The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1928-04-20
SAYS FARM CONDITIONS MAY
ENDANGER OUR PROSPERITY
Coal Barons Pretend
They Know Nothing of
Industry In Hearings
By LAURENCE TODD

Washington - (FP)-Brazenly de-
nying any knowledge of the Jackson
vile wage agreement or of the viola
ton of that or any other wage con-
tracts or wholesale evictions of miner
families from his company houses,
Chas. M. Schwab, chairman of the
bethlehem Ste Ell Corporation and
Bethlehem Mines Corporation. was
alternately the artful dodger and the
plouS mOarlist when he testified in
the senate coal investigation.
Members of the senate interstate
commerce committee and counsel for
the United Mine Workers of America
who attempted to question him were
either buried under an avalanche of
unctuous self-praise and glittering
generalities by the steel king, or they
were impatiently brushed aside.
| Most sinister of all his utterances
i In hours of testimony was Schwab's
ultimatum that he would never deal
with any outsider from Kamchatka"
but would stick to his company union
arrangement regardless of any condi-
ton which might be exposed in his
mines.
lie claimed he was paying a mini
mum of $3.50 a day or 45c an hour.
When challenged by Sen. Couzens as
to whether that was a good wage, in
view of irregular employment, Schwab
cracked a joke. When Vice-Pres. Muir
ray Of the U. M. w. A. suggested that
Schwab's mines were paying as low
as $3.50 per day, the steel king said
he hadn't the slightest doubt that
Murray told the truth.
Schwab's browning performance was
to reach over and shake hands with
John l.. Lewis after Sen. Gooding and
Wheeler had stated they felt sure
that Schwab was innocent of know.
ledge OF the mistreatment of the min.
ers in his camps.
John R. Rockefeller, Jr., dominating
owner of the Consolidation Coal Co.
Joined Schwab and R. B. Mellon, rep
resenting the Mellon family in con
! troll of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., il
! turning thumbs down on the United
Nine Workers of America. To al
! questions seeking to commit him Il
confer with representatives of the or
ganized miners, Rockefeller turnet
cold and evasive replies.
Mellon, whispering to his lawye
, whenever asked a question by counse
for the miners union, pretended h
. knew nothing of the civil war in tn
Pittsburgh coal district. He ignore,
the questions which would have com
mitted him to any further dealing
: with the U. M. w. A.
Rockefeller had the same excuse 70
his failure to visit the Consolidation
:, Coal Co. camps during this strik
7 that he gave IA years ago when
. house committee grilled him on tn
coal war in Colorado. On that occa
! sion he said he had absolute conf
: dence in the manager of his Colorad
~ properties. Two weeks later that MAJ
IL ager caused the Ludlow massacre
strikers and their families. This tin
when urged to take personal respol
II sibilities for restoring civilized col
is ditions in his mines in Pennsylvan
le and West Virginia, he repeated tn;
q, he had full confidence in the officia
of the Consolidation Coal Co.
d Mellon took his cue from Schwa
10 who had boasted of his company I'm
a ons, and from Rockefeller who sal
ID vaguely that collective bargainin
Is should be handled in each industry az
a cording to the needs of that industr
r in other words by a company uniol
II Senators were somewhat less respect
lie full to Andrew Melons brother tina
IF they had been to Schwab and Rockt
Teller, but they got nowhere with hin