In the Pits

The Government was trying hard last week to dispel the impression that it liked the job of bossing U.S. soft-coal mines. Big, bluff Admiral Ben Moreell, coalmines administrator, was doing all he could to speed the return of the mines to their corporate owners. He begged labor and management to discuss again their chances for reconciliation; he set up a Supreme Court test case on the biggest issue in conflict, the unionization of foremen--which U.M.W. wants and the companies hate.

None of these stabs spurred either worker or owner. Government operation had been creeping up on them for a long time. It started in 1933 with NRA, under which John L. Lewis managed to unionize almost the entire industry. By the time NRA collapsed, the unions were too big to be ignored, so owners teamed up with union leaders to see what they could get from the Government. The outcome was the Guffey Act in 1935, which set price floors, extended unionization--and also extended the Government's hand.

Is Everybody Happy? When the act was outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1936, it was succeeded by other regulations which, if anything, made the Government's role stronger. The war made it dominant. The results to date: in one way or another, the Government has been setting coal prices since 1935. Because of John Lewis' annual strikes, it also had to seize and keep full operating control of some or all U.S. soft-coal mines for, roughly, seven months in 1943, ten months in 1944, five months in 1945.

Last week it was beginning its fourth month in 1946 as boss of about 2,800 mines (including 71 hastily added last week after having been lost in the shuffle of Government mailing lists when a general seizure was ordered last May).

The oddest thing about it all was that outside of the Government, few people seemed to mind. Seeing private enterprise stay in Government hands, miners found the Government a much more liberal boss than their old ones. And many owners, pleased with the booming rate of production (12,000,000 tons a week in June and July) under Government control, were quite content to sit back and watch the profits pile up under Ben Moreell's management.

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