The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-09-16
SATURDAY. SEPT. 10. 1898.


NOTHING more important has happened
under the new deal than the bituminous
coal code. Drafted by committee of opera
tors. miners and NRA officials. It deserves, and
doubtless viii receive today acceptance by the
operators and signature by the President.
It is a great victory for labor But it is
much more than that. It is a victory for the
nation.
For coal has been Americas sickest in
dustry. Before the depression, and since its
disease Of disorder has infected other indus
tries and Slapped the economic vitality Of the
country. Labor wars. company gunner,
starving tent colonies Of strikers families
sordid towns in which companies ran every
thing-local government, church, stores. on
down-feudalism in the midst Of a democracy
which it belied!
Few proited from the feudalism, not even
the average mine owner It was a cut-throat
business. When the operators we're not fight
ing labor they were fighting one another.
Meanwhile, one Of the nations most val
liable natural resources was being wasted by
careless and inefficient exploitation.
Purpose Of the code is to bring order out Of
that costly chaos It is not perfect 1t does
not go the whole way. But it will constitute,
when signed, probably the most sweeping adj
vance ever made at one time by any Ameri-
can industry.
Labor did not win recognition of all its
demands. There is to be no automatic union
ization. The codes basic week of forty hours
is not the thirty hours requested. The base
wage scale of $3.50 in the north, s42O in the
south. and in one western field s3.75, is not
the S. demanded.
But those wages and hours unsatisfactory
as they may prove not only for labor, but for
national purchasing power and recovery, are
temporary and subject to negotiated revision
within few months.
The main thing is that labor has won the
right to negotiate. The efforts Of short sight
ed employers, led by the steel-coal group, to
evade the collective bargaining clause of the
national recovery act have failed.
Labor is to be protected by the govern
ment in Its right to negotiate through unions
and officers Of its own choosing. While the
company union is not outlawed, it can not be
forced upon any worker
And when labor does not get justice in this
and other matters, it has recourse to boards
on which the government has the balance Of
power. Child labor under II is prohibited in
the mines
This may seem elementary. 1t is. But it
is a long distance from the barbaric state
which has degraded the industry for so many
years
The price-fXing provisions are under ulti-
mate government control They can be justi-
fled here-as they can not be justified in most
Observation-Disclosures basic natural resource is
at stake.
If consumers are intelligent, they will not
be gouged. They should pay a fair and living
price for coal. which they have not always
done in the past.
All in all, the coal code offers new hope.
If the Roosevelt administration, by its patience
and wisdom. is able to handle this problem
other industrial problems should be easier.
If the new deal achieves nothing more
than bringing health to the sick coal industry
it will be worth the faith the American people
have put into it.