THE COAL HEARINGS TO PROCEED

Scanned from Public Opinion, December 4, 1902.

The prospect of a settlement between the anthracite operators and miners "out of court" was suddenly ended by the decision of the former not to grant any further interviews to President Mitchell with a view to reaching a private agreement. The decision of the coal roads' presidents is said to be due to a conference here at which the individual operators prevailed them to break off negotiations with the miners. President Baer, during the conference, sent word of the decision to Washington, where the miners' representatives and Wayne MacVeagh, of counsel for the operators, were also in conference. Mr. Baer said that "the conditions are such that no substantial progress can be made by the suggested meeting. The general judgment of the operators is that it will be best for the present, to go on with the public hearings."

There seems to be little regret that the hearings before the commission are to continue. "Had the parties in interest reached a satisfactory settlement the public would have been denied much interesting and authentic information concerning conditions in the anthracite region, which will now be revealed in sufficient detail by the commission's investigations," the Philadelphia Ledger says. "Conflicting statements have been made respecting the mining industry, and the public are naturally curious to have precise information." The New York American ( formerly the Journal) thinks it is "just as well" that the hearings should proceed. For "if the commission does its work thoroughly these facts will be laid before the public. That the coal-carrying railroads form a trust which possesses an absolute monopoly of the market for anthracite coal; that this trust exists in defiance of law, both national and state; that the men who compose this trust are amenable not only to civil penalties but to criminal prosecution whenever the president of the United States chooses to order his attorney-general to proceed against them. Baer and his partners by retreating from the proposed settlement have given the strike commission a first-rate opportunity to enlighten the president, if he needs enlightenment, as to what he can do to the coal trust whenever he shall find courage to command Attorney-General Knox to perform his duty."

The New York Times explains the failure of the plans for a private settlement: "Concerning what has 'leaked out' as to the basis proposed for a permanent settlement, the information at hand is not sufficient to permit any censure of the operators for their alleged change of front. Their announcement declaring the negotiation off and referring the questions at issue back to the commission makes certain things very plain, and these are of more immediate concern than speculations as to motives on either side. The most important is that under no conditions will the operators deal with the union as an organization nor accept a peace by grace of its president. Another is that they are unwilling to put themselves in a position suggesting surrender of what they have for half a year contended for. It has been believed and frequently asserted that the independent operators could and would settle their own differences with their men and resume work if the presidents of the coal roads would permit them to do so. Their vigorous and apparently unanimous protest against a settlement before all the facts had been heard and the judgment of the commission recorded shows that they are even more strenuously opposed to peace through surrender to the union than are the great mining and carrying corporations. This means that they have evidence to produce which they want to have spread upon the record. This evidence Mitchell and his associates have every reason to fear. What it may show in the matter of personal responsibility for crime is conjectural; what it will show as to the utter irresponsibility of the union, its inability to enforce discipline or to carry out the contracts into which it enters, can be accurately forecasted."