Coal Party

Secretary of Labor James John Davis gave a party but nobody of real importance came. He meant it to be a peace party to settle the troubles of the coal industry.

Representatives of the United Mine Workers came, led by John L. Lewis, their president. It was at their reiterated request (TIME, Nov. 28, Dec. 5) that Secretary Davis had issued his invitations. With some 100,000 members on unsuccessful strike since last spring in bituminous Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, the United Mine workers had passed from anger to anxiety to anguish.

But when Secretary Davis telegraphed potent mine operators in the strike area, begging them to to use his office as a meeting room to reach an agreement with Labor, most of of them declined. Potent operators have organized their mines with non-union labor since last spring. Wages are where they (the operators) want them. Such operators congratulate themselves on having "broken Labor's stranglehold on the industry "

Secretary Davis sent out a second batch of telegrams. A few "big fellows" who wanted to be courteous to the Administration accepted./- But the handful of operators who turned up in Washington were mostly "little fellows" who feel the coal industry's ailment almost as painfully as Labor feels it.

Three United Mine Workers, three operators and Secretary Davis constituted the committee which did most of the actual conferring. When they had finished Secretary Davis issued statements. His points: 1) "It is useless for small operators to attend any conference unless the major operators attend and agree to remedial measures." 2) Congress alone has power to force the coal industry out of the morass in which it now is." 3) "The morass" is overdevelopment: too many mines, too many miners. 4) Left alone, the strongest, operators would survive the present cut-throat competition "at fearful cost to those too weak to survive and with further hardship to labor during the process." 5) President Coolidge has repeatedly suggested setting up a federal board to arbitrate in coal emergencies, but-- 6) "As emergency is a chronic state in coal," perhaps such a board had better regulate as well as arbitrate. 7) Perhaps the most advisable step of all would be for the operators to appoint an umpire or high commissioner, as in the cinema and baseball industries. Said Secretary Davis: "If ever an industry needed a Tsar, coal is that industry." 8) "The man selected would have to be one of ability, courage, decision and heart; a man of the type of Charles Evans Hughes."

/-Secretary of the Treasury Mellon is privately close to large bituminous interests. No list of the operators attending Secretary Davis' conference was made public.