The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1935-07-11
The Hard Road of Soft
Coal


competing forms of energy have taken
heavy toll of profits. Aside from
the more efficient production methods
which mechinization has made posi-
BILE, consumers on their part have con-
tributed to the woes of the coal man
by discovering ways of making a Civ
en- volume of coal produce a larger
output of heat and energy.
In 1913 bituminous coal furnished
more than seventy per cent of the total
energy produced in the country; in
1881 it furnished less than fifty per
cent, according to the National Coal
Association studies. This same source
has been quoted to the effect that in
1880 natural gas displaced 100000
tons of bituminous coal; fuel and gas
oils displaced 100000 tons, and
water power the same number of tons,
while miscellaneous other sources of
energy cut down the mines market by
"a 100000 tons.
49,
Along with all industry, coal suf-
fered from the depression following
1929. The projection of the National
Industrial Recovery Administration
into the picture early in the present
Administration gave it the first bit of
hope it had had in many years. Upon
adoption of the code of fair COMPETE
ton brief period of stability ensued;
many operators for the first time in al
most a decade actually operated at a
profit. The workers, for their part,
enjoyed stable wage situation; the
consuming public had the advantage
of knowing what coal would cost from
month to month, even though the price
was hiked up to them above what it
would have been under a system of
untrammeled competition.
Unfortunately, this idyllic state
did not last even throughout the life
of the code. Even before the Supreme
Court delivered it's death blow to the
NRA, soft coal had begun all over
again its time-honored habit Of cut
throat competition. Negotiations be-
gun in February between the OPP
orators and the miners foundered on
the union demands for a shorter work
week and higher wages. Many of the
Southern operators, who had reluct-
antly accepted the code and boosted
wages.some as high as 800 per cent
were unwilling when the code ended
to continue the code wage scales, or
to maintain the price structure.
That the United Mine Workers saw
this breakdown coming is indicated
by the fact that its attorneys pre-
pared a bill for a little NRA for the
bituminous industry and had Senator
Guffey and Representative Snyder
present it to Congress. Although it
us backed mainly by labor, some of the
operators in the northern Appalachian
reginon gave the bill support, be-
cause they had had taste of sta
bility under the code of fair compe-
tition.
The proposals to lift a sort of pro-
tective umbrella over the coal industry
by way of code was evolved long be-
fore the birth of the National Recev-
cry Administration. During the coal
troubles of 1920 the Senate passed a
resolution for an investigation by its
Commute on Education and Labor.
Senator William S. Kenyon, of Iowa,
was made chairman. The committee,
after exhaustive study, could not agree
on proposal for solving the problems
then vexing the industry, but Senator
Kenyon proposed the formation of an
industrial code. Other members of the
committee favored the incorporation
of labor unions. Nothing ever came of
the various accommodations.
***
Later, at the instance of Senator
Borah, Congress established a fact
finding commission on the coal indus
try. That body compiled voluminous
data, but never offered plan that
seemed to meet the basic difficulties
encountered. Never until the NRA sys-
tenn came along did anything happen
that even remotely resembled an all
embracing remedy.
When that system broke down, the
chief hope of the miners lay in the
pending Guffey bill, which had the
blessing of the Administration and
the active backing of the United Mine
Workers of America, as well as num-
Der of large operators in the North
ern fields. Almost all Of the Southern
operators, the steel industry, the rail-
roads and large consumers generally
opposed the bill.
The essence of the plan is that the
coal industry would virtually be ma
tionalized. Among other things in the
bill fashioned to that end-and quite