Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-04-06
COAL DIVIDENDS 800 PER CENT
IN NINE YEARS
Iackawanna Interests Also Have $4,000. 900 Surplus, Equal to 90
Per Cent Capital Invested. Seven Companies in Monopoly.
All Organized by Railroads; They Control 70 Per Cent
of Anthracite Production in Pennsylvania
BY Francis J. Tietsort
Staff Correspondent of N. Y. American

! prlncely ever since the cOmpanyS or
ganization. In nine years they amount
ed to 300 per cent on capital stock
outstanding, 55 per cent of which was
in Liberty bonds, Is per cent in Brit
ish Government bonds and the re-
mainder in cash. For a recent period,
also, the Lackawanna coal concern
had a surplus of six millions, or more
than 80 per cent of its entire capital
stock.
Thoroughly Entrenched Now
The postwar profits of the anthra-
cite operators are shown to be even
larger than they were during the war.
The first year after the armistice was
signed the Delaware & Hudson Com
pany's net profits from the coal de-
partment jumped A per cent over
what they had been the previous year.
Making an analysis of the entire
anthracite situation as it exists today,
Mr.. Lauck declares that the railroad
coal companies are now more thor
oughly entrenched than at any time
before within twenty years. He says
on this head:
"By the use of high freight rates on
coal, which render it nearly impos-
sible for an unsubsidized concern to
operate, the struggle for tonnage has
eliminated in the acquisition or sub
servience Of practically the entire an
thracite industry. Studies made, for
example, of the great Reading and the
Lehigh systems have been most illu-
minating.
without regard to legality it is
certain that the formation of sub
sidiary coal companies, when coupled
with high transportation rates, served
to drive from the field, or absorb, in
dependent companies which had no
transportation power to fall back
upon. Transportation offered the
stranglehold in the situation.
Transportation Monopoly
"The only difficulty arose when a
group of independents showed the
financial strength to build another
road. In that instance the power of
bankers came to the rescue and the
dominant factor in the new situation
was bought up at an exaggerated
price, which, as a matter of history,
has added high interest charges to the
cost of coal to the consumer.
1.-THE real monopoly in the anthra-
cite industry is a monopoly Of trans
portation maintained through a COM
plete domination of the source of sup
ply.
"The railway companies, and behind
them the great financial interests, sat
down across the gateways through
which the fuel supply must pass to the
public, and exacted such a tribute as
to enable them finally to absorb the
entire ownership of the vast natural
resources in hard coal, probably the
largest in the world.
"The public has been forced to buy
for these exploiters their entire future
supply. This was done in order that for
all time, or until the exhaustion of the
supply, these railroads may exact a
heavy toll on each ton of anthracite
moving from mine to consumer
This is an exposition, there fore, of
the conditions which the public must
fight in demanding relief from fire.
proof coal and exorbitant prices.-Re-
produced from the New York Ameri-
can.