COAL

Work

The anthracite coal peace, negotiated a fortnight ago, with wage agreement to last until September, 1930 (TIME, Feb. 22), was last week made a fact.

Seven hundred delegates representing 158,000 anthracite miners assembled. One Communist among them was detected and ousted when he refused to abjure his heresy. President Lewis of the Mine Workers' Union and his aides explained the agreement. A standing vote was taken. Only two men voted against the agreement.

Next morning at 7:00, whistles shrieked in the collieries of Pennsylvania. Grinning miners, with carbide lamp on cap, went down into the dark. Carefully they tapped on the roofs to make sure no rock had loosened since their last visit 170 days before. Busily they loaded fallen rock and repropped the roof where it was necessary.

By night there had been one fatality. One man had walked into a pocket of black damp that had accumulated in a long empty mine, but many others returned home happy--in two weeks there would be a pay check.