The Connecticut labor news., 1924-02-16
WALL STREET RESPONSIBLE FOR
 COAL TROUBLES, SAYS CASEY
Pennsylvania Labor Congressman Replies to At- tack Made On the Miners By Treadway of Massachusetts Shows How Operators Use Courts to Deprive Employees
 of Their Rights.

coal operators of the state, because of demands from the people of the state living outside the coal regins to stop the unnecessary murderlng of miners.
 "This law was passed when the miners were helpless slaves. They worked all month, every day the col pay office to get their pay and found they were in debt to the company be- cause they had overdrawn at the company's store.
 "It was when the little tots seven and eight years of age were taken out of school and put to work in the breakers and in the mines to help contribute with their mite of earnings to that of their fathers, in order that the family might exist-not live.
 "Oh, yes; that law was passed, way back when we boys in the innocence of our young hearts used to wait for the hour of II o'clock in the morning to come, because between II and 12 htere was no coal coming through l the breakers.
 "We then had rest, but that rest, gentlemen, was for the purpose of hauling up out of the mines the in- jured and dead miners who were maimed or killed down in the bowels of the earth during the morning of that day,
 "The wives and children could go to the poorhouse or to the devil, as far as the coal company was con- cerned. It was to stop that condition that this law was passed, and now it is charged that these miners are re- sponsible for its passage!
 "Oh, no; the miners did not dare say their souls were their own in those days. In many instances they were compelled to change their church ev- cry month, when they got new boss or when the boss under whom they were working changed his church." Representative Casey declared that examining boards contain non-union as we'll as union members, who are appointed not by the miners, but by judges "in nearly every instance crea- lures of the railroads and the coal lcompanies."
 These corporations he charged, do not hesitate to spend two Or three hundred thousand dolalrs to elect one of their attorneys as judge, and, he added, "it is men of that kind who appoint these boards"
 "As far as the miners union is con- cerned, there is absolutely no limita- ton on production; there is absolute ly no limitation on apprentices; and there is absolutely no control of mine labor, because of the operation of the miners certificate law" Representa- tive Casey declared.
 Members of the House were deeply impressed by MT. Casey's speech and several asked him ogive them defn- ite figures as to the cost of mining an- thracite coal
 That is a difficult question:" said MT. Casey. Much misleading propa- ganda on the subject has been given out by the coal operators" Then he gave some illuminating figures.
 Prior to the last settlement-which he pointed out gave the miners an in crease of 10 per cent.-the minimum wage in the anthracite region was $4 20 day for eight hours and the maximum $5.42.
 "The anthracite miners do not work over 272 days year." said MT. Casey. At $40 a day that would amount to $I,I22.4o year.
 "If we take the maximum, $5.42 per day, the miner would earn $I,4o6 a year.
 Those, are the wages paid these men who work down in the bowels of the earth, 500, I,ooo-yes, 2,ooo and 3,ooo-feet from Gods sunlight and the gentleman from Massachusetts said that if they asked for more money to provide for their families as American citizens should provide for them, they had entered into a spirit of greed with the operators and a conspiracy to raise the cost of coal to the American consumers" Oh, it is outrageously untrue."~
 MT. Cooper of Wisconsin called at tention to the fact that citizens of Be lott, manufacturing town in his dis trict, paid $24.So a ton for anthracite coal How much of that did the miner get?
 "We have figures" responded Mir Casey, Showing the labor cost of ton of anthracite coal, f. O. b. rail-