Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]
[ocr errors][graphic]

COAL STORING AND RECLAIMING BRIDGE AND TRUNK LINE CONVEYOR AT SOUTH CHICAGO

T

THE IMPENDING COAL CRISIS

O obtain a clear-cut understanding of the labor difficulties in which the coal industry is involved one should bear in mind three prime factors:

First, that hard coal and soft coal are entirely separate and distinct commodities.

Second, that the operators, or producers, on the one hand, and the mine workers, on the other, are effectively organized by producing areas (called fields), and on a National scale as well.

Third, that, while the operators' organizations cover the entire country, the organization of the mine workers covers fields which produce only about twothirds of the soft-coal tonnage, and does not include workers in big and important areas of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.

Hard coal, or anthracite, is mined in one small area in Pennsylvania. Producing capacity of this field is slightly in excess of 100,000,000 tons a year. About 150,000 workers, almost solidly organized in unions, are employed in this field. Mining costs, roughly, are about three times the mining costs in the soft-coal fields.

Soft coal is mined in more than twenty States extending from Pennsylvania to the Pacific coast. About 4,000 firms are engaged in the business. The producing capacity of the mines is in excess of 800,000,000 tons a year, fifty per cent more than the greatest amount

BY WILLIAM P. HELM, JR.

of soft coal ever consumed by American industries in any year.

Six hundred thousand workers are employed in the soft-coal fields. About two-thirds are organized in unions. In 1919 these workers received nearly $700,000,000 in wages, an average of slightly less than $100 a month apiece. The capital invested in soft-coal mines is about two billion dollars.

Mining soft coal is largely a seasonal occupation. In the fall and winter, as a rule, the mines are busy. They work full time or part time, in accordance with demand and with the number of railway cars placed at the tipples to carry away the coal as it is mined. With few exceptions, soft-coal mines do not store coal as it is mined. It is more practical and cheaper to mine the coal as it is needed by the industries consuming it. Also much of the soft coal produced throughout the country, because of its physical characteristics, cannot be stored.

In the spring and summer, when demand is slack, the soft-coal mines run on part time. Some of them close. down altogether for weeks or months. The miner in the soft-coal fields, therefore, leads a rather precarious existence. He cannot possibly expect to work every week-day of the year, no matter how booming the times are; and, in addition to this handicap, he is dependent for his wages upon several factors over which he exercises no control whatever. Chief of

these are the supply of railway cars and the executive or selling ability of the operator by whom he is employed.

During the busiest year of which there is a record the working time of the soft-coal mine employee, on the average, throughout the country was less than twenty days a month. Last year it was much lower than that.

Hard-coal operators have two organizations covering nearly all the tonnage mined. Soft-coal operators are organized into about sixty associations, each of these associations being composed of operators in a producing section or field. The soft-coal operators also are organized in a National association, which includes in its membership about twothirds of the tonnage produced throughout the United States. The miners, both of hard coal and soft, have a single organization which covers both producing fields (by local unions) and the country as a whole in a National way.

That organization, the United Mine Workers of America, is the largest labor union in the United States. It has on its membership rolls more than 400,000 names.

For some time past it has been customary for officials of the United Mine Workers to meet every two years with representatives of coal-producing companies and arrange a contract covering wage scales and conditions of labor. These contracts generally run for two years, beginning April 1. At these meet

ings, called joint conferences, the miners' officials presented their proposalspopularly called demands-to the operators' representatives for consideration. Negotiations and, after a few days or a few weeks, a contract followed.

This has been the practice for years. Because of the widely varying conditions of soft-coal mining (the thickness of the seams vary, in different fields, from less than three feet to more than thirty), the negotiations were not conducted with the bituminous industry as a whole, but with representatives of operators whose mines were in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. That great bituminous territory, solidly unionized, has been popularly denominated the Central Competitive Field, and the agreements reached at these joint conferences have served as standard wage agreements upon which all other labor contracts in the soft-coal fields were based.

When the coal industry was placed under Federal control during the war, the Fuel Administrator, Dr. Garfield, found that the wage scale which had been agreed to more than a year before needed revising. Other industries threatened by tempting offers of much higher wages to draw from coal the flower of its workers. And coal mining is a basic industry. Accordingly, in the fall of 1917, at his instance and with his sanction, operators and miners in union fields the country over entered into a new contract which increased wages. The new agreement was to last (note the language) "for the duration of the war."

The non-union operators followed this lead and raised the wages of their workers accordingly.

Coal production made new records during the war, but from the day of the armistice the industry began to flag. Demand slumped to almost nothing, stock piles were more than ample, idleness and dissatisfaction followed in the coal fields. Other industries, however, flourished and wages elsewhere continued to rise.

Thereupon ensued a series of events having an intimate and profound relation to the present crisis.

In September, 1919, ten months after the armistice, the miners in National convention voted their war-time contract ended, and ratified a set of demands which included a sixty per cent increase in wages, a six-hour day (instead of eight, as theretofore), and a five-day week. In joint conference shortly thereafter the demands were submitted to operators of the Central Competitive Field. The operators considered them for a time, and finally rejected them. The miners struck.

The strike began November 1, and lasted six weeks. The Government by injunction tied up the funds of the union; through a Federal Grand Jury it procured indictments charging conspiracy against the union leaders and many leading soft-coal operators; and, as an intermediary, it brought the strike

LINCOLN AND THE QUAKER SERGEANT

Every Lincoln's Birthday brings out new Lincoln material worth having. This week we publish on another page an illuminating comment on the Cooper Union address by Major George Haven Putnam. Next week The Outlook will print a remarkable letter discovered and edited by Mr. Leigh M. Hodges. In it a Quaker sergeant tells how he saw and talked with Lincoln in the White House in 1863. Lincoln said to Senator Ben Wade: "Senator, we have had the head of the Army here. . . . Now we have here the tail of the Army, so let us get from him how the rank and file feel about matters." And he did!

Lord Charnwood, biographer of Lincoln, calls this previously unpub. lished letter "One of the most convincing and illuminating reminiscences of Lincoln I have yet seen."

to an end with a temporary wage increase of about fourteen per cent and submission of the entire dispute before a Presidential commission for arbitration. While the strike was in progress not a ton of coal was brought to the earth's surface in the Central Competitive Field and other union districts. The tie-up was complete. Only pumpmen and enginemen necessary to prevent the flooding of the mines remained at their posts.

In non-union fields in West Virginia and elsewhere the mines worked to capacity. The Government stepped in, fixed prices, and took control through the Railroad Administration. As fast as the coal was mined it was com

(C) Underwood

mandeered.

The commandeered coal

was used first to keep the railways going (the railways use for their locomotives about thirty per cent of all the soft coal mined in the country in normal times), and thereafter to supply certain industries in order of priority determined by the Government.

Some of this West Virginia coal was shipped west a thousand miles or more. Railway cars were sent so far off their home rails that even at this date not all of them have been returned. The transportation system of the country suffered during that six weeks the most severe dislocation it has ever known. The Government collected a surplus million dollars for coal whose shippers it had not found, through confusion of records, more than a year later.

Nearly forty per cent of the Nation's soft-coal needs were met by the nonunion fields. Were a strike to be declared to-morrow, the non-union mines, given adequate transportation facilities, probably could supply, in the face of lessened requirements, nearly sixty per cent of the coal necessary to keep industry going. It could not be supplied economically, for freights would mount in many instances to three times the cost of the coal itself; but it could be supplied at a price.

At the time of the strike the anthracite mines continued in operation. This year, however, the anthracite and bituminous miners have joined hands. Their wage agreements expire simultaneously.

As soon as the men went back to work the union leaders, realizing the key position of the non-union mines, set about unionizing them. More than a million dollars was spent in West Virginia alone, the chief citadel assaulted. Open

[graphic]

IN THE DEPTHS OF A COAL MINE

(C) Underwood

COAL ON THE WAY TO THE BREAKERS, WHERE IT IS TO BE BROKEN INTO REGULAR SIZES

and prolonged warfare followed, but the mines were not unionized.

Under the pressure of economic necessity, wages were reduced in the nonunion fields in 1921. Producing costs thereby dropped, and as a result the non-union mines have been getting the cream of the business. The mine worker in those fields had more working time and made more money in 1921 than his brother in union territory. Outlying fringes of the non-union fields-in West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania-hard pressed by the competition, sought to lower union wages in their fields, and in some cases succeeded.

In the early spring of 1920 the Presidential commission made its award, further increasing wages. Industrial peace settled over the coal fields and from the slough of despond the industry shot to the heights of speculation.

Lack of sufficient railway cars and slowness on the public's part to buy caused sectional shortages, and a big export demand aggravated them. Coal prices soared. A multi-millionaire operator told me in the summer of 1920 that the Mississippi Bubble was dwarfed by

the gambling then going on in coal. Most of the big companies deplored it and refused to accept inordinate profits, but hundreds of other companies made the financial killing of their existence.

The miners seized their opportunity and succeeded that summer in forcing wage-scale amendments providing higher rates of pay for certain classes of workers. Operators sought by handsome bonuses over and above a generous wage scale to win away one another's men. Coal for immediate delivery sold at one hundred per cent profit at the mine mouth, and that profit was doubled in many instances before the coal reached the consumer. It was not strange that the miner, seeing such profits, should seek to participate in them.

Finally the spree ended, as sprees always do, and the industry came back to consciousness-and a headache. There followed a year of extreme depression. It is estimated that 200,000 soft-coal miners were out of work. In the New River field of West Virginia, producing soft coal unsurpassed in quality, the miners worked, on the average, only eighty days during the entire

year, the United Mine Workers claim, and average earnings fell to $500 a man. Hundreds of them worked, according to union claims, only from fourteen to twenty-six days in 1921.

In Indiana, according to union figures, the working year in 1921 was 148 days and average earnings about $750; and in southeastern Kentucky and Tennessee only one-third of the mines were operated at all.

Such were conditions when the time came last fall to frame a new wage demand. The miners in biennial convention named a committee to formulate the demands. So far as the soft-coal fields are concerned, the committee, at this writing, has not reported. Meantime President Lewis, of the United Mine Workers, sought a joint conference with operators of the Central Competitive Field under that clause of the present contract (the result of the Government's arbitration) reading as follows:

"Resolved, That an inter-State joint conference be held prior to April 1, 1922; the time and place for holding such meeting to be referred to a committee of two operators and two members from each State herein represented, together with the international officials of the United Mine Workers of America." On December 16 President Lewis issued a call for a preliminary meeting. He suggested Pittsburgh as the place and January 6 as the date. The object of the preliminary meeting was to arrange a joint conference. Illinois and Indiana operators accepted. Operators of southern Ohio, however, declined, basing their action on the ground that inequalities of cost of production as between that field and competing nonunion fields, due to lower wages in the latter, made it inexpedient to negotiate "as heretofore."

"In due time," the operators wrote, "the operators of southern Ohio will propose a new scale for their employees which will not include the check-off and which will eliminate the inequalities placed upon this district."

Western Pennsylvania operators also declined to meet the union officials. "We desire to say," the operators wrote, "that we see nothing beneficial to the public or the coal industry in a meeting such as indicated in your letter, and decline to meet."

Indiana operators then suggested that the proposed meeting, lacking Ohio and Pennsylvania representation, would be futile. Illinois operators insisted that it be held. It was not held, however.

With some slight changes, that is where the situation stands as this is written, late in January. Much has been said both by miners and operators about the merits of the case. There has been talk of reducing wages and talk of demanding an increase. Each side has stated its attitude and its justification. But there has been no preliminary meeting to formulate the new wage scale and avert a strike. Such a meeting to-day appears unlikely. Meantime the days to April 1 are shortening.

[graphic]

W

BY DOROTHY CANFIELD

THE SECOND OF A SERIES OF FIVE EXCURSIONS ALONG THE BYWAYS OF HUMAN NATURE

HEN my pretty little cousin and goddaughter, Flossie, fell in love with Peter Carr, we all felt rather apprehensive about her future. But Flossie faced the facts with an honest, even a rather grim, resolution which surprised us. She said, with only a little tremor in her voice, that she never expected entirely to occupy the place in Peter's heart which Eleanor Arling had taken forever, but that she loved him so much she was willing to take whatever he could give her. It wasn't his fault, she said, with the quaintest chivalric defiance of us, if poor Peter hadn't more to give. She thought "a great love like that was a noble thing in any one's life, even if it did make them perfectly miserable." "If Miss Arling felt that happiness must be sacrificed for her art, why that was a great, exalted attitude to take, and Peter's sorrow was sacred in her eyes," and so on and so forth.

So they were married, with the understanding that Peter could still go on worshiping the very sound of Eleanor Arling's name and turning white when he came across a mention of her or of her pictures in the cabled news of the art world in Paris. Flossie was, as my brother said, a good sport if there ever was one, and she stuck gamely to her bargain. She had transferred the big silver-framed photograph of Miss Arling from Peter's bachelor quarters to the wall of the new living-room and she dusted it as conscientiously as she did the Botticelli "Spring" which I gave her for a wedding present. It was not easy for her. I have seen her flush deeply and set her lips hard as Peter looked up at the great brooding dark eyes shadowed by the casque of heavy black braids. Flossie is one of the small, quick, humming-bird women, with nothing to set against Miss Arling's massive classic beauty, and by her expressions at such moments I know that she felt this bitterly. But she never let Peter see how she felt. She had taken him, the darkness of his unrequited passion heavy on him, and if she ever regretted it she gave no sign.

She flashed about the house, keeping it in perfect order, feeding Peter with most delicious meals, and after the twins came caring for them with no strain or nervous tension, with only a bright, thankful, steady enjoyment of them that was warm on your heart like sunshine. Peter enjoyed his pretty home and devoted wife and lively babies and excellent food. He began to lay on flesh and to lose the haggard leanness which, just after Miss Arling had gone away, had made people turn and look after him in the street. Architecture is, even when you are busy and successful as Peter is, a rather sedentary occupa

tion, offering no resistance to such cooking as Flossie turned out. Peter's skin began to grow rosy and sleek, his hair from being rough and bristling began to look smooth and glossy. It was quite beautiful hair as long as it lasted, but as the years went on and the twins began to be big children it, unlike the rest of Peter, began to look thinner. Peter with a bald spot was queer enough, but before he was thirty-five it was not a spot, but all the top of his head. We thought it very becoming to him, as it gave him a beneficent, thoughtful, kindly look, like a philosopher. And his added weight was also distinctly an improvement to his looks.

Flossie had not changed an atom. Those tiny, slight women occasionally remain stationary in looks, as though they were in cold storage. She continued to worship Peter, and as he had made a good husband we were not surprised, although of course you never can understand what an excessively devoted wife sees in her husband year after year. Flossie never mitigated in the least the extremity of her attention to Peter's needs. When he was called away on a business trip, she always saw that his satchel was packed with just what he would need; and she would have risen from her grave to arrange his coffee in the morning exactly to his taste.

The rest of us had forgotten all about Miss Arling's connection with Peter, and had grown so used to the photograph of the big handsome woman that we did not see it any more. Then one morning when I came downstairs I found Flossie waiting for me, very pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She was holding a newspaper in her clenched hand-the New York newspaper they took on account of its full gossipy "World of Art" column. Flossie opened it to that column now, and read in a dry voice: "American art lovers are promised a treat in the visit of the famous Eleanor Arling, who arrives on the Mauretania. Miss Arling plans an extensive trip in her native country, from which she has been absent for many years. She will visit New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco. Her keen artistic perception and memory is shown by her intention of breaking her trip for a few days at "" Flossie's voice broke. "She's coming here," she gasped, then, collecting herself, she continued reading: "Miss Arling told our interviewer that she once passed some weeks there and remembers with pleasure a composition of cliff, water, and pine trees. She wishes to see it again.' Cliff, water, and pine trees," repeated Flossie. Her eyes were blazing. "Of course we know it is nothing in the way of a landscape she is coming back to see here!" I saw that her little fists were

clenched. "I won't stand it," she cried, "I won't stand it!" But she looked horribly frightened, all the same.

"What can you do?" I asked, sympathizing painfully with the poor little thing.

"I shall go to see her the minute she reaches town."

"What can you do?" I asked again.

"I don't know. I don't know. Whatever I have to do to make her go away and not take Peter," she said, wildly, and went away.

Ten days after this she darted in, her face pinched, and told me that the time was now, and that she wanted me to be with her. "I must have somebody there," she said piteously.

I was thoroughly alarmed, protested, but found myself in Flossie's highpowered car, driving at a dangerous rate of speed towards Miss Arling's hotel.

We were shown into the sitting-room of her suite, and sat down, both breathing hard. I am very fond of Flossie, and I was very sorry for her, but I certainly wished her at the other end of the world just then.

Presently the door opened, and a stout middle-aged woman came in, her gray hair bobbed and hanging in strings around a very red, glistening face. It was terribly hot, and she had, I suppose, just come in from the long motor trip there. She had a lighted cigarette in one hand. Her cushiony, shapeless feet were thrust into a pair of Japanese sandals. She distinctly waddled as she walked. We supposed that she was Miss Arling's companion, and I said, because Flossie was too agitated to speak, "We wished to speak to Miss Arling, please."

"I am Miss Arling," she said, casually. "Won't you sit down?"

I don't know what I did, but I heard Flossie give a hysteric little squeak like a terrified rabbit. So I hurried on, saying the first things that came into my mind, desperately: "We heard you were coming-in the newspapers. We are old residents here-a cliff, water, and pine trees-I know the view-we thought perhaps we might show you where-"

She was surprised a little at my incoherence and Flossie's strange face, but evidently she was a much-experienced woman of the world whom nothing could surprise very much. "Oh, that's very kind," she said, civilly, tossing her cigarette butt away and folding her large, strong, fat hands on her ample knees, "but I went that way on the road coming in. I remembered it perfectly. I used it as the background in a portrait some years ago."

She saw no reason for expanding on the topic and now stopped speaking. I could think of nothing more to say

« ПретходнаНастави »