New Britain herald., 1925-08-22
COAL STRIKE NOW
 BELIEVED CERTAIN
Il It Comes, t Will Cost Miners $1,t5O,oO0 a Day in Wages
163,5O3 MEN ARE AFFECTED

] N ''"fs Hfn'p, A0ft Coal Mines Show Signs of Reneuod
 Activities.
 Philadelphia, Aus. :2 Hl-w,h August Sl and suspension of snth,a cite coal mining operations looming up but nine days distant. the puhic ms morning remained on the ahXlous seat. able 10 report deyeIon. heh's but no progress toward avert Ing general tie-up.
 LII Fhiladelphia the deadlock in negotiations broken off on August at Atlantic City, continued win ooth Samuel D. Warriner. operators' chlet' and John l.. Lewis, president or the United Mine Workers of Am. erica. out of the city.
 Sec Slight Chance
 Seeing slight chance of a rere~., or the present hard coal working agreement before the end of ths month' when it expires, governors ana representatives of the New Eng 'ahd states. meeting in Boston, msde plans to side-step possible hardshjp ny arranging for the use of bitumi. nous coal and other substitutes. Alan l. Treadway representative in congress from Massachusetts, adyo. cated federal control of the entire anthracite industry.
 Operators including Mir. Warri- ner, W. w. Inglis, chairman of the scale committee: W. J. Richards and Charles F, Hubler, met in Scranton 10 discuss developments. They is- sued no statement Mir. Inglis. in an interview given to the press well comed the efforts of anthracite re- sion businessmen to avert a suspen- slon, which he declared would he
 lndefensible" and a business dis. aster."
 Boom Is Started
 Signs of returning activity in bi- luminous coal fields, long in the grip Of depression, were evidenced by the decision of the Pennsylvania railroad to increase it's car repair force at Altoona. Six hundred of the 1000 soft coal mines in central fennsylvania are idle. but road off, cials are preparing for renewed on- erauons in the event of an anthra- cite shutdown.
 from Pittsburgh came conflicting reports regarding the reopening of the Pittsburgh Coal company's ban ming mine No. 2. near Fayette Civ under the 1917 wage scale. The company reported 122 men at work, While r. T. Pagan, district president l or the miners, declared but ii mon had responded to the company's call.
 .otficials of the Lehigh Valley Coal company in Hazelton suspended op- erations on a new tunnel, throwing many miners out of work. Officials said work would not be resumed until new working agreement for the industry is reached,
 Have Good Supply
 Reports from cities throughout the state indicated that hospital. schools and other public institutions have been supplied in advance against possible shortage and will not suffer in the event of q shut. down. In Pottsyille operators an- nounced that many locomotives and | coal gondolas are idle due 10 the fact that the miners are stocking up. Many concerns have notices Riv- ing employees preference of fuel de- liveries.
 162,50S Men Affected If John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America. calls for a suspension of mining in the hard coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania when tho present wage contract expires on August 5I, his order will affect a host Of men. State estimates for 1924 placed the number of employees at 162,5os, the largest since 1915.
 Would Protect Mines
 The union. itself, for convenience, uses an approximate figure Of 1bs,- | o00 today. and of these about fO,- | 000 maintenance men" would prob | ably be left in the mines by mutual agreement with the operators. This skeleton force of pumpmen. timber men and engineers would patrol the underground workings to prevent flooding and cave-ins
 Otherwise. some 4S.o0n workers would lay down their tools. Whits pIumes of steam from hcistiag en- zines would droop and disa ppear. i The crunching flow Of coal through the breaker would be silenced Paralysis would descend upon Szs mines operated by 1sS coal com panies controlling 272 ccl1isrles throughout the long, oanoe-shaped anthracite basins lying sthwsrt ten counties upstate.
 Would Re Costly The walkout would cost ths mine workers themselves in lost wages sum estimated .on the basis of t4a ton. at s1,1so,oo a day. The brunt of the tie-up would he borne by three of the counties and less than a dozen companies Lu- zerne. Lackawanna and Schuylkin I0uhtits HituuCSu AUTtt QhaTtSFb CT the entire anthracite output in 1924, figure show, and employed four-fifths of the men. The hand full of corporations, a group former ly owned In tho main by railroads, produce the company ccal' com rrising some so per cent of the en- tire tonnage. The remainder Is mined by independents"
 Principal Companies
 The principal "old line" com panies are: Philadelphia and Coal & Iron Co. 4s eollieries; Lehigh Valley Coal O.. 2s: Glen Alden Coal Co, r: Hudson Coal Co., IS. Le- high and Wilkes Barre Coal Co, F; Susquehanna Galleries CO. 10: Pennsylvania Coal Go, g: and Le- high Coal and Nayirstton Cn-