THE TRUTH ABOUT THE COAL QUESTION
Almost anyone can make anybody believe anything that is not so. It is
only the truth that makes poor headway in this world. Our national motto
seems to be: “When there are no more blunderers or liars to be heard,
let us listen to common sense.”
The anthracite coal situation is a case in point. So long ago as 1902
this situation had become maddening. As the result of a prolonged strike
to obtain living wages for the miners, the country, at the beginning of
winter, was threatened with a coal famine. So serious was the situation
that a “Get-Coal Conference” was held at Detroit. Among the delegates
were Victor L. Berger, the first Socialist congressman, and a number of
other Socialists. These Socialist delegates told the conference what to
do. They said:
“Go into politics. Make the governmental ownership of the coal mines and
the railroads a political matter. Take over the ownership of these mines
and railroads and operate them for the benefit of the people, rather
than for the benefit of millionaires. Do that and you will have solved
your coal problem.”
But that was the truth, mind you. As truth, it had no chance of
acceptance at that time. Truth never has a chance the first time, the
second time or the third time. Truth has attained its great reputation
for rising every time it is crushed only because it has been so often
crushed.
And the truth that these men spoke in Detroit years ago was forthwith
crushed, not only in Detroit, but all over the country. What was the use
of believing? Were there not plenty of blunderers about? Were there not
plenty of blind alleys in which to go?
Indeed, there were. The people went into one of them. Or, rather, they
remained in the blind alley in which they had long been. That was the
blind alley of private ownership of the coal mines and railroads. Plenty
of blind men could see a delightful opening at the end of this blind
alley. They were very sure that it led somewhere. It must lead
somewhere. Certainly, no great difficulty could be encountered in
managing these millionaires. The Inter-State Commerce Commission would
fix them if nothing else could fix them. If the Inter-State Commerce
Commission should prove too weak for the task, the courts would not
prove too weak. At any rate, there was no danger ahead. It was entirely
safe to leave the nation’s coal supply in the hands of a few men who had
already abundantly proved their disinclination to treat either their
employees or the public honestly.
For ten straight years thereafter we fought the Coal Trust in the
courts. We enjoined it, we indicted it, we prosecuted it. To what
purpose? To no purpose. In 1912, the United States Supreme Court brought
an end to the proceedings by handing down a decision that was said to be
a “great victory” for the Government. But it was one of those great
anti-trust victories that do not hurt the trusts nor help the people.
This “victory” did not hurt the Coal Trust. The price of coal did not go
down a nickel. On the contrary, the prices of coal road stocks
immediately went higher. Wall Street knew the decision would not
interrupt the Coal Trust in its plundering, and backed its opinion with
its money. Wall Street quickly realized what we have not yet fully
realized—that the court had prohibited only a certain method of
stealing, while leaving the trust free to adopt any one of a hundred
other methods, each of which is as suitable to its purposes as the
method that has been put under the ban.
The trust lawyers quickly juggled out one of the hundred other methods
of stealing and the robbery of the people continued as if there had been
no decision by the United States Supreme Court. Immediately, there was a
loud demand from the “radical” press that the anti-trust law be so
amended that it would prohibit the new form of robbery. Again the
Socialists repeated their warning against reliance upon laws that seek
to regulate trusts. Again the Socialists urged the people to settle the
coal question for all time by owning and operating the coal mines and
the railroads that carry the coal to the people. Between the advice
given by Socialists and the advice given by radicals, there was all the
difference that there is between night and day. The “radicals” advised
the people to leave the coal in the hands of a few multi-millionaires
and then fight in the courts to get it back. The Socialists assured the
people that if they would take possession of their own coal they would
not be compelled to fight to get it back. But the advice given by the
Socialists contained too much truth to find ready acceptance. There
being not fewer than a hundred ways in which the trust could rob the
people, it seemed so much more reasonable to let the trust try these
various ways, one by one, and prosecute the trust gentlemen for each
separate form of robbery. Ten years were required to “win” the
anti-trust case that was finally decided in 1912, so we shall require at
least 1,000 years to obtain supreme court decisions prohibiting a
hundred different methods of Coal Trust robbery. But good, able
“radical” gentlemen assured the people that the way to kill the Coal
Trust was to choke it with court decisions and the people believed what
they were told. Almost always the people believe what they are told
unless what they are told is true. It is only the truth that must fight
its way in this world. So many powerful, selfish persons are always
eager to foist the lie that feathers their nests. Truth is always
besmirched by those whom it would destroy, and too often despised by
those whom it would help.
Thus we have a naked view of two classes of men—the anthracite coal
operators and their victims. The coal operators are conscienceless
robbers. They hold within the hollows of their hands the anthracite coal
supply of this country. They own it or control it as you own or control
a gas range that you have bought or rented. The coal supply of this
country is their property. And though you must draw upon it or freeze in
winter, you cannot have a pound of coal except at their price. And their
price is always all they believe they can get out of you without a riot.
The cost of production does not matter. Your necessities do not matter.
They want all they can get.
These naked millionaires are not attractive persons. Who would be an
attractive person if he had their power? Are you so sure you would be an
attractive person if you had their power? Do not be too sure. Give any
man such an opportunity to squeeze millions out of a people and it is
very likely that he will squeeze them. There is little or nothing in
this “good man,” “bad man” theory. The blackest Coal Trust magnate is
just what you and the Coal Trust have made him. If anything, you are
more to blame than he. He gets all of his power from the laws. And the
men whom you elect make the laws. They make the laws which say that a
few men—or, so far as that is concerned, one man—may own all of the
anthracite coal mines in the country.
These laws are certainly very comfortable for the Coal Trust gentlemen.
If you are satisfied, they are. If you don’t move to change them, they
will never move to change them. But, if you are fit to cast a ballot,
you know that the present conditions can never be changed until the laws
that made the conditions are changed.
Let us now take a close view of the Coal Trust victims. You are one of
them. You are tired of the Coal Trust. You have no sort of notion that
it is anything except the robber concern that everybody believes it to
be. You would be much better pleased if the government owned the mines.
You would be still better pleased if the government owned not only the
mines but the railroads that carry coal from the mines. You know that in
the Panama Canal Zone, where the government sells all of the supplies,
the cost of living is much less than it is here. You believe all of this
and more. But what are you doing to translate your belief into
accomplished fact?
You are doing nothing. The only way in which you can translate this
belief into accomplished fact is to express your belief in political
action. You must vote for that which you believe. You must support a
political party that advocates the ownership by the government of the
coal mines and the railroads. If you vote for a party that believes in
permitting the ownership of the coal mines and the railroads to remain
where it is you are voting for the Coal Trust. How long do you believe
it will take you to beat the Coal Trust by voting for the Coal Trust? Do
you know of any way in which the Coal Trust can be beaten except by
voting against it?
Of course, the newspapers that you read will tell you there are other
ways of beating the robber Coal Trust than by voting against it. They
will tell you that the Coal Trust can be “regulated” or indicted and
convicted into decency. Ask your newspapers what makes them think so. We
have many great trusts in this country—has a single one of them ever
been regulated into decency? Have they been so ruthlessly pursued in
court that they were willing to be decent? You know the answer. You know
there is not a decent great trust in the country. You know that every
attempt to drive them into decency has failed. Yet your newspapers have
the impudence to tell you that it is not necessary that the government
should own the anthracite mines and the railroads.
It would be difficult to imagine a more amazing situation. Here we have
in this country two sharply contrasted classes of opinion.
One opinion is that institutions like the Coal Trust should be regulated
or destroyed—compelled to go back to competition.
The other opinion is that institutions like the Coal Trust can neither
be regulated nor compelled to break up into small parts and compete.
The men who hold the first opinion can not point to a single instance
wherein their belief has been justified by events. The men who hold the
second opinion have only common sense with which to back up their
assertion that, if the government owned the coal mines and the
railroads, Coal Trust magnates and railway multi-millionaires could not
rob us.
But in this instance, as in all others where the robbery of the many by
the few is concerned, truth is put upon the defensive. The grafters, as
they might naturally be expected to do, not only shower upon the
truth-tellers their scorn and derision, but even the people who are
being robbed are doubtful or suspicious. They are not so certain that if
robbers be stopped robbery will be stopped. They suspect the statement
that, if nothing be taken from something, something will remain
untouched. They want us to prove, not only that two and two make four,
but that nothing from four leaves four.
But they don’t ask the “regulation” send-them-to-jail gentlemen to prove
anything. When these grafters say two from four leave four nobody
expresses a doubt. Everybody is ready to believe that that which has
never been done can be easily done. Few are ready to believe that that
which might easily be done can be done at all.
The public attitude toward the Coal Trust and the railroads constitutes
possibly the only exception to this rule. The Coal Trust and the
railroads have so wronged the people that the people would doubtless
welcome their ownership by the government. If the people were to vote
directly upon the question: “Shall the government take over the
ownership of the anthracite coal mines and the railroads?” it is
probable that the affirmative majority would be not less than two to
one. Yet, notwithstanding the fact that the coal question can be solved
only with ballots, the Socialists are the only ones who seem ever to try
with their ballots to solve it. The rest of the people, while opposed to
the conditions that exist, vote the tickets of parties that are pledged
to maintain the conditions that exist.
Every man who voted for Wilson, Roosevelt or Taft voted to keep the coal
supply of the nation in private hands and the railroads in private
hands.
Those who voted for Mr. Wilson voted to “destroy” the Coal Trust and
“send the trust magnates to prison.”
Those who voted for Mr. Roosevelt voted to permit the Coal Trust to
continue to own the nation’s coal supply, provided only that it be
“good.” Otherwise, a “strong” commission appointed by Mr. Roosevelt
would proceed to administer “social justice.”
Those who voted for Mr. Taft voted to break the Coal Trust into bits.
Candidly, let us ask, did either of these plans suit anybody? Is there
anybody who would not have vastly preferred that the government take
over the ownership of the anthracite coal mines and operate them for the
benefit of the people? A plan of governmental ownership and operation
would have settled the coal question instantly. A government that can
dig the Panama Canal can dig coal.
But there is no likelihood whatever that Mr. Wilson’s plan to destroy
the Coal Trust and all other trusts will settle the coal question at
all. The Coal Trust cares nothing for courts. Mr. Hearst attacked the
Coal Trust more vigorously in the courts than any President ever
attacked any trusts in the courts. Mr. Hearst came out of court
absolutely empty-handed. He gained a few paper victories, but he gained
no substantial victory. He never halted for a moment the upward flight
of the price of coal.
Mr. Wilson, if he try ever so hard, can do no better. So long as the
principle of the private ownership of the anthracite coal fields is
admitted—and Mr. Wilson admits this principle as fully as does
anybody—nothing can be done. Corporations can be split up into bits, it
is true, as the Standard Oil Company was split up, but what do such
splits amount to? Absolutely nothing. The ownership is not changed. The
dominating owners continue to handle the pieces as they formerly handled
the whole.
Suppose Mr. Wilson try to enforce the criminal clause of the Sherman
Anti-Trust law and put the coal magnates into jail? Suppose he try to
compel the component parts of the Coal Trust actually to compete with
each other. What will happen?
This will happen. The component parts of the Coal Trust will refuse to
compete. The men who are at the head of the coal companies are business
associates of long standing. They know each other well, and they know
well that none of them can make any money by fighting any of the others.
So, when one gentleman announces a schedule of coal prices, none of the
others will undercut him. All of the other coal companies will announce
the same prices, because the owners of each company will also be the
owners of all the other companies.
Did you ever stop to consider what position the government will then be
in? Will not its hands be tied? Can the government go into court and
demand that the other companies cut their prices? Suppose the other
companies say they cannot cut their prices without losing money? Suppose
the other companies say nothing at all, except: “This coal belongs to
us. We have quite as much right to fix our own price upon it as has the
government to fix its own price upon postage stamps. That other coal
companies have fixed the same price we have is no more the government’s
business than it is because several grocers fix the same price upon
sugar, bacon, tea or coffee.”
It will then be up to the government to prove that the identicality of
prices is the result of conspiracy. If conspiracy cannot be proved, the
government can do nothing. In such a case, the government would never be
able to prove conspiracy. The coal operators would not conspire over the
telephone, or on the street corners. There would be little for them to
conspire about, anyway. All of them would be financially interested in
all of the companies, precisely as Mr. Rockefeller is financially
interested in all of the constituent companies of the Standard Oil
Company. The matter of price-fixing would probably be left to the
dominating personality of the group, precisely as it is now left, more
or less, to the strongest man among them. And, the prices he fixed would
speedily become the prices of all.
Thus do we perceive a peculiar feature of the human mind. Individually,
we know what we should like to do about the Coal Trust and the
railroads. We know we should like to own and operate them. But
collectively we know no such thing. We do not get together. We act as if
that which each of us believes were believed by no other than himself.
We are like butter that will not “gather” or bees that will not “hive.”
There is every reason why we who are paying outrageous prices for coal
should get together on the matter of public ownership. The cost of
mining coal is less than $2 a ton. In 1902 Mr. George F. Baer—the
“Divine Right” gentleman—testified that the cost was $2, and some other
witnesses testified that it was as low as $1.43 a ton. Probably no one
but the coal magnates know exactly what the cost is, but now and then a
fact leaks out that is illuminating. Such a fact was discovered in 1912
by a staff correspondent whom the New York _World_ sent into the coal
regions.
The _World_ man found that the Coal Trust sells coal to its employees at
a reduced price. This is not philanthropy, because if the Coal Trust
charged full price for coal, it would soon be compelled to pay the
miners more wages—they live like dogs, and not much more can be taken
from them until it is first given to them. At any rate, the _World_ man
found that the price of coal, to miners, is only $2 a ton.
Now, it is fair to assume that the Coal Trust is not losing any money on
the $2 coal that it is selling to its employees. It is more likely that
it is making a nickel or two. At any rate, $2 a ton may be considered
the extreme limit of the cost of mining a ton of anthracite.
Whenever the people of this country are ready to listen to the truth
about the coal question, the retail price of coal can quickly be more
than cut in two. The actual cost of mining coal and transporting it to
any point within 500 miles of the mines probably is not more than $3 a
ton. If the people, through the government, owned and operated the
mines, the government could afford to sell coal at this price, plus the
local cost of delivery. The wages of the miners could be doubled—as they
should be—and coal could still be sold by the government at $5 a ton. In
any calculation about the coal problem, the miners should not be
forgotten. The Coal Trust will never take care of them, but they have a
right to demand that they shall be taken care of.
The business of mining coal is dangerous and disagreeable to the last
degree. Coal miners, when they are at work, seldom see the day. They go
from the night of the surface to the night of the mines. They breathe
such dust as never blew in the filthiest street. When a fall of slate
comes or an explosion of firedamp, their mangled bodies are all that is
left for their weeping widows and orphans at the mouth of the mine. If
they escape death by accident, they cannot escape the death that comes
from the unhealthfulness of their calling. No life insurance company
wants much to do with a coal miner except at the highest rates. No
tuberculosis exhibit is complete without the blackened lungs of a coal
miner in a jar of alcohol. There is nothing for a coal miner when he is
alive but a cheerless existence of the greatest drudgery—and nothing for
him when he is dead but an unmarked grave on the hillside. Yet 76,000
human beings thus spend their lives in the anthracite coal mines, and
hundreds of other thousands in the bituminous mines. All of this great
toll of human misery that the nation may burn coal.
If the nation could not get along without coal, there might be some
excuse for this colossal sacrifice. Even then, it would be hard for
those who might be compelled to make the sacrifice and, if we were to be
fair about it, we might have some difficulty in determining who should
go to the mines and who should go to the opera. If we were to be fair
about it, perhaps some of those who now go to the opera would go to the
mines sometimes. But the nation could easily get along without sending
anybody into the mines. Water power and fuel oil will do everything that
coal is now doing.
Please consider the water power question. In a report made to President
Taft in 1912 by Commissioner of Corporations Herbert K. Smith, these
statements appear:
Steam and gas engines are creating in this country approximately
19,000,000 horsepower.
Water wheels, in this country, are developing 6,000,000 horsepower.
The water power of this country, capable of development, is
approximately 19,000,000 horsepower.
These statements mean that there is enough undeveloped water power in
this country to more than take the place of every coal-burning steam
engine. This water power, if converted into electricity, would do
everything that steam does and more. It would run machinery. It would
light streets. It would heat houses. Moreover, the water power, once
developed, would not have to be dug out of the ground every year. “White
coal,” as the Italians call water power, is mined by the sun and thrown
into the furnace by the force of gravitation. Railroads need not haul
it. Nobody need deliver it. It hauls and delivers itself.
But that is not all. If there were not an ounce of water power in this
country, still we should not be dependent upon coal for heat and power.
Oil will burn quite as well as coal—in fact, a good deal better. Dr.
Rudolph Diesel, of Munich, in 1912 declared before the Institute of
Mechanical Engineers in London that exhaustive researches had indicated
the presence of as much oil in the globe as there is coal; that new oil
fields were constantly being discovered, Borneo, Mexico and even Egypt,
in addition to other known lands, containing great fields; that “the
world’s production of crude oil had increased three and a half times as
rapidly as the production of coal, and that the ratio of increase was
becoming steadily greater.”
Why then do we continue to burn coal? For the same reason that we
continue to do a number of other foolish things. Because we do not
manage this country in which we live. The men who are managing it are
managing it for profit. If there were a greater profit for the Coal
Trust in switching from coal to water power or oil they would switch us
quickly enough. If we were to change to oil, it would be a simple matter
to lay oil pipes in the streets precisely as we now lay water and gas
pipes, and heat our houses with oil sprays blown into our furnaces with
jets of steam. Certainly, there would be no difficulty in heating houses
from a central heating plant that burned oil. Plenty of western cities
have such central heating plants now that burn coal. And the idea is a
good one, too. The central plant decreases the danger of fire, besides
doing away with dust and the necessity of shoveling coal into the
furnace of each house.
But gentlemen like the Coal Trust barons figure this way: “We have a
certain amount of money invested here. We are looking only for the
highest rate of interest that we can get upon our investment. We might
serve the people better if we were to turn to water power development or
the burning of oil, but it is doubtful if we should obtain a greater
rate of interest upon our investment. Certainly, we should lose a lot by
junking our coal mines, as we should be compelled to do if we were to
prove their worthlessness—so, we’ll just keep on dealing in coal.”
And, the people of the United States, through their failure to “get
together” politically behind some party that stands for what they all
want—the people of the United States are getting the worst of it.
If the people of the United States want their government—which is
actually themselves, though they do not seem to know it—if the people of
the United States want their government to take over and to operate the
coal mines solely for the benefit of the people of the United States,
they can do it simply by standing together and talking and voting for
what they want.
In the meantime, it would be a splendid thing for the country if the
Coal Trust would increase the price of coal a dollar a month until such
time as the people become enough interested in their own problems to
solve them.