negligible
Importance compared with the start
on the achievement OF the right and
final solution-the zoning system,
with a few great groups of mines
within which the production of all
could be treated as IL coming from
one mine, the fat mine carrying the
lean mine, and the price to the pub
lie being based on the thus equalized
cost Of the whole within its zone
This would mean shutting down
sor the time being hundreds OF mines
that have no economic right to be
operating under present conditions.
1t would mean better business man
agement and improved efficiency with
every ton Of coal that was mined. 1t
would mean reduced costs. lower but
more stable profits, more regular en-
ployment. And above all il would
establish this great basic industry,