List of members of the National Conference of Bituminous Coal Producers-Contd. P. R. Nicholson Coal Co.. North East Coal Co... Oakmont & Smokeless Fuel. 10 East Pleasant Street, Baltimore. 150 East Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio. Dillonvale, Ohio.. 3200 Lewis Tower, Philadelphia.. Ohio & Pennsylvania Coal Co. Cleveland, Ohio.. Old Ben Coal Corporation.. Ontario Gas Coal Co. Pana Coal Co...... Patoka Coal Co... 1845 Continental Illinois Bank Building, Chicago, Ill. Pittsburgh, Pa.. 5 North State Street, Pana, Ill. 8 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago.. Payne Baber Coal Co. of Ken- Ashland, Ky.. tucky. Peabody Coal Co.. Peale Peacock & Kerr, Inc.. Pemberton 3/c.. Penelec Coal Corporation.... 20 Walker Drive, Chicago, Ill. Graybar Building, New York City. Bluefield, W. Va.. Reading, Pa... D. R. Davis. John Gilbert, A. B. Luce, C. C. Madera, J. William E. C. Mahan. Do. W. A. Richards. P. E. Morris. Charles E. H. Brown. C. H. Mead, president; S. M. Miller. E. H. Davis. John L. Steinbugler. J. S. McVey. D. W. Buchanan. P. T. Boswell. J. S. McVey. H. W. Showalter. L. E. Crouse, J. E. Macklin, president. R. W. Wigton. Brocks Showalter, president. Daniel T. Buckley. E. H. Davis. E. H. Davis, P. C. Morris. P. R. Nicholson. D. W. Buchanan, president; John B. Brunot. G. W. Reed. Charles O'Neill. W. J. Richards. A. H. Barnum. List of members of the National Conference of Bituminous Coal Producers-Contd. Simpson Creek Collieries. Six States Coal Corporation.. Sitnek Fuel Co.. Solomon Bros. Mining Co.. South East Coal Co. South Fayette Coal Co. Robertsdale, Pa... Mount Union, Pa. Springfield, Ohio.. St. Benedict, Cambria County, Pa... 2300 Phillips Avenue, Springfield, Ill... 1416 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. do. Seward, Pa.. United States Bank Building, Johns- St. Marys, Pa.... Cleveland, Ohio.... Philadelphia, Pa.. New Haven, Conn.. 1115 First National Bank, Cincinnati.. Southern Coal Coke & Mining Co. 319 North Fourth Street, St. Louis.. Southern Collieries Co... Southern Mining Co... Sovereign Pochontas Co. Williamsburg, Ky.. .do..... 17 Battery Place, New York, N. Y Wellsburg, W. Va.. 421 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. D. D. Doge; Scott Stewart, J. B. Clifton, president. E. H. Davis. George W. Harsh. James H. Allport. C. E. Crafts, Ian McLaren. J. W. Wetter. Charles E. Hower. J. P. Peabody, president. J. L. Hatfield, William S. R. J. Protzeller. J. C. Broydon; Frank H. E. H. Davis. H. S. Saxman. David E. Williams, Jr. R. L. King, Thomas King. Do. W. H. Marshall. J. D. Dickson, D. F. Lambert. H. L. Findlay, Wm. Findlay. Louis Sitnek. John B. Brunot. D. W. Buchanan. A. H. Powell. A. D. W. Smith. D. W. Buchanan. Do. J. E. Westervelt. List of members of the National Conference of Bituminous Coal Producers-Con. Thomas C. Co... Edward Tomajko, Sr., Co.. Truax Traer Co.. P. O. box 288, Bluefield, W. Va. Soo Line Building, Minneapolis, Turkey Gap Coal & Coke Co..... P. O. box 288, Bluefield, W. Va.... Union Electric Co... United Collieries.. United Electric Co. United States Coal Co.. Universal Fuel Co.. Utilities Elkhorn Coal Co. Valley Camp Coal Co., and sub- Valley Mining Co.. Van Thiel Coal Co. Dowell, Ill.. St. Louis, Mo... Adams Building, Danville, Ill.. 2120 Farmers Bank, Pittsburgh, Pa.. Chicago, Ill. C. A. Hamill. Edward Tomajko, Jr. D. W. Buchanan. O. M. Deyerle. D. W. Buchanan. Do. J. B. Grigg, E. S. Williams. Arch V. Grossman. C. J. Thomas, president. Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, H. T. Ewig, president; E. C Ohio. 16 East Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio. Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Co... Colonial Bank Building, Roanoke, Va. Mobley; Wm. Yaylor, executive vice president. E. H. Davis. W. C. Van Thiel, manager. G. Smith. Whitney Warner, president. D. R. Davis. D. W. Buchanan. W. Clark Adams. John B. Brunet. D. W. Buchanan. A. W. Dean. W. J. Rafetto. R. H. Knode, E. B. Leisenring, F. H. Coleman. Telford, Lewis. J. T. Wilson, president. Kanawha Valley Bank Building, John Laing, Fred O. Blue. Charleston, W. Va. Connellsville, Pa... Cleveland, Ohio..... 608 Butler City National Bank Build- Guy Corrado. H. L. Findlay, Jas. Patter- Mr. O'NEILL. It is not a vote of associations because we do not believe association votes represent much. These are men who paid their fare to come to Washington to consider this legislation, and we made three trips. I was advised, however, by Mr. Eastwood, of the Michigan Coal Operators Association, that they wished to join with our conference in support of this measure. We held three meetings and decided that to stabilize hours, wages, and working conditions, we had to have legislation that would stabilize prices. We believed that the legislation should not continue beyond a period of 4 years, because we consider it to be more or less of an experiment. On June 7, at our final meeting, the conference ratified title II, which was just discussed by Judge Warrum. I could go ahead and give you some practical reasons why we believe this legislation is essential. The committee has been advised of the conditions obtaining in the industry by many volumes of record that have been put in here, but if you wish to conserve time 144204-35-11 Mr. HILL. We would be glad to have your statement. We want to get information here. I did not mean to curtail you in your presentation of your case. Mr. O'NEILL. The depression for the coal industry began in 1921. We have grown progressively worse since that time until May 1933. During the boom year of 1928, the industry, as shown by the Bureau of Internal Revenue reports, showed a net deficit of all corporations of 24 million dollars; in 1929, 12 million dollars; in 1930, 42 million dollars. The 1931, 1932, and 1933 figures I do not have, but they were progressively worse. During the conferences when the code of fair competition was under consideration by the N. R. A., it was estimated that the losses throughout the Nation that were being sustained on the average over all of the companies were 30 cents a ton, or a loss of over $100,000,000 a year. General Johnson advised me that he had a report that at that time the industry was within 12 months of total bankruptcy. Mr. VINSON. What was the price that was used to develop that 30-cents-per-ton loss? Mr. O'NEILL. The average realization in Division No. 1 at that time, and as disclosed by N. R. A. figures which have been furnished to me since I have been in the city, was $1.03 a ton, and for the total tonnage the losses were about 30 cents on that basis. Mr. VINSON. In other words, you mean in relation to that $1.03 a ton that it was selling for 73 cents a ton? Mr. O'NEILL. No; it was selling for $1.03 a ton, but the cost was about $1.33 a ton. In other words, the loss was about 30 cents a ton. Mr. COOPER. You mean that it cost you $1.33 a ton to produce it? Mr. O'NEILL. That is right. Mr. COOPER. And you were losing about 30 cents a ton? Division No. 1 is the mines in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Northern Tennessee, which produces about 72 percent of the total production of the United States. Mr. COOPER. Was that $1.33 per ton the cost of production under the provisions of the coal code under the N. R. A.? Mr. O'NEILL. No, that was prior to N. R. A. The Natural Resources Board issued a statement which I would ike to quote in the record: Stabilization of the coal industry is needed to protect capital. In 1929, according to the Treasury statistics of income, there were 1,437 bituminous coal companies producing approximately 46 percent of the total output, that operated at a loss, and their deficits exceeded the income of the companies making a profit, so that the industry as a whole reported a net loss even during that year of boom. Virtually no other business covered by the Treasury's record showed such widespread money losses as the mining of bituminous coal. When we had reach that point, that Judge Warrum touched upon a report here yesterday that the preventable waste in the industry had been estimated at 150,000,000 tons per year. During the period of 1930 to 1933, I would say that millions of tons of coal were lost permanently by the flooding of mines, the withdrawal of all equipment and tracks, and such mines being allowed to fall in, and the pillar coal that could have been taken out of those properties was lost forever so far as we here are concerned. That waste of a natural resource will recur if conditions are allowed to go back to unrestricted competition. The industry had unrestricted competition from 1921 to 1933, and that was the result. In 1933, in division no. 1, the wages paid to mine workers were a maximum of about $3, and less than $1.50 per day. The wages cost per ton in May 1933, was 61.4 cents a ton, and the hours of labor were a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 13. In division no. 1, which I have described to you, the average wages per day received by miners were slightly in excess of $2 per day. Bankruptcy and tax sales and abject poverty were the rule throughout the entire region. With the adoption of the code, collective bargaining was restored in the industry substantially in all those fields that had formerly been unionized and had departed from the union, and was established in many sections of the country which hitherto had been nonunion. On October 2, 1933, the wage scale was placed on a basis of 94 cents a ton wages cost or an increase of 53.1 percent in pay to the mine workers. An 8-hour day was established and a 5-day week. That continued through until April 1, 1934, when the 7-hour day was established and the 5-day week, and the wage cost per ton increased to $1.15; or an increase to the mine workers of about 88 percent over May 1933. Converting that into dollars, the miners, 300,000 of them in division no. 1, received in wages in 1934, above those that were being paid in 1933, $121,000,000, or about $400 a year increase for each worker in that area, and on a per-day basis representing an increase in wages of about $2.70 per day. Those rates now are $5 per day, the base rate, for 7 hours, north of the Ohio River, and $4.60 a day for 7 hours south of the Ohio River in the area I have just described. The results in division no. 3, which is Alabama, southern Tennessee, and Georgia, were about the same. Its labor cost in May 1933, was 74 cents, and under the code from April 1, 1934, to December of 1934, $1.39, or a gain of 65 cents a ton to the worker, or abour $330 a year. These gains were made in a year of depression and through regulation. In addition to these gains made by labor, I think it might be well to say that the 30 cents a ton loss that the industry was sustaining in May 1933, was entirely wiped out, and for the first year when it was on its own resources without the aid of strikes in foreign countries or the anthracite mines, or coal-car shortages on railroads, the industry had a margin of about 2 cents under these circumstances. Mr. VINSON. What about division no. 2? Mr. O'NEILL. Division no. 2 showed substantial gains, Indiana and Illinois, but they were on a higher wage scale than divisions 1 and 3, and there was not the marked change as to labor in division no. 2 that there was in divisions 1 and 3. Mr. VINSON. What division or divisions did that $121,000,000 to which you refer cover? Mr. O'NEILL. The $121,000,000 increase was in division no. 1, the miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and northern Tennessee. In division no. 3, Alabama, southern Tennessee, and Georgia, the increase was about $6,000,000. |