Bituminous Hearings

Millionaires' Day was held in Washington last week, this time by the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee in its bituminous coal investigation.* The millionaires were three: Charles M. Schwab, chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Corp.; John D. Rockefeller Jr.; and Richard B. Mellon, a director of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. They contrasted sharply --"Charlie" Schwab, with his theatrical rags-to-riches air; the grave, earnest heir of John D. Rockefeller, with his air of Christian concern over a social evil; and Banker Mellon, cautious, acquainted with politicians, suspicious of the Committee's motives, uncommunicative, unsympathetic.

The trio had been called as a result of developments earlier in the week. From witness after witness the Committee had heard more about strike conditions in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Clergymen and newsgatherers (including passionate Fannie Hurst) had brought fresh tales of squalor, brutality, poverty, Bolshevism.

Then Van A. Bittner, representative of the United Mine Workers, had laid upon Mr. Schwab's and Mr. Rockefeller's interests in West Virginia, the same charge that had previously been laid upon Mr. Mellon's company and other Pittsburgh operators, namely, violation of a wage agreement, in spirit if not in letter. The method used, he said, had been to shut down the mines for a time, then reopen them and offer work to non-union men at wages below the agreed union scale. These moves by the Schwab and Rockefeller companies, Bittner declared, were what had driven the Pittsburgh operators to adopt like measures, to meet the price competition.

Mr. Schwab took the stand first to give the Committee his side of this story. Corpulent, jovial, ingratiating, he refused to discuss details, saying that he had been busy playing golf last summer and had now just returned from Europe. He said the Committee must get the details from his subordinates. But he was delighted to give the Committee and the world the benefit of his long experience as an employer: "It has been a broad policy into which the question of the open shop or union labor does not enter. As the result of my forty years' management of labor I have never had a serious difficulty with my men in my lifetime. I believe in the eld theory of supply and demand.

"The most important stockholders of the Bethlehem Steel are its workmen. I never made a cent out of Bethlehem Steel. It's just been a labor of love and all I have tried to do is drive a peg to mark progress in human relations."

The Committee reminded Mr. Schwab that it was asking about broken contracts with miners.

"In broad theory, I will never admit that our company broke the Jacksonville agreement -- admitting that I do not know any of the details . . ." answered Mr. Schwab. "I'm just a plain, blunt steel worker out of the mills of Pittsburgh, but no man here is more anxious to help in the situation than I am."

Then he offered affable advice to President John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers. "If I may take this occasion to express an opinion in the presence of Mr. Lewis," he said, "I think that he made a mistake in holding to the high wages."

Mr. Lewis arose and said drily: "As for what Mr. Schwab refers to as my mistake, suppose we miners had taken a reduction to meet the wage scale of the non-union Virginia field, where $3.75 is the minimum. How long would it have been before there would have been a new level to meet? Would Mr. Schwab tell the Committee where is the bottom anyhow?"

John D. Rockefeller Jr., a contrast in gravity after Mr. Schwab, took the stand in the afternoon. He said that he owned slightly more than 71% of the preferred stock and 27% of the common stock of the Consolidated Coal Co. of West Virginia. He said that he believed that the charge of illegal breaking of contracts was without foundation. "But if the company has violated any contract, it did wrong, and I would not approve it for a moment." Legislation permitting the coal companies to consolidate to curb overproduction was necessary, he believed.

Then he gave the committee his views on round-table conferences which might be called.

Banker Mellon, when his turn came, refused to be pinned down to any definite statements. He said he did not understand the wage agreements in question, and declined to answer questions about moral obligations of corporations to keep agreements.

An invitation from the Senate Commitee to W. G. Warden, chairman of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., to participate in a round-table such as Mr. Rockefeller proposed was turned down coldly and autocratically earlier in the week. "I would not go into any conference which included representatives of the United Mine Workers of America," declared Mr. Warden. "We have nothing to discuss with them. We are running a non-union field."

"But the business in which you are engaged affects the entire public," remonstrated Senator Wheeler.

"The general public doesn't need to be looked after," retorted Operator Warden. People were reminded of piratical old Commodore Vanderbilt's phrase: "The public be damned."

P: A practical solution not yet having issued from the Senate's inquiry, Coal's woes continued. In Belmont County, Ohio, Federal Judge Benson W. Hough ordered the eviction of 285 strikers' families from company houses where they had held out for a year. The United Mine Workers roared: "Brutality!" Operators retorted: "Stubbornness!"

P: Between the investigating Committee and Governor John S. Fisher of Pennsylvania a strained correspondence took place. By ordering an inquiry in his State the Senate had implicitly criticized Governor Fisher's handling, or lack of handling, of the coal strike. Governor Fisher, therefore, had publicly described the four Senators (Gooding, Wheeler, Pine, Wagner) who visited Pennsylvania, as "politicians seeking grounds for a political issue." He had said: "The solution of the problem lies in the mind of a statesman, not in the little minds of petty politicians." Angered, the Senators "invited" Governor Fisher to come before them. To this Governor Fisher replied with five questions. No. 5: Did the Senators assume that he was answerable to them for his administration of Pennsylvania?

Millionaires' Day has come often for the Senate Committee on Public Land. Investigating the Oil Scandal (see p. 10), the Committee has, in the past four years, interrogated Millionaires Sinclair, Rockefeller, Patten, Mellon, Stewart, Doheny, Lasker, McLean, Hays. . .