The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1926-04-28
COPPER MINING
is DOOMED In
UNITED STATES
Trust Will Open Mines
in the Congo
BY LAURENCE TODD,
Federated Press. n

WASHINGTON, April 26-That the
American copper mining industry is
doomed by competition from newly
developed fields Of rich ore in the Bel
gian Congo and in Chile, so that
American handbook miners will be
left idle while hordes of enslaved
blacks in the Congo and Indians in
the Andes dig this metal, was the
picture painted for the American pub
lie by Senator Cameron of Arizona
He proposed that the copper tariff be
raised in order to postpone the evil
day.
Cameron is a reactionary, big-busi-
ness politician, but he wants the peo-
pie of Arizona to re-elect him this
year. So he disclosed the impending
tragedy for hundreds of thousands of
American workers who are to be
scrapped from this industry by the
future maneuvers in the world market
Of the American copper trust.
Invest Capital Abroad.
American capital will go abroad and
enter the cheap-labor fields. Having
crushed most of the independent COM
petition in the United States thru i'm
porting great amounts Of copper when
there was already a surplus in the
American market, the Morgan-Guggen-
helm and Rockefeller-Anacopda al
lance is now preparing to create an
export trust which will prevent the
survival Of any stray competitor.
Cameron did not name the two con-
cerns-he simply spoke Of them as the
"dual controllers of our foreign and
domestic copper production, who have
spent tens of millions of dollars in the
past decade in foreign lands to secure
control of copper ore tonnage amidst
labor and economic conditions to their
liking"
What are these conditions, to the
liking of Morgan-Guggenheim and
ACCOMPLISHMENTS?
In the vast Katanga field in the
Congo the ore lies near the surface
and mining it means simply shoveling
it into railroad cars for shipment to
the coast, where it is loaded into
steamers and brought to New York.
This Katanga copper can be delivered
in New York at 6 cents a pound, when
sheltered in Katanga. American cop
per, delivered in New York, cost
Ills cents on the average in 1923. The
Katanga ore reserve is far greater in
poundage than all American copper
reserves combined. Cameron asserted
to the senate that 20 cents a day is a
wage that will bring millions of Congo
Negroes to do for the copper magnates
what their fathers did in the ivory and
rubber trade-for they still are slaves
of the Belgians. No safety devices
will be necessary. If accidents occur
there will be no claims for payment of
compensation to the families of the
natives.
Exploit Chile and Peru.
In much the same way the copper
deposits in Chile and Peru are to be
exploited. Millions of Indians who
have scarcely risen above the level of
the stone age are there, to be recruited
by military dictators who have been
approached by the mining companies.
Cameron frankly discussed the view
point of this trust, which he said was
that of the manufacturer. It wants
cheap raw copper, since it controls the
American brass, copperplate and cop
per-wire manufacturing industries. 1t
will make huge profits on copper pro-
duction in the foreign field, where
wage costs are low and copper ore is
easily handled.
- = L.. In Ill, - ILL.,.