This wholesale abandonment of coal and resultant tremendous increase in the demand for natural gas and fuel oil and petroleum coke, which is a byproduct of oil refineries, tremendously stimulated the building of pipe lines, until at the present time practically every town and hamlet within the States of Kansas, western Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana, which States are the natural markets for Arkansas and Oklahoma coal, is now supplied with natural gas, and the business we are still holding is in constant jeopardy and can be held only by the continuance of competitive prices on coal.

We recognize the desirability of standardizing wages by districts. We concede that apparently the only practical way to accomplish this standardization is by means of wage contracts with organizations of mine workers. The difficulty is that there is a wide and irreconcilable difference between the leaders of the miners' organization and the coal operators of the country and the principal consumers of coal, large and small, as to what constitutes a fair wage for men employed in coal mines and as to what the length of a reasonable work day should be.

In our part of the country the principal consumers of fuel that are not using gas or oil are the farmers. As every one knows, the farmers of this country are hard pressed to make a living. Their farms are mortgaged; their future is most uncertain. Prosperity cannot return to this country until their problem is reasonably solved. The coal miners in the Southwest are, even in these distressing times, far better paid for the work they perform than the farmers who buy their product and pay the hard-earned money that meets their pay rolls.

I might add that a majority of the employees of our mines have come at last to recognize these facts. They are not individually demanding increased wages per hour and per day or shorter working time, but are saying to our managements, "Try and increase your market demand and give us a greater number of working days per year." These men, many of whom have grown to manhood and spent all of their lives working for their present employers, have manifested a far clearer understanding of the difficult conditions under which the coal-mining industry of the Southwest is struggling to survive than have their leaders, who, of necessity, spend their time here in Washington and in the large producing States of the East.

Under the plan of collective bargaining that has prevailed during the past 20 years, the outlying districts of the country, and particularly mines in the Southwest, have had practically no voice in determining the wages they are to pay. The wage scales they have been required to subscribe to and pay have been dictated by the large and powerful coal-mining corporations operating mines in Pennsylvania and Illinois. As a result, our feet have time and again been held to the fire, and we have been compelled to nold in effect wage schedules that were entirely illogical for our part of the country and that have resulted in the loss of business, as stated, to gas, oil, petroleum coke, and to more favored mining districts east of the Mississippi, as a result of which the prosperity of our industry in the Southwest has been destroyed and thousands of worthy mine workers who were entitled to live and prosper have been thrown out of employment at the mines. Practically every 2 years between 1903 and 1924 our biennial wage contracts expired before we could even obtain conferences with the

miners' union in respect to their renewal. Our mines have, year after year, remained in idleness from 2 to 6 months pending the settlement of wage controversies in the central competitive field, which included the coal mines of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. When at last agreements were reached in the East we were given an ultimatum which it was useless to resist.

We do not feel that this procedure has been in keeping with the spirit of true or proper collective bargaining, and we are not prepared to subscribe to the enactment into law of a plan to add to the strength of the miners' union the strong right arm of the Federal Government in continuing such procedure. We could not do this and keep faith with the consumers who still depend upon us for coal and who have made it possible for us to continue in business. We could not do this and keep faith with the coal miners who look to us for employment upon which they must depend for daily bread for themselves and families. Even for the benefits that are held out to encourage us to accept this proposal, we cannot delegate such absolute power and control to an organization that does not take into consideration the rights of the producers, the miners, and the consumers of each State according to the conditions that exist in those States and according to the earnings of those who buy as compared with those who produce coal.

On the last day of March of the year 1922 the United Mine Workers, which at that time dominated the labor in practically all bituminous mines in this country, ordered the miners in all bituminous mines in the United States to lay down their tools and quit work until such time as the coal operators should agree to continue to pay them the high war wages, ranging from $7.50 to $12 per day, as set out in the Jacksonville agreement. During those 6 months thousands and thousands of domestic and industrial consumers in the Middle West, after weeks and months of waiting, tired of uncertainty and fearful of a coal famine, accepted the proposals of distributors of natural gas and fuel oil and permanently abandoned the use of coal. Since that catastrophe the volume of demand for domestic coal throughout the Middle West has been reduced by one-half. There has been wide distress among coal miners as a result of unemployment, and mining company after mining company has gone into bankruptcy.

This bill has been constructed on the theory that the coal mines throughout the country are producing a commodity that the public must buy, and that we have only to establish the machinery to raise wages, prices, and profits and that the consuming public will of necessity pay the bill. Our experience has demonstrated to us in the Southwest the fallacy of this belief. In 1924 and 1925, to save the industry in the Southwest from complete destruction and to hold the third of the farmer business that was still on coal, and having desperately endeavored to persuade the officials of the miners' union of the necessity of reduction in war wages that were still in effect, practically all of the coal operators of Arkansas and Oklahoma discontinued contractual relations with the miners' organization, reduced the day wage from $7.50 to $5 per day, and later to $3.75 per day, and continued until the fall of 1932 open shop.

By the summer of 1932, after the arrival of the depression and a further reduction in market demand as a result of diminished buying power on the part of the consuming public, selling prices had become

badly demoralized and a number of producers in those States, in their effort to continue solvent, reduced wages below what was considered the standard prevailing wage of $3.75 per 8-hour day. This created discontent on the part of both those employers who were attempting to standardize wages at that minimum and on the part of the miners who were receiving the standard wage and whose wages were menaced by the acceptance of reduced wages in neighboring and competitive mines.

The officials of the United Mine Workers, taking advantage of this situation, prevailed upon a majority of our miners to renew membership in their organization, and with comparatively little difficulty prevailed upon the producers of those States to renew contractual relations with them on a basic day wage of $3.75 per day; and such operators as did not rerecognize the union and sign contracts with it in the latter half of 1932, did sign up upon the organization of the N. R. A. in the summer of 1933, upon the assurance from the miners that the contracts entered into and which established the $3.75 day wage until March 31, 1935, would continue in effect until the date of the expiration specified therein.

Notwithstanding these agreements, by and with the authority of the Recovery Administration, the wages specified in these contracts were arbitrarily set aside on March 31, 1934, and the basic day wage was advanced from $3.75 per 8-hour day to $4.60 per 7-hour day. After protests and investigations extending over a period of several months, in June 1934, the Recovery Administration, over the strong protest of the mine workers' organization, ordered a reduction in the basic wage for Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas from $4.60 to $4 for a 7-hour day, in recognition of the fact that a mistake had been made and that the advance previously ordered would be harmful alike to the miners and the producers of those States.

I have made this recital, gentlemen, in order to bring to you a realization of the fact that this is a wide country. The procedure which is obviously logical and proper in one part of the country at a given time will be entirely illogical and disastrous to another part of the country. There is no strait-jacket nor no one wage schedule that will fit all parts of the country at one time, and there is no labor organization, however intelligently it may be managed, but that will in time become too powerful and too unwieldy and to enmeshed in internal and external politics to be safely trusted with a mandate to control American industry.

We accepted the Recovery Act and the proposal of N. R. A. with respect to codes with many fears and misgivings and largely because the country was in the midst of a depression that had brought tremendous dislocations and much unemployment and distress. The country was looking to the President for leadership. It was the President's plan and wish and this industry laid aside its traditions and allowed itself to be regimented. After days, weeks, and months of confusion and conferences, in which the best operating and legal brains of the industry participated, a fairly workable code was evolved and accepted.

Labor was placated by the wide-spread recognition of the union and of the principle of collective bargaining, and by the granting of very large increases in wages. National and district code authorities were set up and labor relations boards appointed throughout the

country. After a year of struggle and hard work in perfecting this organization some progress began to be noted. Many evils of long standing began to be eliminated. There has been some disappointment on the part of those who did not realize the magnitude of the undertaking, but those in the industry who have been more thoughtful feel that real progress has been made, and that the most helpful thing the Congress can do for the coal-mining industry at this time will be to extend the Recovery Act for an additional 2-year period. N. R. A. is organized and has been put under way at a tremendous cost of effort and money. It will, if extended, demonstrate as well as the plan set out in the Guffey bill, whether this industry can be stabilized by law. While its results have not been entirely satisfactory, encouraging progress has been made and a measure of hope and confidence in the plan has been established. It would, in our judgment, be unwise to sacrifice this gain.

The N. R. A. has been to the coal industry a major operation. Let us not subject it to a second major operation until it has recovered from the first and until we can determine the results of the first operation are encouraging.

N. R. A. in 2 years has advanced the objectives of organized labor more than they have ever before been advanced in a decade. With a national and world-wide depression still on and thousands struggling to make ends meet, the miners should not demand further shortening of hours or further increases in wages, the effect of which would be to increase the cost of coal to the public, decrease consumption, increase unemployment and retard recovery.

As well evidenced by the presentations at this hearing, the mine owners in whose interest this bill is ostensibly advanced do not favor its passage. The railroads, who are the largest users and transporters of coal, do not want it, and since it would unquestionably add at least 50 cents a ton to the cost of coal, certainly the large consuming public, which will be called upon to pay the total bill, does not want it. Why, then, should the Congress be encouraged or urged at this time to adopt a measure the effects of which no one can foresee and which, at best, will destroy all that has been gained during the past 2 years? All of the benefits that can possibly result from the passage of this bill will be retained and come from an extension and continuance of the N. R. A. codes, without a repetition of the year's disorganization and chaos that prevailed while existing codes were being worked out and agreed upon.

Apparently the country has started on the road to recovery. We have stopped going backward. We are beginning to gain a little momentum. In our opinion, it would be the height of folly to stop and abandon a plan that is working, to experiment with a new and radical plan that contains greater defects and offers no greater advantage. We who have spent our lives in this difficult industry and who have our all invested in it certainly, and more earnestly than any others could, desire to see the standards of this important and difficult industry permanently improved. We more than any others desire to have permanently eliminated the possibility of misunderstanding and strife and disagreement with our employees with whom we labor. We have just entered upon, under the codes of fair competition authorized by the Recovery Act, an epochal experiment. Progress has been made, but sufficient time has not clapsed to appraise the results. In

these circumstances we strongly urge that this bill do not pass and that the Congress extend the operations of the Recovery Act for an additional 2-year period that the possible benefits of such legislation may be definitely determined.

Mr. Chairman, I have here two telegrams, one from the chairman and secretary of the Arkansas Smokeless Coal Bureau, and one from the secretary of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Coal Operators' Association, appointing me as their spokesman.

Senator NEELY. There is no question about your authority, so far as the committee is concerned.

STATEMENT OF C. SELDEN, JR., WASHINGTON, D. C., REPRESENTING THE BLUE LICK MINES, SOMERSET, PA.

Senator NEELY. Mr. Selden is the next witness.

Mr. SELDEN. Mr. Chairman, my name is C. Selden, Jr., attorney and receiver of the Blue Lick Mines, Somerset, Pa.

I take it from your original statement and in listening to these proceedings that it might be appreciated if anything constructive might be added to the general discussion. The representative of the Coppage Co. seemed to think that the bill would add to the complexity of compliance. While I have heard a good deal about compliance and noncompliance, I am wondering if the following suggestion, due to the fact that this bill creates a Commission which sets prices and regulates compliance, not by a code authority, but by this Commission, might not be helpful.

This question of compliance could be handled, if this bill becomes a law, by placing in the hands of this Commission the right to suspend car supply for operators that did not comply. That could not be done, in my estimation, by a simple regulation of that Commission, because it might be trespassing upon the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, such as were discussed before the committee in the hearings on the Communications Act.

Senator NEELY. How would such regulation be enforced; through the railroads?

Mr. SELDEN. Through this Commission denying to these operators or producers the car supply through the railroad companies. I presume that would be the natural agency, as it is now with the Interstate Commerce Commission. If my recollection serves me correctly, in 1921, the regulation having been made against me and others, we were refused-I will not say "refused", but it was intimated that unless certain tonnage was shipped west in proportion to cars that we received we probably would not get them. That is a drastic right. It could not rest with any code authority under the present set-up, but no producer with contracts outstanding or labor contracts would fail to be careful to comply with the rules and regulations of this bill.

I merely make that as a suggestion. I think that would enforce compliance, as far as the producers are concerned, and those who are operating under this statute, if it becomes a law, want it complied with, and there, would be no interference with those who actually' comply with those regulations.

Senator NEELY. Have you anything further you wish to offer?
Mr. SELDEN. That is all.

Senator NEELY. Thank you very much.

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