The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, May 6, 1918, Page 3

Out of the Pit Mouth Comes the Story of Why There Was a Coal Famine -- Millions of tons of Coal are Locked in the Underground Chambers, Ard the Key is Cars. OMEWHERE in, Pennsylvania— | Iam a Coal Mine: if My sole product is Coal! Coal for which all America is clamoring, and which all'the world must have! You know what coal is, Coal is the urce of Energy. For the want of coal a few weeks more tha a hundred ships loadea supplies for our armies and our B rode at anchor in New York Barbor alone. Waiting for Coal! i & vor ago I was. producing, 1,609 tons of superior. bituminous coal a eas ‘As fast as I produced it, it was ed in cars and hauled away. A €reat, amount .of it went. to, supply @uerky,for plants making munitions of. war which already have been hurled against the Hun, That was a year ago when America Was merely a spectator of the mael- strom Over There. Today America in.a belligerent. She is spending her Momey ahd her blood in the struggle to;make' the World Safe for Democ- racy... Se ‘What am 1 doing? I am producing less than half the amount of this vital commodity—coal, that I.was,producing, last year! To be. exact, Iam producing 750 tons of -® day—some days. And where is this coal going? Ah, thet is a far erent story! It is Standing here in my.yards for days @ad for weeks, waiting for. power to Widve it. Locked up in my chambers there are ten million tons of bitumin- ‘ous.coal, sufficient to provide power % transport all the soldiers America feeds Over There. Sufficient, also, ‘Provide power to operate many of largé steel mills near me that are inning only part time or not.at all, the Ick of Coal. Workmen and ‘ators of some of these steel mills feeling the pinch. _ The work- * ‘en's wages are part time wages; the Sperators ave falling behind in filling NO CARS, No COAL. Millions suffer by, my inability to @eliver.the goods which I have in . guch.abundance and which I, would go freely give it it were in my power. Wat-I Bave. been at.the: mercy of : @edtisportation conditions,..And when :/¢=3 ggeeded the. railroads «most, they were ‘almost hopelessly. crippled: by Biezked pontitions unlike anything d Bat tated in decades, . There ) veh tines when men left my WO Saat request and went out ahd ‘shove!s4 drifted snow from the tracks, the switches and. the mouths ‘pf -tynas.s unti} trains could move I have.been given a car rathhg. by $RS, ratfozae, Juaue,i% wevriue CAIs to také -all my products away, the railroads have told me I should have only so many cars a day and I have had'to’fix my production accordingly. And after having fixed my caf rating, tha ‘faliroads Have not been able to vide me with the cars that they re aid I am entitled to. gay I am éiit{tled to fifteen y, and thereby my produc- cut to 760 tonsa day. iat me go back again into last " year’s records and make soiie com- parisons, At the beginning of last year there‘were 290 men working in my,.chambers, They worked steadily, They ees fu time. They worked ‘ ours a.day and they, produced et tons of coal a day. Today there are 149 men employed. During Janu- ary those 149 men, made an average of three and a half liours a day and they produced just a little less than :831, tonsa day on the average. Now you can begin to see what_ia pening to make my men leave and seek other places to work. Let me.show you some figures that talk, Here’s what, happened in January, 1918: On January 2, I receive—eleve: wars; they were loaded quickly an Folled: down into thé yard, On Jan- uary 3,.I-got eight cars, . In about halt ®& day they were loaded and ‘rolled BISMARCK’EVENING TRIBUNE / no cars toauy. We cannot ‘turn @ wheel.’” Nor can I tell them late this afternoon whether I can give them a day’s woik tomorrow or any part of a day’s work tomorrow. .. What has become of the men that left me? To begin, twelve of them are at-Camp Lee in the service of tie United States army. Some were { drafted. Others volunteered, Most | of the rest are in the munition plants \ and steel mills. Those in the other industries are working for less money than I could offer them but ’ Ly they have taken the work because down. Then I received no more cars they know what to figure on when until January 7—fotr days later— pay day comes. when I got nine cars. 1t took little There are other days when the more than half a day to load these railroads bring a few empty cars to and they were rolled down into the the mine and they are placed in the yard. yard but as the loaded cars have not i On the Sth, business picked up. I been moved for days, the empties got my full rating of tifteen Cars and cannot be brought to the tipple. ‘rhea 1 1 worked ali day. ‘Then the bottom . am faced with the tantalizing sen. ! fell out and the next time I saw an sation of haying cars in sight but empty coal car was January 14, six days later. That day I got eight cars, “he next doy, the lith, I got nine. ‘Then for, a period of seven days coal cars were conspicuous by their abseace. é My next car day was the 22na, when I received thirteen cars, aluiost eridugh to Jet, me. Work another it! day. On the 23rd 1 got ten.cars; on the 24th, twelve;,on the 25th two, Then I went without again tor three days until the 28th, when I got tweive cars, On the 29th I received_eleven cars ana on’the 30th, six. The total for the month was 116 cars, I shouid have received and could have loaded and shipped 390 cars of coal which is the car rating that has been fixed for me but I didn’t get the cars, What is the reason for, this condi- tion? Two words tell the story— Car Shortage! i MeO Then there is a secondary causé, labor shortage, which comes almost entirely from tlie car shortage. If J chin get the cars | can get’ the labor. Most of the 141 men who have left ma in the last yer haven’t gone very far away. They are in munition plants and steel mills almost witHin sight of my tipple. Some of them pass my tipple in going from their homes to the plants at which they have found their new work. They have left me because in their new work they find steadier employment, They, have families to support, They must have work. In-the steel mills and muni- tion plante they are pretty sure gep- erally of steady work six days a week. One time I could give them that as- surance and they got better pay from me than they are getting now. The Coal is There; -Men. are There; the Equipment is. There; But--the Railroad Cars Are. Not. oo IDLE MINE 2 alte IDLE MEN . COAL AWAITING —_. FREIGHT CARS »& hi HOW THEY.ORILL THE COAL, / WHAT OF THE MINERS? SOME OF THE NINETY MILLION WHO CLAMORED SAY for COAL. Those mén would rather work in the mines than in those other indus- tries, They.are accustomed to the t feet thick extending over an area men to produce this coal jist as i 1 of 1,400 acres, and they were work- out of reach Again. } must stand was being produced a year ago, 1 working conditions in the mines and there is no other industry that, of- fers them similar conditions to those Ihave. In the coal mine there is an even temperature of sixty degrees ths year ‘round. No matter how cod or how hot the weather outside, a erly 1/600 tons a day, is-few yards inside the pit mouth they Strike that even temperature. The weather is. the least of, their wor- ries. You very seldom see a miner with a cold. But, with my present condition, 1 cannot assure them of any definite period of. work, I.can offer them no assurance ‘of a day’s .work on any particular day. I cannot guarantee them even a part of ,every day. Some of them come a distance of two or three miles to the pit mouth wilh their dinner pails ready for a‘day’s work, According to my car rating I should have fifteen cars standing above my tipple ready to receive the product of the day’s work of these men, M Day in and day out I must, say to them something like this, “Here are five cars, you may work two.and idle until the railroads find a way ‘ov move out enough cars to allow the empties.to be placed, That.is what we speak of in “shop terms”. as blocked loads. .During the month of Janitiary, 1918, I.lost a production of 2,250 tons from this cause alone, During the same month I lost from car shortage 8,445 tons. I produced 8,605 tons. I lost 11,700 tons—mora than 1 produced—from causes all arising from this same source—car shortage. ‘ WHY THERE WAS FAMINE, These losses are based of the ca- pacity of 750 tons a day to which I am limited because of my car rating. I have actually lost 32,995 tons dur- ing the month, based upon the figures which my normal capacity shows. That is, if I could “have the cars and the number of men I hat a year ago, T could produce nearly 32,000 tons a month more coal, : I gay I-lost this, but I am only speaking from my viewpoint. As a matter of fact, it is America that is want to produce it. My owner wants to produce it. America needs it. But, the railroad cars are not there and America doesn’t get the coal. Now, I am just one coal mine. My conditions are no worse and no bet- ter than hundreds of my neighbors in_this great field; no worse and no better than thousands of similar mines in the other coal fields of the United States. My ideals are the same as theirs. They all are eager to produce to the limit. I.can produce with what I have 500,000 tons of coal annually for the next twenty years. All the help I need from the outside is Cars! Cars!! Cars!!! The other day there came to me a group of, miners looking for work. They came from a field in West Vir- ginia, with the hope that I might not be in as bad shape as the field they came from. Here is their-story: STORY OF ANOTHER MINE. They came from a mine that bas 14,000,000 tons of bituminous coal ing full time. In June, 1916, they dug 28,565 tons of coal. A lot of it went the same way that my product used to go. It helped turn out munitions; d railroad trains that hauled and supplies to the allied it drove ships that carried thosa supplies across the water. Some of it went to the bottom of the At. lantie when the submarine got in its deadly work, Six months later, December, 191, 282 men worked--steady time—and produced 23,967 tons. It was rapidly moved. Another six months passed. In June, 1917, 240 men worked, The mine was not given enough cars but the men made fajrly good time. They produced that month 14,429 tons and it moved fairly rapidly, Still another six months, passes. Jt is December, 1917. The same mine has only 193 men working and they produce 8,552 tons of coal. It was loaded on the cars. Some of it still stands in the yard at the mine. Now here is a matter that will give another angle of what the min- ad MORE PROOF OF SHORTAGE, In this same district there are.two mines that had not a single.car, atthe tipple from December 8 to January 2, almost a month. No coal was mised during that time at those two mines. ing mines there have on their books tens of thousands of dollars pay roll debt accounts for the month of Jan- uary. T means that, the operators have advanced to the miners tens of thousands of dollars which they have not yet earned. This money was ad- vanced to the miners because it, was absolutely necessary to buy food, clothing and supplies for themselves day in the week for the mines during tho shortage because that is:the day , the most cars are brought in to be and theit' families. Ae we.) loaded. One fellow told. of riding In this West Virginla district there gjong a road for forty miles on one are no munition plants or steel mills Monday, He passed in sight of the to which the men can, go fou other tipples of thirty-three mines. There employment, When the mines stop the men must stop. The mine opcra- tors let them have the money for food and clothing before it is earned and trust in Providence and the rail- roads to provide conditions that will permit the mines to work and the men to earn the money’ they have were nol. fifteen cars, in all at thése tipples.. There were not cars enough at the tipples of thirty-three mines to provide a day's work for one mine my size, ix Now, let’s get back to the mine from which these men came. That mine should have received in Jany- Monday has proved to be. the, best ary, according to its car rating, 390 cars. That’s the same rating that I Have. It actually received 136 cars. ‘ That mine should have produced of = 0 - u its, present rating 19,500 -tons. It actualy produced 6,720 tons, a.loss of 12,780 tons, or a loss from its normal production of a year ago of 21,840 tons. And that's just one mine!.; Nearby that mfne,is another with just a little smaller capacity under normal conditions. . Here's its story in a few. words. In June, 1916, it worked 242 men. During that month it produced, loaded and shipped 22,676 tons. In June, 1917, it worked 103 men, produced loaded and shipped 10,187 tons. In January it had a force of 122 men, working when they could get cars ‘to’ load. It. loaded 6,899 tons. As in the other cases, much of that coal is still'in its yard. America needs coal for the prose- cution, of the. war. more than: any other single commodity. The coal mines have millions. of ton’ of. coal. We are’ just as anxious ‘to procure and deliver this coal as. the Amett- can people and the American govern+ ment are anxious to get, it. There is only one way, howe} to produce it and to get-it to you. There must be cars at the;mine— enough cars to transport my, product. When cars are supplied. regularly and a-plenty, there can be no coal shortage. in at the mine mean coal in the fa : sosing this source of energy, America stored in ‘its chambers. In June, ers and the operators are up against already drawn. I might say they ara and_her alliés;. I’have the coal; I 1916, there were 290 men digging coal. in that West Virginia field, due again betting the money against a future have the equipment and I can get the ; They: were digging from a seam eight to Car’Shortage. Companiés. operat-car shortage, a half.or three hours, It’s, the, best the railroad will let me offer today.” Many days L must say, “There are "