Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1886 — GOVERNOR PATTISON AND THE COAL RING. [ARTICLE]

GOVERNOR PATTISON AND THE COAL RING.

Chicago Herald: The Instructions Issued by Governor Pattison, of Pennsylvania, to the Attorney General of that state to proceed against the anthracite coal combination i*ill surprise many people, and none mere .han flic men who compose that ag* gregatiou of plunderers. So many of the worst monopolies in the country have taken root in Pennsylvania, state and Federal laws h ,ve ‘jo frequently been warped in the interest of these rings, and local as well as national officials have so uniformly been pliant tools of the stupendous interests which are based on injusti e and crimp, that the exhibition by the Chief Magistrate of the commonwealth of sufficient honesty and courage io attack o r e of these robber combinations is almost enough to take one’s breath away. Mr. Pattison is entitled to great honor and praise for his outspoken letter, the more so because in assuming this attitude he at once invites the malig ant and unceasing hostility of more than one thousand millions of dollars, c In a state whose Legislature is al.. ways controlled by the money rings and most of whose officials for twentyfive years have been the mere creatures of monopoly, there has been small obacoe ior legislation not primarily intended to ben fit a class and absolutely no hope of enforcing laws enacted long ago for the general welfare. Corporations with the Leg** islature, the executive offices and the courts in their control have had no difficulty in overriding the Constitution and in defeating|measures of reform brought forward in the publ c interest. The coal combination in that state which is taxing the people of the country millions of dollars a year, could noi exist for a day if the organio law of Pennsylvania was worth, in tne hands of th ‘ corporation serfs who hold most of the offices, the paDer on which it is written. One provision of this instrument is that “no corporatad company doing the business of a common carrier shall directly or indirectly prosecute orengige in mining er manufacturing articles for tran»portation*over its lines.” Tuis prohibition has been ignored in the most contemptuous »nanner for many years corpoiatfons courts and officials all having a hand in the monstrous injustice which has resulted in consequence. By so doing the soi’called coal roads and canals—that is to say, the transportation companies occupy* ing the anthracite coal fields—have bet n able in defiance of written law to commit two great crimes. One of these, the first, was the establishment of a monopoly in the hard ooal trade. Miners who would not, or did not, join them soon found themselves unable to send their coal to market, because the roads, having unlawfully gone into the business of mining, re fused to carry the product oi mines other toan their own except at rates which the outsider could not pay and compete with the corporations. The result was that hundreds of small miners were ruiued and thousands of acres of land became almost valueless, only to be purenased at length by the monopoly. This in itself was a wiong which should have consigned its perpetrators to the penitentiary. The second crime was of wider seope. Having violated tbe law of Pennsylvania and successfully prosecuted a conspiracy for the ruin of hundred* es worthy men, the coal combination turned its attention o the people at large for tbo purpose oi reaping the benefits of its stolen power. At a meeting of its members the production of coal ior this year was “limited* to 83.600,000 tons, and this in spite of the faot that the mines, the workingmen, the machinery and all the resources of the business were adapted to and capable of the production of 60,000,000 tens annually. This much settled, the “scarcity” of an article America enjoys in greater abundance than all the other nations of the earth combined having been established, the combination, composed of the presidents of the coal roads, now proceeds each month to lift the price. In this way, without the interference of those laws of supply and demand which should be the safeguard of the peo® pie, the value of coal is regulated, first by an artificial scarcity, and see? ond by arbitrary advances in the sella, ing rate, Where combination is possible competition is impossible. Hers is a case where combinaiion was made possible through the failure of Pennsylvania to enforce its own laws. These are the two great crimes of the coal monopoly It has committed many others, such as the importation of pauper labor, the locking out of its men during four or six months of everyfyear, the introduction of th© oompany store or truck System and the enforcement in its harshest form of the black list, as a

result of whioh men, votnen and children, sometimes sick and naked Mid hungry, have been turned upon the highways in Bilter weather per haos to peris' 1 . To this aßsocia'ion every American who warms his house wit 1 - anthracite pays tribute. While it i to be feared that Govern nor Pattison has acted too late in the day—his term expires next January —he is *o be given full credit for acting at ail. If he shall be zealously supported by the Attorney General he may accomplish much even in tbe three months remaining to him.