The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1925-08-04
Coal in Two Countries

N IN hotel at Atlantic City anthracite OPP
Il | orators and miners are having their bien-
snial haggle over wages and working conditions
I The operators are fighting to retain the ex-
I tremely comfortable profits they always have
I had. The miners are fighting for the best
wages they can get in payment for their excep-
: tionalIy dangerous work A strike seems i'm
minent.
In West Virginia the operators and miners
in the northern soft coal fields are on the
verge of violent war. Picket lines are estab-
lished. Strikers and strike breakers are living
in barracks. Searchlights from the coal tipples
sweep the surrounding mountain sides at night.
Courts are working overtime.
Il In the southern soft coal field of the same
State, operators are merrily making hay-or
money in quantities that could be baled like
hay They have no dealings with unions. They
pay lower wages and reap the harvest when
trouble occurs in unionized districts. Ken
lucky and Maryland operators are situated
somewhat the same.
In Ohio, Indiana and Illinois there is about
90 per cent production, with the spectacle of
Z
ern Pennsylvania operators party to the
agreement that has kept the peace in those
three States are flirting with plan to break
this peace in the same way the northern West
Virginia operators have broken it, through re-
pudiation of the wage contract.
i At Swampscott President Coolidge is daily
considering Federal intervention in the anthra-
cit oi1u
cording TO which correspondent you happen
ito b.ieve.
That, in broad way, is the picture pre-
scented by the coal industry of the United
States at the moment.
4 Over in England they have had coal
crisis and disposed Of it for the time being.
With the miners unable to accept any lower
wages and live, the workers in other industries,
particularly transportation, agreed to join in
prevent a wage cut The government has pre-
VENTED this cut by authorizing a subsidy of
$50,000000 year to the coal operators to en-
able them to pay the miners living wage.
The British government s Investigations
convinced it that the operators actually could
not pay living wages without assistance from
the taxpayers. 1t granted the subsidy we'll
knowing that it was moving directly toward
naturalization of the mines. Every observer,
radical or reactionary, agrees this is So
!. The example set by England may cause
some hard thinking in this country. 1t may
result in cessation for instance, of the nicely
written but meaningless public statements
from Atlantic City, while the operators settle
down to look the whole situation in the face for
the first time. The anthracite operators are
not in the situation of the British operators
They are making money and lots of it, The
case of the soft coal operators is not so simple
Many of them are not making money at the
present time, no matter how much they have
made in the past There are more soft coal
mines than the country needs. The condition
is one of pretty general Generalization
{, The solution Of the American situation is
hard to foresee. Some of the operators will
doubtless continue to make lot of money
Some will not. Some of the miners will make
3 a living wage. Some will not But generally