Evening star., 1925-08-17


The United States Government is
powerless to avert coal strike, ex-
cept by persuasion. OF $4,000 laws
enacted by Congress in our national
lifetime, not one places today in the
hands of Calvin Coolidge a solitary
weapon with which to defend the pub
lie against a coalless Winter
Herbert Hoover said it during the
last coal strike but one. when he spoke
his mind on the activity of certain
Senators who had bestirred them
selves to reduce coal profiteering The
records of the Department of Com
merce disclose a telegram from it's
head dated Youngstown, Ohio, June 8,
1922, III which Mr.. Hoover outlined
preliminary steps against profiteering,
and added:
IF Congress will provide a better
emergency method. 1 shall indeed be
glad if they would do so, as the ad-
ministration has no powers but per-
suasion and the willingness of the ma
jority of the operators to cooperate" "
Congress Did Nothing.
That telegram, made public on the
day of its receipt, provoked a storm of
comment, but Congress did nothing.
The law stands today as it stood then;
so far as Federal statutes are con-
cerned the coal quarrel is a private
controversy, the public welfare to the
contrary Notwithstanding.
Six weeks later, or on July IS, 1922.
when the joint anthracite and btu
minous strike was more than three
Io1 oil Z ay-1
ing announced the failure of his ef-
forts to induce the warriors to arbi-
trate. White House attempts at me-
diation had been spurned. In a tele-
gram to the governors of all the coal
producing States President Harding
recited his offer and it's rejection, and
then, in the following language, dis
closed the lack of Federal authority
to compel resumption of mining.
1.-The failure to secure the accept
ance of this proposal for a voluntary
adjustment left me no other course
but to invite the mine operators to re-
turn to their homes and resume activi-
ties" And again:
There has been no Government as
sumption of a part in the dispute be-
tween organized workers and organized
employers l did offer the only avail
able agency which I know to effect a
settlement. and these good offices have
not availed.
Promise of Protection.
"It therefore becomes necessary, in
the name of common welfare. to invite
production, in the fulfillment of that
obligation which attaches to any
American industry engaged in provid
ing any public necessity, and to afford
security to all men alike, who are
ready and willing to work and serve
the common need. No cause is so i'm
portant as that of common welfare
and there must be the suppression of
every unlawful hindrance to the serv'
ice of that cause. To the task of law
full protection and the maintenance OF
order the Federal Government pledges
to you every assistance at it's com
mand."
That was as far as Harding could
go in 1922 and it is as far as Coolidge
can go in 1925. The law of then is the
law of today. And it is significant OF
the immediate future that the White
House assurance of protection in 1925
to all workers returning to their work
and all operators reopening their work
ings brought not single pound OF
coal to the surface. The union was air
tight then and it is no less air-tight
today in the anthracite fields of the
United States.
Cf- xx,aoIyS offor IIo rdfpO hod triad