Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1895 — THE SUPPLY STORE. [ARTICLE]

THE SUPPLY STORE.

Pennsylvania Coal Miners Robbed by Their Km ploy ere, A clerk in a Pennsylvania coal company “supply store” has made some interesting revelations regarding that particular method of robbing the workingman. There are twenty-seven “supply stores" in the coal and coke region, notwithstanding the State law on the subject, and all are owned by the <oal companies, or by heavy stockholders in the corporations. Twenty thousand miners or employes of coke ovens are compelled to deal at these stores, and. assuming that the average annual purchases of a customer reach S2OO, we have $4,000,000 as the total of the business. All the supplies for all these stores are bought for cash by one man, who has an office in Pittsburg, and the employe quoted says he is enabled, by the magnitude of his orders and spot cash payments, to buy from 15 to 25 per cent, cheaper than the individual private merchant, while the store prices to miners are from 10 to 25 per cent, higher than at other stores. In other words, he figures a profit to the “pluck me" store of from 25 to 50 per cent, and concludes that the stores are often far more profitable Ito the coal companiesjthan the mines are. These company stores have no bad debts, as other merchants have. A minor can only obtain goods when he has money coming to him from the coal company. When he exhausts that balance he can obtain no more supplies until he has done more work, and, as a result of this system, he often sees no cash for months at a time.