The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-02
By r. FRANKFELD.

THE Party has never fully realized the i'm
l. portance of the anthracite. There are
1850 miners in the anthracite, including 81 ;
642 American workers (white); All Negro
workers, and 57,517 foreign born miners The
anthracite is highly concentrated industrial
section; with mining, textile, and railroad shops
as the main industries The Party in the past
was contented with leaving the anthracite go
its way, and when sharp, bitter struggles
would develop, sudden spurge of attention
and activity, and then back again to an at
titude of "hands off" and passivity.
This attitude of the past must definitely be
broken with. The Party as whole must real
ize the seriousness of the situation here; must
realize the splendid opportunities that exist
for building up the National Miners Union
the Trade Union Unity League, and the Party.
Otherwise, within short time some more self
criticism will be engaged in. "The Party
Jagged behind the rehabilitation of the hard
coal miners" "The Party did not amply pre-
pare itself to lead these struggles" etc. The
Party still has sufficient time to mobilize the
miners for struggle. The Party still has time
to make preparations for active participation
IN the coming struggles here.
WORLD CRISIS IN COAL.
country has found itself in part of the in
ternational crisis of the coal Industry ever
since the ending of the last world war still
continues. The substitutes found to take the
place of coal as a fuel are still in existence,
and are still being used The coal markets of
the world are not expanding; in fact are shrink
ing steadily. The coal industry is still suffer
ing from the after-effects of the wartime
over-development
This crisis has existed in a sharper form in
the soft-coal fields. Nevertheless the anthra-
cite coal fields have not been exempt from this
downward curve of production of coal. In 1918
there were 88,238,000 gross tons of hard coal
mined. 1919-78, 501,931 gross tons produced.
Except for the years 1921 and 1923, when there
was slight upward curves (yet never reaching
the figures of 1918. 1928, which saw the high
est production since 1918; succeeded in reach
ing the mark of 83,33S,401 gross tons); the
output of hard coal has gone downwards In
1926: 1890, 582 gross tons of anthracite coal
mined In 1927 there were 66,934,756 gross
tons produced; and in 1928 this was further
reduced to 63,135,057 gross tons. The Scranton
"Sun" of December "a, points out that the
1929 production lags behind that of 1928, and
that "this shortage was caused by the slump
in production during the first seven months of
1929" The Anthracite Bureau of Information
dated December 10, in it's monthly report on
anthracite shipments for November 1929
states: shipments of anthracite for the month
of November as reported to the Anthracite
Bureau of Information, Philadelphia amounted
to 4,615464 gross tons as compared with 6,477,-
729 tons in the preceding month of October,
and with 5,759,031 tons in November, 1928"
In the New York Times of December II, there
appeared a report of the conversation between
the anthracite delegation and President Hoo
yer, chief business executive The Times says:
''What was declared to be the prospect of
severe depression in the anthracite coal in
dustry in the coming year was brought to the
attention of President Hoover AMI Secretary
Lamont today by representatives of the An
thracte Cooperative Association of Pennsyl-