Carbuncle

Back in Washington from their inspection of Pennsylvania's bituminous social carbuncle, Senator Gooding and colleagues of the Interstate Commerce subcommittee drew up chairs and summoned witnesses to put their investigation on paper, in formal style. The first witness was President John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers.

Police brutality, onerous anti-picketing injunctions, and the breakdown of the Jacksonville agreement were the burden of Mr. Lewis' tale which rambled somewhat under stress of emotion. President Coolidge's letter to Mr. Lewis in December 1925, was read into the record deploring "the breaking of any contract," explaining why the U. S. could not intervene, referring the miners to the courts, pronouncing collective bargaining to be "a principle now accepted in American life." Mr. Lewis repeated the miners' charge that railroads, notably the Pennsylvania, had thumbscrewed the mine operators into thumbscrewing the miners. The names "Rockefeller" and "Mellon" occurred forcibly but somewhat extraneously, in Mr. Lewis' speech.

Carl E. Lesher, militant vice president of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., took the stand to answer questions fired by a mine union attorney. This colloquy dwelt chiefly on strikebreaking conditions at the mines, lurid with references to Pinkerton detectives, lewd Negroes' criminal assaults on mine women. Mr. Lesher passed on to his chief, President John D. A. Morrow of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., responsibility for the company's newspaper advertisements of last fortnight, which asserted that the investigating Senators were "prejudiced." Mr. Lesher said: "Perhaps we are unfortunate in that our material is prosaic and that of the other side is sensational."

"There is nothing prosaic about abrogating a contract," snapped Senator Wheeler. The Pittsburgh Coal Company's reasoning was that, though it agreed to pay union miners $7.50 per day, it did not agree to employ union miners any longer than it saw fit. It was employing non-union men before and after the signing of the agreement, with the unions' knowledge. When it reduced the non-union men's pay to $6 per day in 1925, and began replacing union men with non-union men it was, it claimed, "acting legally." According to Miner Lewis, this action was taken by Operator Warden in an effort to make a good record after the company had passed a bad year under the direction of Richard B. Mellon.

Presidents F. E. Herriman, of the Clearfield Bituminous Coal Corpn., Rembrandt Peale, of the Peale, Peacock & Kerr, and J. W. Searles, of the Pennsylvania Coal & Coke Co., all testified that they had considered the Jacksonville agreement, bitter bone of the whole contention, to be morally as well as legally binding. President Horace F. Baker, of the Pittsburgh Terminal Co., has already testified the same (despite contradiction by his competitor, President Morrow), having established that his company kept the agreement, was not again called to the stand.

Judgment. The Pittsburgh Coal Co.'s charge that the investigating Senators were "prejudiced" was not unnatural. Between the senators' attitudes toward miners and operators, there was a marked difference betraying sympathy for the underdogs, suspicion for the upperdogs, and shock at the general horridness of what they saw in the coal fields. Inevitably mixed with these emotions was senatorial self-importance and a consciousness that politically the investigation was a cynosure. Senator Gooding, who, as junior senator from Idaho, is thoroughly eclipsed most of the time by his ursine colleague, Senator Borah, was moved to speak forth like another Borah and even ignored what might have been expected of him in the way of professional etiquette by writing and signing three "exclusive articles" for the Pittsburgh Press in advance of his committee's report to the Senate. The Gooding nature explained this. Born in England, he made his way as an immigrant boy in Idaho and raised a fortune in sheep. Stolid, foursquare, unoriginal, he was a good conservative Governor for Idaho in 1905-07, when the state was worried about the I. W. W. He lacks the discrimination of his statesmanlike colleague but what he sees within a few feet of his nose, he sees clearly, and names boldly. Thus, coming upon evidences of radicalism in the Pennsylvania morass, he roared: "We must choke the I. W. W. to death or see the gutters of our streets run knee-deep in blood." And in his series for the Pittsburgh Press--for which he accepted no pay--he wrote: "There would be little left if that force were allowed to Russianize America--it threatens Womanhood, Motherhood, Christianity and our free institutions. The I. W. W. is making desperate attempts . . ." etc., etc.

He also wrote: "Our committee is hopeful that some legislation can bring prosperity back to the coal industry . . . we Senators are put down here to be helpful, and we must regulate those establishments and industries that need to be regulated for the public interest.

"This country is not going to be saved by the captains of industry. History shows that selfishness and greed have destroyed one government after another."

These and other Gooding pronouncements of Labor v. Wealth, were memorable because Senator Gooding, one of the wealthiest men in the whole wealthy Senate, is known as a stand-pat Republican.

When the Gooding subcommittee reported formally, it said it had found "serious" conditions but no starvation. It particularized about shooting, housing, filth, vermin, Negro strikebreakers, coal and iron police, demoralized eviction camps. It implicitly blamed the operators for letting such conditions arise. It called the miners courageous. It recommended that the coal industry be legislated back to prosperity.

Remedies. Senator Gooding and Miner Lewis seemed agreed that the legislation required was amendment of the anti-trust laws to permit the operators to consolidate. Miner Lewis also asked an Interstate Commerce Act amendment to prevent railroads from crushing operators and miners alike, by coal price depression.

P: Bituminous operators of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, anticipating a general strike when a current wage truce ends on April 1, jointly engaged John W. Davis as their chief counsel and negotiator at a reputed fee of $100,000 per annum.