AFTERNOON SESSION

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Thurmond, when you are ready, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF WALTER R. THURMOND, CHARLESTON, W. VA.; SECRETARY, SOUTHERN COAL PRODUCERS' ASSOCIATION

Mr. THURMOND. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Walter R. Thurmond. My address is Charleston, W. Va. I am the secretary of the Southern Coal Producers' Association, a corporation existing under the laws of the State of West Virginia. I represent it in these hearings. The association is made up of about 300 coal-producing companies, located in southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. These companies have an annual production of about 120 million tons of coal, or a little less than one-fourth of the normal annual national production. They employ approximately 125,000 men.

It is my understanding that the subcommittee is conducting hearings looking to Federal legislation on mine safety throughout the several States. Several bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives on this subject and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. It is my further understanding that the subcommittee is not sitting to hear testimony on any particular one of these bills to the exclusion of the others, but that it may hear evidence on the general subject embraced in each of them and then either prepare and report out a subcommittee bill, or find that no legislation is necessary.

My appearance is in opposition to any Federal legislation.

There are two principal reasons for my position and the position of those I represent.

1. The Federal Government would by such act arrogate to itself powers never delegated to it by the Constitution and take from the States rights reserved to them. It would be an unwarranted and illegal invasion of the rights to the States.

2. It would contribute nothing constructive to the work already being done by the coal-mining industry and the mining departments of the several States, in cooperation with the research and educational programs of the United States Bureau of Mines to eliminate hazards, prevent accidents, and advance safety in coal mining.

Briefly, may we look to the first objection?

May I say, before proceeding, that I am not a lawyer. In youth I went to school and studied an old-fashioned subject called civil government, and did learn a little about the Constitution and was taught to revere and respect it.

I regret that that subject seems to have passed out of the school system.

In the writing of the Constitution, great care was taken to delegate specifically to the Federal Government only those powers which the authors and the States were sure they wished it to have. It has no implied powers except to protect its own sovereignty, all those not so delegated being reserved to the States. Upon such doctrine, the doctrine of local self-government and States' rights, this country was founded; it grew, it prospered, and became a great nation. Such is

still sound doctrine; nothing is present or on the horizon to suggest a change. But, in recent years, there have been those who have sought to controvert and upset it and supplant it with the theory of a strong, benevolent, and centralized government, centered in and directed from Washington.

Many years ago, Henry W. Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, one of the greatest editors and orators of his time, in an address before the societies of the University of Virginia, made what now appears to be a statement made with little less than inspiration. I quote in part:

The unmistakable danger that threatens free government in America is the increasing tendency to concentrate, in the Federal Government, powers and privileges that should be left to the States and to create powers that neither the State nor Federal Government should possess.

If Mr. Grady lived today, he could recall his timely warnings. Everywhere, on every hand, we have paternalism and centralized power run mad. We have some people running to the Federal Government for every ill, either real or imaginary, that affects them, whether it be physical, financial, moral, or governmental. Some ask for a subsidy, others for relief, and we find those in power quite often not only willing and eager to extend a benevolent and protective hand, but to go beyond and develop plans and schemes, of their own. making, for extension of these powers. Little do they realize that this continuous practice, moving as it is at an accelerated rate, eventually means slavery for our people and ultimately the destruction of our form of Government. I do not qualify that statement. Look at the history books and, without exception, you will find dictatorship immediately preceded by benevolences and by gradual centralization of power.

Let me quote from another great American, General Eisenhower, president of Columbia University, now on leave, having been recalled to active service in the Army for a time:

If we allow this constant drift toward centralized bureaucratic government to continue, it will be expressed not only in the practice of laying down the rules and laws for governing each of us, our daily actions, but finally it will be the actual field of operation. There will be swarming bureaucrats over the land. Ownership of property will gradually drift into that central government and finally you have to have a dictatorship as the only means of operating such a huge and gigantic organization.

That statement comes from a man who commanded and led to victory the greatest army ever mustered in the cause of individual freedom and human liberty, and significantly the statement was made. only a few days after he was recalled to active duty by the President of the United States, and was made by one whose whole life had been molded by the military which of necessity must in large measure operate on centralized authority. Yet, he adjures his countrymen to resist, with all their might, bureaucratic and centralized power in the Federal Government because it will eventually lead to a dictatorship. The type of legislation under consideration tends in the direction which General Eisenhower says it is dangerous to travel.

The danger of this tendency to dwarf the State and local governments and magnify centralized authority is fast becoming a Frankenstein monster that will inflict a dreadful retribution upon those who are creating it, and upon those who by indifference are failing to arrest its progress.

These various bills are more far reaching in their true aspects than would appear in a superficial reading. If the Federal Government can enact a law that will take over and away from the States the establishment of safety measures in coal mines, it can also supersede the duties and powers of State labor commissioners and health commissioners and establish the laws of conduct in factories and mills. It can also establish laws of health and safety in buildings and in offices. In fact, it could establish any number of safety bureaus and police their rules and regulations up to the point where it would totally destroy all State laws and render impotent State statutes. Then we would have every action of our lives from the time we arise in the morning until we go to bed at night regulated by the Federal Government, and we would become a country where a dictatorship would be established.

Even in the War Between the States, State sovereignty was never an issue. The Republic that came out of that war, in the language of the Supreme Court, "An indissoluble union of indestructible States." That is a good interpretation today; but within the last two decades, there had sprung up a philosophy that tends to emphasize, magnify and make glamorous the "indissoluble union" and at the same time to deemphasize and dwarf the "indestructible States" and make them impotent before a strong and authoritarian Federal Government.

Long before the Federal Government was established, States existed and grew in their own right and later within the Confederation. May the time never come when either the Federal or State Government shall cease to exist but may it be said without hesitancy that if only one of them should remain, it would be far better that it be the State government.

George Washington, looking down into the future, expressed the hope that this Nation, then in its infancy, would not be as other nations, rise, totter on the peak of its greatness and then fall, only to occupy a page in the history books of the centuries to come. Let the Congress ponder over that statement before taking away from the people the right of self-government.

I might go on and discuss this question at length, but State sovereignty and the right of the States to make laws best suited to their needs requires no advocate. It has been an accepted principle since the beginning of our country. The States are the corner stones upon which the superstructure of our Government rests and upon which our institutions are built. Weaken those stones and the whole structure will eventually collapse and like many of the great civilizations of the past, our Republic will fall and be lost in the trackless sands of time. The enactment of a Federal law destroying one of the very fundamental principles of our Government would tear out one of those stones and would be a weakening influence that would hasten such a day.

Now, concluding this part of my testimony, may I read to you from a document that has guided us through the years, which I believe still to be the abiding law of the land.

I know that among some, it is an old-fashioned and outmoded document. Even a late President when told by a friend that he, the President, was advocating laws definitely contrary to its principles is reported to have replied: "So what?"

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When all of this document had been written, including the Bill of Rights, the final clause was the capstone of all that was written. It was the conclusion of the whole matter.

Will you permit me to read it?

ARTICLE X. RIGHTS OF STATES UNDER CONSTITUTION

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.

Let us now turn to the development of the second objective to Federal mine legislation.

I have been almost continuously identified with the bituminous coal industry for more than 40 years, working in various capacities from a common laborer to manager and owner-operator of mines. I have been familiar with the industry and its problems throughout these years. I am familiar with them today.

I shall trace in as brief a manner as possible the activity of the industry itself in the furtherance of safety during the last half century and show the progress made and the ends attained. Such historical review is most pertinent to this hearing because unfortunately the idea has been spread abroad in the land that all progress in safety in years past has been through Federal law enforcement, and especially since the Federal inspection law of 1941, and that no contribution has been made voluntarily by management.

Such ideas have been spread in part unwittingly by those who have relied upon information which they believed to be correct but which has been wholly incorrect. On the other hand, certain organizations and individuals have spread it as propaganda in an effort to influence the enactment of legislation that would deprive ownership of the management of its properties and lodge it with a controlled bureau. Certainly such lodgment would be unfortunate. Most all Federal bureaus for control of industry are bad and usually cause untold confusion within the industry they seek to regulate. To attempt to control safety in coal mines by uniform or standard rules of operation throughout the country, where there are as many variables as there are producing areas, and perhaps more, would be disastrous.

Long before the date that the Federal Government ever gave any consideration to such matters as safety in coal mines, management was giving practical and serious attention to coal-mine accidents and their prevention. State mine departments were revising the rules and regulations governing mine operation, and through cooperation of management and State departments adequate State laws were periodically prepared and presented to the legislatures that the industry might always be abreast of the needs of the hour.

Right here I want to say that it was spoken of this morning that the coal operators had always been in opposition to any State laws for the betterment of the working conditions and the furtherance of good mine operation. I can only speak definitely for a part of the area. I remember back in 1911, which is quite a while ago, longer than you think, that I was called, along with other coal people, to Charleston by Governor Hatfield. He said to us:

Gentlemen, we have to do something to improve these mine conditions.

We sat down there and stayed there for a week, 2 weeks, I suspect, in helping to develop and pass one of the first improvements in the

mining law of the State of West Virginia. In the bienniums that have since passed, I scarcely know of any in which there have not been improvements, and they have not all been opposed by the coal operators.

In Kentucky today, they are sitting on bills. I have a letter here from the chief of the Department of Mines of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, saying that out of those bills is going to come something that will be helpful in modern mining. The operators, the miners, and the Governor are all down there fighting it out for the best bill, so they are there.

Such cooperative efforts have been marked with almost uninterrupted success and improvement year by year. Accidents, both when considered on the basis of tons of coal mined per accident and hours of exposure to danger, have progressively decreased.

At the beginning of the century, after a number of catastrophes, there began voluntary but aggressive action looking toward the elimination of hazards and improvements of physical conditions of mines. Such action on the part of management later caught the attention of the Bureau of Mines and made a profound impression on it.

In fact I think Mr. Forbes called the Bureau of Mines at that time, the Geological Survey.

The Bureau of Mines began to be alive to its opportunities and about 1910, rescue stations were established in different sections of the country. Experimental mines were developed and investigations on an extensive scale were made that the causes of explosions and individual accidents might be more readily understood and preventative measures introduced. Rescue cars fully equipped moved from district to district in order to train men in rescue work, such as first aid, use of oxygen helmets, and so forth. All management gave its heartiest approval and closest cooperation. Miners, mine foremen, superintendents, managers, and even owners in many instances availed themselves of the opportunity for this training. This was progress attempted, not by Federal police powers as proposed in this bill, but through training, through education, and through research. Such activity was and is a proper function of the Federal Government. It has full approval, active support, and cooperation of the industry.

The leading mining States all have in their departments of mines, in addition to modern mine-inspection system, established a minesafety training division. This division is under the direction of State directors whose work consists of conducting and promoting safety schools, safety meets, and the institution of such other activities as are, in the judgment of the Chief of the Department of Mines, advisable or necessary to the prevention of accidents and to the advancement of safety. The cost of this work is borne by the State and the industry.

In the State of West Virginia, which produces the largest amount of bituminous coal, of any of the States, the State university has for more than 33 years conducted mine extension schools. Instructors go into the various mining areas of the State and conduct classes in which miners are schooled and taught how to become better and safer workmen. The latest available data show that more than 45,000 men have received instruction in such schools and more than 12,000 have received certificates of proficiency. About 4,000 have taken the