The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 26, 1933, Page 4

a -STRIKE-BREAKING NEW DEAL BRINGS STARVATION TO COAL PITS: | > Maan Page Four DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1933 Pennsylvania Miners Get A New View « New Strikes Break! *s f Out to Win Demands By FEANK BORICH, =< Secretary of the National Miners f Union. | y Due to the tremendous campaign | ~~ vonducted by the bosses’ press and | “ators and General Johnson. The code | the UMWa officials concerning the NRA and the “New Deal”, thousands of miners believed that their wages would be increased and conditions improved, that the unemployed would obtain jobs and that they would have the right to organize and s 2. The UMWA officials created the impression that the recognition of employers. July 5th was set day of recognition. Thousands join the UMWA with the expectation that an end to starvation and terror wa: here. As soon as the miners began to or- ganize and demand improvement in their working and living conditions, | | | ¢ FRANK BORICH the employers discharged and evicted the most active ones. This and the long-standing starvation and _ terror, resulted in a strike in several mines The operators immediately instituted brutal terror. The UMWA leaders begged the miners not to strike, to wait for the hearings on the coal code. They as- sured the miners Roosevelt’s admin- | istration would solve all their prob- | Jems and the strike was unneces- sary and was even detrimental to the | cause of of the miners. | However, the miners did not give | in to the operators’ terror. Neither did they accept the advice of Lewis, Fagan, Feney & Co. They answered the terror by continuous mass picket- ing. Within two weeks 70,000 were strike. Other coal fields began to feel the effect. The miners were con- fident of their victory. They had | their own strength on one hand, and | on the other they believed that the | government, and particularly Roose- velt, was with them. As the strike became a serious Menace to the employers and the government, Roosevelt did step into | the situation. He ordered the min-| ers to abandon their strike and re- turn to work without one single con- | cession. Of course, this order was issued in the form of an appeal. Lewis also ordered the miners to go back to work. At the same time Roosevelt proclaimed that any and | all strikes are against the new law. But the miners did not go back | to work. They continued the strike. On the initiative of Roosevelt a spe- | cial conference was held in Union- town. To this conference Roosevelt sent his personal representative, one of the greatest strikebreakers in the country, Mr. McGrady. McGrady pleaded with the miners, in the name of Roosevelt, to return to work. Although some of the miners re- turned, other remained on strike. | The strikebreaking job was not | completed. The UMWA leaders were | of no use. The sentiment of the min- | ers as such that no official of the UMWA dared to appear at any of the mass: meetings of the miners, They di complete ers, ete. Roosevelt Administration and these | ‘akers was Dr. Springer, who made many trips to Washington. Finally, the strikebreaking job was | completed and the miners driven | back to work, with the expectation | that conditions would change after | the code hearings, only 3 days off. is two weeks now since ended. Many changes the mines. Hundreds fighters have been discha’ now face eviction. Scales | beginning | role of the Roost of the New Deal Role of NMU. Becoming Clear been put on the tipples. The wages did not increase but prices went up more than 50 percent. began to work two and three days a | week. The unemployed are not get- | ting jobs. All of these developments, together with the systematic explanations by the National Miners Union, are re- sulting in the fact that large numbers of ardent supporters of Roosevelt are to understand the real it administration. Iso begin to see the correct- the position taken by the National Miners Union not only in regard to the recent strike, but also towards the NRA. Their eyes are gain turning towards the NMU for es ship. The breaking of the strike did not kill the militant spirit of the min- ers. The mining fields of Pennsylvania are once more to become battle fields of the starving miners and their families. Miners are formulating their demands to be presented to the employers gy the miners’ commit- tees, with the decision for strike if these demands are not granted. Sev- eral mines are already striking. In these renewed struggles the miners will remember the role of Roosevelt, Lewis, Fagan and others and will handle their affairs by themselves. This is the time when every mem- ber of the NMU, every local union, every committee, must take an ac- 1 organize their struggle in such a way that betrayals and strikebreaking will | be impossible, Roosevelt. even by President Facing the NRA in Coal Strike ROOSEVELT REJECTED THIS CODE WASHINGTON, D. OC, — Almost @ny day now, Roosevelt will sign a coal code for the soft coal industry. Meetings are going on in secret be- tween John L. Lewis, the coal oper- Roosevelt will sign will suit the boss- | es, and will be designed to help them | , continue starvation and disorganiza- tion among the miners. At the coal hearings, Frank Bor- ich, and a delegation of miners pre-| sented a code approved by tens of thousands of miners. This code was Tejected. This is the only code that provides decent living conditions for | employed as well as unemployed miners. Here is the code Roosevelt did not sign. This code can be won | only by organization and action: | 1. Basic day scale shall be a minimum | of $6 for six hours work a day, and 6 days a week. A minimum of 40 weeks | ® Year shall be guaranteed to each miner. | Young miners shall be paid the basic scale | when employed in and around mines. The basic seale shall be increased correspond- ing to the increase in the prices of food, etc. 2. Tonnage rates shall be determined by ® joint meeting of miners representatives ‘and employers in each vein of coal. They ahall be fixed so that each miner will be Busranteed $6 for a six-hour workingday. Weighing of coal shall be based on the un of mine, and 2,000 lbs. a ton. Men | working on mechanical loaders or con- yeyors shall be considered as day labor- rs on the $6 scale. 2. Payment for all forms of dead work, dage and slate shall be based on the| ic scale of this code. “ | 4. Miners checkweignman in every mine shall be elected and controlled by the miners. 5. Unemployment and Social Insurance | the expense of the government and the | employers shall be paid to all unemployed, | old and disabled miners, at the rate of | $10 = week for a couple, with additional | $3 for each dependent. ‘The part-time | ed unable to earn $30 weekly shall | be paid the difference from the Unemploy- | ment and Social Insurance fund. 6. Negro miners shall be employed in | il the mines on equal basis with whites. Negroes Job in shall have the right to hold any | the mines; there shall be no segre- gation of Negroes in special shifts, sections or houses. 7. The right of all 11 non-citizens to em- s and participation to or participatin: n own choosing shall be dropped. of the closed company f full civil rights, » and aboll- | 8 shall be ef- after the adoption of | 8 Opening up d establi f all c fected immediat this code. 9, Rigid enforcement of the existing, and adoption of additional safety measures to protect the lives of the miners. The min- | ers shall have the right to elect mine inspectors. 10. The miners shall have the unre- stricted right to join the union of their | own choosing, to hold meetings without | interference, to strike and conduct mass picketing for the improvement of their working and living conditions. To guer- antee this right to the miners, all exist. ing company unions shall be disbanded after the passage of this code. 11. No check-off from the miners’ pay to be made for rent, company insurance or doctor, accumulated debts, ‘union’ dues, or anything else. ‘The miners shall re- ceive their full earnings and shall be paid every two weeks in U. 8. currency only. 12. Each coal company in each mine shall recognize the Mine Committee elect- ed by the miners independently of the company and without company interfer- ence. The mine committee thus elected shall be considered as the official repre- ive body of the miners and shall @ with the employer and settle the working conditions and all other to the approval wages, grievances and disputes, of the majority of miners in each mine. The Mine Committee shall have the right to ontrol the hiring and firing of the miners. Communism and Coal Diggers By TOM MYERSCOUGH. This 14th Anniversary of the Com- munist Party will be greeted by | many thousands" of miners in recog- nition of the leadership the Party has given to| their many militant struggles, but the greater portion will do so as sympathizers and not as active, disciplined Party members, and it is not sufficient merely to have regrets. In the mining fields strikes were constantly breaking out. Many of these, instead of coming as a result of systematic everyday work and un- der our leadership, were brought to our attention thru the medium of the Capitalist press. Our program and policies were invariably on the job, but not always our leadership. Miners are less scared now of the “Red” bogey. They read the news of struggle in our Daily Worker and, though their earnings prevent them | from making yearly subscriptions, it | is largely our fault that there are| | NAME, Join the Communist Party 35 EAST 12TH STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. Please send me more information on the Communist Party. not more regular readers, because there are many ways by which they could get it daily, if we would ar- range for it. We cry “shortage of forces” with these needed forces all around us. Proof of this can be found in every strike struggle. In the recent Penn- sylvania strike, visiting committees successfully combatted the powerful propaganda of the capitalist press. In the Colorado Party District’s Utah coal fields we gave no help from the N. M. U. center except by mail. Yet they carried on a successful cam- paign in a new field (Helper, Utah) and with new material they consoli- dated the gains, issued a weekly paper, kept the U. M. W. A. fakers out of the picture, won the. solid support of the surrounding country- side and developed forces which went | into the Southern Colorado and New Mexico fields with good results, Communists can make headway in the coal fields. Coal diggers make damned good Communists and there 4s no reason why the thousands of miners now greeting us as sympathiz- ers should not be in the Party and leading other thousands in the Na- tional Miners Union and the Com- munist Party. Let _us break down the sectarian “our Party” idea with which we fill our speeches and writ- ings. We act as it is “our” private Party and not for any one else. The Communist Party is the Party of all the workers and our job is to prove it. This we can do by cutting the rope that has held us in a small circle, and “make the turn to revo- lutionary mass work among the de- cisive sections of the American in- dustrial pfoletariat,’ of which the coal diggers are an important part, Is} Instead of | steady employment most of the mines | Miners’ Wives Join Holes of Coal Towns | Company “Towns Reek With Dirt, Filth and Flies | By MARGARET SNEAR | Coal operators, thelr wives, women coal operators like Mrs. Roche from Colorado, group of “liberal” women | came to say their word at the Wash- ington Coal hearings. Union offici- als of the UMWA, PMA, and NMU came. While sitting there and listen- ing I only wished that all the min- ers wives could be present. They! soon would lose all the faith in those who today are termed leaders and would call them by their right name| the misleaders. e The coal operators were interested | in mainly one thing, that is what| advantage will the code give them over their rivals, and will the code insure them the lowering of the cost of production cost of handling, etc. In other words, before agreeing to anything they wanted to be certain that their profits would continue to roll in. While they, and their wives or mistresses, looked like a million dollars, living in the best hotels, eat- ing the best food, etc., showing that they can afford to spend money, they quibbled over pennies that would go to the miner. Neither the coal operators, the UMWA, or the government had a word to say concerning the: living conditions of the miners wives, who are born, live their lives and die chained to the mining camps, with its filth, unpainted and unsanitarp) shacks, its company store, its mud | and blood. | Only the NMU, and the Women’s Auxiliaries of the NMU, had de- mands for the women in the min- Ing-towns. | We demanded abolition of the company stores, free medical and maternity service for the miners, their wives and children. We de- manded that the mjning towns be supplied with healthy drinking water, that all filth, and scum, gar- | bage be cleaned regularly and at the company expense. That free play grounds be built for the children. That the company houses shall be equiped and built to come up to the | standards as set out by the govern- mental housing and hygienic experts. Of course, the coal barons did not like this. They know that any im-j | provement in the standard of life | of the miners and their families must | | come at the expense of the coal | operators. Coal operator Taplin, who bragged about the gardens, the nice houses, the fine clean company stores, etc., did not mention that these “fine” houses have not been painted since they were built at mine 3 and 4, that yellow mud and filthy sewerage from the toilets in mine 3 and 4 make the stench unbearable, and that the fiy’s make a dinner in these sewer ditches then alight on the min- ers bread and other food. Taplin did not mention that sometimes the butchers in some of the compat stores forget to lift their hand off of the scale when they give the min- ers the meat, and thus miners pay for the butchers knuckles as well as the pig knuckles. We, miners wives, organized in the NMU, PMA, or any other women’s organizations shall fight against any attempt to continue to make us the slaves of the mining camps and com- | pany stores. ‘N. M. U. Gains in ‘Utah and N. Mexico In the past few weeks five local | unions of the National Miners Union including 1,000 miners who paid ini- | tiation fees, have been formed in | New Mexico. Living under the most miserable | conditions and inspired by the activ- ities of the NMU in Carbon County Utha these miners have embraced the National Miners Union as their union to lead them in strug- gle for the improvement of their conditions, Fearstricken by the speedy growth of the union the coal companies have called in their friends the leaders of the UMWA who after weeks of effort have succeeded in getting 26 mem- bers into their union, this is now be- ing used by the local government and the coal companies as a base to at- tack the NMU. The coal companies and the lead- ers of the UMWA are also making attempts to disrupt the NMU from the inside through forces who are raising all kinds of doubts and diffi- culties to hinder the growth of the union. ! The NMU is being consolidated and at a meeting held the exxecutive boards of the 5 locals in Gallup met and worked out a plan of immediate | struggle to improve conditions. Spe- cial local meetings have been held over the weekend to discuss de- mands and make preparations for striking all five mines if necessary. These meetings were attended by the | local organizers, including National | Organizer Chas. Guynn, who also spoke at a large mass meeting of miners together with Pat “Toohey last Saturday. * * * Utah Coal Strike. (NOTE: A militant coal strike is now going on around Helper, Utah, under the leadership of the NMU. Governor Blood, acting with the coal operators and the NRA is trying to repeat the Pennsylvania sellout. But the miners are re- sisting. Due to delay, we have not been able to publish full material Sos pees Pie alt Ea ee ae issues.) NOTE Readers will find additional let- ters from miners in the regular Fight Against Hell! "(One Local of the ; Batuello to resign That’s what re- ROOSEVELT INVITES THE MINERS TO RETURN fa. Starvation Stalks Towns in the Anthracite Coal Fields (By a Worker Correspondent) | is a typical mining town of about 15,000 population, in the heart of the Anthracite. Mahanoy City, Pa., is a mile long and less than half a mile wide. Its narrow and) wider streets are lined on both sides with drab-looking two and three-| story wooden houses, fronted by small | porches and overlooked by long green | and black mountains (made black by | dumping on them impure coal). The | eight mines in and around that city | have been shut down for more than | two years, with the result that four | thousand miners are out of work, and practically the entire male population | of the town is idle, as there are no| other industries there. ‘The girls work in the three local big | shirt factories for miserable wages. The reason for the unusually long | and uninterrupted shut-down of the collieries, according to some mer-| chants the writer interviewed, is that | the Philadelphia and Reading Coal Comnany, the “P. & R.,” as the com- | pany is known in the Anthracite,| which owns and controls most of the mines around here, can’t find| any market for its coal, and, there- fore, does not care to operate them. Another shopkeeper indignantly told | me that these miserable conditions | from which his town has been suf- fering for the past two years are primarily due to the “stubbornness” | of the miners and to their unwilling- What Happened in. Progressive Miners. (By a Miner Correspondent) GILLESPIE, Ill.—I am a member of Local 1 Progressive Miners o Am- erica which has 2,500 members em- ployed at the four Superior Coal Co. mines in this territory. When we organized the P. M. A. we thought we really had a rank and file fighting union, but many of us| are seeing that again we got fooled. For the last few months, only a few members attend the local meetings. Last two weeks around 200 out of 2,500 members, and those who do come are organized by our chief boot- licker, Joe Pizek, former Musteite and now a good “democratic citizen of Benld.’ Two things happened here in our local which are important. The call was received for Cleveland Confer- ence for August 26th. After the call was read, Chairman Pizek had his gang organized by railroading it for a vote before they gave the floor | to S. Kling, who came to speak on’ the call. ey knew if the real faci? were presented to the miners they would override the machine, so they voted it down first. The vote was 188 against and 40 for the call. Then the chairman hypocritically announced that there is a speaker outside who wants to talk on the Conference call; naturally the re- actionaries got up and said it was no use since they already turned it down. Second development is the resig- nation of Jack Batutello. Jack is a/ member of our local and was chair- man of the PMA relief committee. Jack made a real fight to organize PMA: Because he refused to sanc- | tion the class collaboration policies of the Executive Board and because he yore against the NRA and de- manded that PMA live up to the original program of a class union. which the miners want, the Execu- tive Board has done everything to put Batutello out of the way. I want to say it was wrong for actionaries want, so they put their own henchmen in there. Let us not give up our posts but put up a fight and let us go down among the min- ers and convince them what to do. We all know the officials are pre- aring a sell-out under this NRA ut we are doing nothing about it. I think we Beould now begin to prepare for a strike for higher scale and six hour day. We know NRA won't give it to us. I know the min- ers expect it will be done by Roose- velt and by Johnson, but we should not be discouraged because the miners are misled. When we at the mine, all of us are grumbling, because of starvation wages. But worker correspondence section on page 6, this grumbling will mean nothing | Union,” | with the Poor Board in hunting up | to know of the activities of the Un- jemployed Councils throughout the unless we now start to prepare for action, ness to “listen to reason.” He de- clined, however, to qualify the state- ment or explain the “stubbornness” of the miners, and it was left for the idle coal diggers themselves to tell the reason for. the closing of the mines. . On a corner of a very narrow street a group of miners in their shirt sleeves eagerly talked to the Daily Worker correspondent of the} conditions in their town. “It is not a shut down,” said one sturdy miner of the group, “it’s a lockout.” He then explained how ie “P. & R.” company made a vicious attempt to cut the wages of the miners from thirty to forty per cent. A “contract” miner, he said, who used to get $2.50 a car was of- fered only $1.56, and the helpers, who used to get $5.76 a day, were asked to work for $1 a day less, by in- | stalling loading machines, and how | the company enlisted the aid of the, District officials—the Boylan-Bre- nan-Kennedy gang—with _ their henchmen to help them carry through this robbery of the workers, and how the companv failed miserably. “How do they live nere?” I asked. “Well,” one short, but well-built | young miner replied, “1,800 families | get some relief from the state—not much, though. We pay no rent, we pay no electric bills and many of us make something by ‘bootlegging’ coal.” Asked’ to explain what he meant by “bootleg” coal, he told the writer that a large number of miners go to the fields near the mine pits with their jack hammers and other mining tools, dig coal, put it in large burlap bags, and transport it in old, dilapidated machines and _ other vehicles, to their homes, placing it in front of their houses. Then deal- ers from Reading and Philadelphia come in large trucks and buy it off the miners and carry them to their respective cities. “Don’t the mine guards stop them from taking the company’s coal?” I asked, “No, sir,” don’t dare to.” There is no Unemployed Council in Mahanoy City. The unemployed work is being done by the newly or- ganized “Farmers’ and Laborers’ which, according to Mr. Holt, its vice-president, is a “Jim Maurer” organization, or a Socialist Party outfit, with several branches in the Anthracite. It co-operates he answered. “They families who receive or try to re- ceive relief under “false pretenses”; in other words, rank and file mem- bers of the organization are obliged to do police work for the govern- ment. This Socialist outfit is also in favor of sharing the work with the employed. Its leaders do not realize that such a policy does not make for solidarity between the employed and unemployed in the latter's struggle | for more relief and permanent fed- eral unemployment insurance. The rank and file members of the local Farmers’ and Laborers’ Union, espe- cially the young workers, the “breaker boys” as they are called here, are beginning to feel that they are being misled and are very anxious United States, and they were glad to hear that the writer will see to it that they get regularly bundles of the Daily Worker, of which they heard but never saw. | Only 800 Work Out of 11,000 Indiana Bituminous Miners Rank and: File Plan Strikes Despite the UMWA Officials By JOHN LAWSON HE conditions of the miners in Indiana are deplorable. Practically no relief comes into that field. The leadership of the U. M. W. A, the main organization in .the field, is hindering every struggle for relief. Out of the 11,009 miners in Dis- trict 11, only 800 are working full time, 3,000 are on part time and the rest unemployed. The U. M. W. A. deducts from the meagre wages of the employed and distributes ccm- missary among the unemployed every Month or two. The miners call it vest-pocket relief, because it can be Placed in one’s vest, pocket. In the Indiana coal fields there are a number of organizations, The M. W. A. the Knox County Miners Association, in one of the largest mines in Bicknell; the In- diana Miners Association and a large number of unorganized miners. The basic wage of the U. M. W. A. after they sold out the last strike, is $4.57, from which dues and commis- sary are deducted. The wages of the other employed miners are approxi- mately the same, considering that the high dues and commissary are not deducted from their pay. Organize Strong-Arm Squad The rank and file miners called a conference August 6 to work out a program of action, uniting the split- up ranks of the miners. Cobby Larks, who once paraded as a fighter against the District and National leadership and as a “rank and file” leader, organized a strong-arm squad and even had the police ready to smash up the meeting. ort ee oe IE GOT the surprise of his life when after the report made by Charles Pryor, many of his own sup- Porters, except a few of his body- guards, expressed agreement with the need of united struggle of all miners for relief for the unemployed, for better conditions in the mines, to fight against the coal operators in- stead of fighting the miners, Not being in a position to fight against the program presented, he shifted the attack jon Pryor as one who “broke the ranks” when the miners in Bicknell in masses broke away from the misleading, corrupt U. M. W. A. On the same day, 2,500 miners met. in the Clinton field and overwhelm- ingly rejected and defied Pellanti, In- ternational organizer from Pennsyl- vania, and voted for a general strike to unionize the Indiana coal fields, and win better conditions for thi miners. In this strike, the rank and file must put forward a program of de- mands for all miners, employed and unemployed, against the bess and U. M. W. A. proposed code and for ‘the code presented by the miners. The strike must be conducted against the U. S, Steel company, which owns the Bunsen No 4 mine for a $6 basjc wage, for the 6-hour d>y, 5-day week and develop the strike further into the se-called union mines of the U. M. W. A, and among the unorgan- CAPELLINI, A CRIMINAL IN ANTHRACITE Revolt of Rant and File Against Betrayers } The Rank and File revolt tm th Anthracite against the Lewks ma. chine grows and embraces @ large majority of the miners, Cappellini and Maloney, ofd time fakers who have betrayed the min- ers before by staging a so-called op- position to the John L, Lewis ma- chine, are attempting to control this revolt, They formed a new “union,” called the United Miners of the An- thracite. This ‘was done by calling of a rump convention recently with picked delegates in the main. The rank and file movement is carrying on a campaign exposing these maneuvers of Cappellini, who is also known for his criminal ac- tivities, serving a jail term for ar- son and now indicted for forgery. Cappellini was never arrested by the boss class for the murder of Alex. Campbell and other militant work- ing-class fighters. At a large mass meeting of miners held recently, called by these fakers, they were forced to grant the plat- form to Bill Dunne and Joe Dugher under the pressure of the miners. They both exposed Cappellini for what he is, and he slunk out of the meeting, fearing the wrath of the miners. The through place mobilization of the miners cut the tri-districts is ta inder the leadership of the rank and file opposition on the basis of a united front between all honest elements willing to establish a cless struggle union. Threat to Shoot Militant Miners in Sheriff Backs PMA ‘’ Officials Against Opposition CARLINVILLE, Ili—Open fare was declared upon all mil rank and file members of the P: gressive Miners of America by its officials and the sheriffs’ forces ai a meeting held here recently, attended by some 3,000 miners. “There will be no more Communist meetings in this county,” said Sheriff Fries in his speech, “and anyone opposing the officials of the P. M. A. (meaning the Percy and Keck ma- chine) will be run out or jailed.” “Shoot Them!” He called the left wing leaders in the P. M. A, rats, saying: “You have in Gillespie four or five rats like Batuello (he is now chairman of the state relief committee of the P. M. A.) who want to destroy the P. M. A.; and you know what to do with those rats. If you can’t get rid of them, shoot them!” State’s Attorney Seifer supported these murderous threats. He was followed by Ed. Bowen, editor of the “Progressive Miner,” P. M. A. paper, who made a vicious tirade against the Communist Party and the “dic- tatorship of the proletariat.” This meeting was called by the officials of the P. M. A., together with officials of Macoupin County as a “red baiting” gathering to start open attack upon the left wing leaders and militant fighters in the P. M. A., who are opposing the class collaboration policies of Percy ani Keck and demand that the P.M. A. | miners immediately prepara for a fight to get a higher scale of wages to | meet the present inflation and higher cost of living. The recent statement made by Clauce Percy, president of the P.M. J A., at Nilwood mass meeting, in | which he declared that the “Pro- greszive Miners of America must be- come a conservative union if it is to survive,” has been further carricd into effect yesterday here. ' The recent statement of the Exec- utive Board of the P. M. A. endorsing the N. R, A. and other Roosevelt Policies is now followed by a most Grastic attack upon all miners in the P. M. A. who see in the N. R. A. hunter for the miners, There is an undercurrent amon the miners in the P. M. A. thot the Percy-Iieck leadership have reached ized, and not directed against the miners. in Washington. Mellon, Morgan Turn Coal Into Gold. By Labor Research Association _ Miners who recently struck against the H. C. Frick Coke Co., subsidiary of J. P. Morgan’s U. S. Steel Corp, and against Mellon’s Pittsburgh Coal Co, have been starving on rates of only 36 cents a ton and a day rate of only $3.36. If they had one or two days’ work in the week they were lucky. These two large companies, among the richest in the coal fields, took the lead in repeated wage slashes during the crisis. Employed miners were often earning even ‘less than the $4-a-week family relief given out to some of the jobless workers. These facts .were .officially .admitted .at Senate Committee Hearings in Wash- ington in January, 1933. When the Pittsburgh Coal Co. fi- nally granted a small wage increase to stave off the strike which later developed, rates were only 3812 to 49% cents a ton, while company men received only $3.80 a day Miners in these two big companies often found their pay envelopes neatly balanced with “goose-eggs” and “kisses”, in other words, zeros, meaning that they had exactly nothing on which to keep their fam- ilies—nothing for food or clothing. The result is that the worker has been so deep in debt to the company or the store that he couldn’t move his household goods from the com- pany-owned house even if he found another job. Meanwhile, the H. C. Frick Coke Co., although not reporting separate profits, has been a vital part of the stupendous profits rolled up by Mor- gan’s steel trust of which it is a sul- sidiary. In the crisis year, 1931, U. S. Steel Corp. reported net income of only $13,038,141 and paid preferred dividends of $25,219,677 and divi- dends on common stock totalling $36,983,349. In spite of this draft on surplus accumulated in previous years, the corporation still had un- divided surplus at the end of 1931 totalling $421,837,192. - In 1932, although reporting a defi- cit” after setting aside depreciation and other reserves of over $39,000,- 000, this giant corporation again drew on its surplus and paid pre- ferred dividends of $20,716,163. By the end of this past year it was still carrying an_ undivided surplus of $20;716,163.| By the end of this past year it was still carrying an un divided surplus of $329,100,248, Andrew Mellon, reputed to be th richest man in the United States,’ with an inccme of |something like $60,000,000 a year, has profited di- rectly from the low wages paid by ) Illinois Union .' agrcement with the Lewis forces © a ~. ~ the Pittsburgh Coal Co. At the end = of 1932, this firm had @ paid-in surplus of $53,329,848