The Republican journal., 1922-02-09
COAL.

The coal situation is not redssuiihe'
The stage is set for a general strike by
the coal miners to take effect May hrst,
when the present labor contracts expire.
If the curtain rises as planned the results
NAV be calamitous. 1t is a well known
fact that the supply of unmined anthra-
cite coal will be exhausted before the
close of the present century. OF btu
minous coal the supply may be said to be
spexhaustible. It exists in quantities In
al of our States. The u. S. Geological
Survey estimates that in one coal field In
Montana there are five billion tons of this
coal and that in the whole country there
is enough to last six thousand years at
the present rate OF use. Without coal
our factories would be 90 per cent idle,
and one winter would bring the horrors
of Russia to our doors. Coal is not only
public utility, but it is a public neces
sity, and as such it outranks the rail-
roads in Importance because without coal
the railroads cannot be operated. With
put an ample and continuous supply of
coal the people of the United States can
not be prosperous. as a whole or in part,
neither can they as individuals be COM
Portable in their homes nor can our
schools remain in operation and more
than half of our working people, includ :
ing the miners themselves, will be out of
employment. These will be the results
of a protracted coal strike. The strike,
if it is made, will have an increase of
wages as its avowed purpose. Back of
the miners, however, stand the profess
sional agitators, who abet the strike,
their purpose being so thinly hidden by
moke screen that it is easily seen that
their chief aim is to unionize all the
mines. At present there are about H.
900 coal mines in this country and al
most one-third of them are worked as
non-union mines. The mining troubles
which have been rampant for several
months in West Virginia and in Ken
lucky have been based entirely on union :
ism and non- unionism. The wage ques-
tion has not been an issue to any consid-
erable extent. The bolshevistic leaders
hope to unionize the workers in all the
mines and by strikes to force the oper-
ators to grant excessive increase of
ages until they give up the effort to do
business and leave it to be carried on by
the unions.
For some time this country has had a
great many economic quacks, who have
been actively engaged in advertising nos
trums for existing conditions. They have
b cen giving out misinformation of vari-
ous sorts which too many people have be-
lie we'd without question. This is esDec-
ialIy true of tie coal question But John
L. Lewis, international president of min
ere and president of the Unite Mine
Workers of America, and his subordinate
off GERS, are not Quacks They are con-
sasirators. Only few days ago Mr..
Lewis proclaimed that the United Work
ers of America were ready to pool their
interests with the railroad organizations
We believe the common sense and patri-
ptism of a large majority of the railroad
men will negative this proposition. We
do not believe they will abet the purposes
of .John L. Lewis, who seems to be OBJ
sessed by the notion that he is destined
to be the Lenine of America by piune-
ing this country into bolshevism, wnich
,s seyersl degrees worse than civil war.
We believe Lewis will order coal strike
and that the miners in the unionzed coal
fields will obey his orders. That the
mi ners have a right to quit work when
the time contract is up, is admitted
INIT there is a vast difference between in
Sivi dual liberty and conspiracy TO rule
or ruin. Mr.. Lewis, the l. W. W. the
II M. w. of. America and all the otner
malcontents and plotters will learn that.
we hope. before it is too late The follow
ine. timely now as when it was spoken
.ixtv years ago, is taken from an ad-
DIRE So of Abraham Lincoln:
s.The world has never had a good dell
r;tion of the word liberty, and the Amer.
lea people Just now are much IN want oil
one We all declare for liberty; but In
,n.;n q the same word we do not all mean
the same thing. With some the word
iiher tv NAV mean for each man to 90 as
he n leases with himself, and the product
+. of hi labor; while with others the same
word may mean for some men TO 90 as
fhev please with other men, and the pro
duct of other mems labor. Here are tWo,
not only different, but incompatible
thin "a. called by the same name, liberty
And It follows that each OF the things
is. by the respective parties, called py
two different and incompatible names
liberty and tyranny.