Dud

The ten-day conference between the United Mine Workers and the bituminous coal operators closed last week in Miami, Fla. It was a complete dud. The union miners voted solidly against a flexible wage scale; the operators voted solidly against renewing the Jacksonville agreement of 1924 (five-day week, six-hour day, $7.50 daily wage for unskilled labor). Big-jawed John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers, will now try to reach separate agreements with the operators by districts. In Illinois and Indiana, where the operators can afford to pay high wages, he may be successful. But there will undoubtedly be strikes in Ohio and Pennsylvania when the Jacksonville agreement expires on April 1. Such a strike will cause no immediate tremor, because there is already enough soft coal above ground and enough being mixed in the non-union fields of West Virginia and Kentucky to last well into next winter.