The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1922-09-01
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER /. 1922.
PAYING FOR THE COAL STRIKE

GA1INU FUR THE GOAL STRIKE
Secretary Honnold of the Illinois
Coal Operators association estimates
that the coal strike has cost the resi-
dents of that state upward of 100000
600. He figures the loss in wages to
tie striking miners at $50. 31O,OOO. the
loss to. the mining companies through.
the idleness of their property at S25,-
100000, and the loss to the public
through higher prices and freight rates
on coal that should have been mined in
Illinois, but was hauled in from other
states-at $3O,OOO,O00.
No careful estimate has been pre-
scented of the cost of the strike to the
entire nation, but guesses by coal pro-
ducers range from $5OO.O00,000 upward.
Consumers must bear in mind, how
ever, that the strike loss actually is all
theirs. For the miners by the steady
work which they are now assured dur
ing the fall and winter will make up for
the wages they might have earned by
brOken-time employment through the
spring and summer, while the mine oper-
ators will sell coal at higher prices and
in full quantities through intensive eff
fort at the mines. Meanwhile higher
prices of coal to consumers and the in
creased cost of manufactured articles.
into which are figured the higher prices
of the manufacturers fuel, will make
the public the actual sufferers. As DR..
HonnOld says, it is the people of this
country who lost the strike
Similar strike losses by the public in
the future can and must be prevented.
The price of coal to the consumer can
be reduced to a reasonable level if the
recent proposals of President Harding
to congress are carried out. In the
opinion of the Chicago Daily News, his
fact-fnding commission should be au-
thOriZed by congress without delay. Its
members should be men capable of out
lining such a thorough reorganization as
the coal industry must undergo if the
public is ever again to be treated fairly
in the matter of fuel supplies and prices
The high-cost mines opened up during the
war should be closed; the superfuous
miners should be established advan-
tageously in other industries; labor
saving, cost-reducing machinery should
be introduced in all mines where it is
possible advantageously to employ such
machinery, and open competition should
be restored in the coal markets.
When those changes are effected and
not before can there be freedom from
strikes, reasonable rofits for coal pro-
ducers, steady work at good wages for
miners and an assurance of plenty of
fuel at honest prices for the public 1t
is estimated that from 40 to 80 per cent
of the striking miners were employed on
farms or in other useful service while
the strike lasted Now that a scarcity
of labor in various industries is reported
it is reasonable to think that the great
surplus of mine workers that already
exists and the further great surplus that
would be created by the economical
mining of coal by machinery readily
would be absorbed in the general indus
trial activity of the country. With
these notable reductions in expense the
price of coal would materially decrease
though consumption would increase be-
cause of the resulting stimulation to in
dustry.
Failure to bring about these benefits
through appropriate governmental ae-
ton inevitably would be followed on
April / next by another stubborn coal