Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 284, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1919 — WILSON TO FIX MINE WAGE [ARTICLE]

WILSON TO FIX MINE WAGE

PROFITS OF 2,000 PER CENT TO OWNERS BARED BY MR. McAPOO.

Washington, D. C., Nov. 24. — President Wilson will dictate the terms of peace between the coal miners and operators today, if his cabinet indorses the program worked out yesterday by Attorney General Palmer, Fuel Administrator Garfield and Director General Hines of the railway administration. Having definitely rejected the suggestion that the government take possession of the coal mines and operate them temporarily, Dr. Garfield and his two advisers framed for submission to the cabinet a peace proposal representing a further compromise between the miners and operators. This compromise is said to place the average wage advance a little less than the 31 per cent recommended by Secretary of Labor Wilson and accepted by the miners’ union, but considerably higher than the 20 per cent offered by the operators. Whether the administration will allow any increase in the price of coal to offset the wage advance is a matter -of speculation. Dr, Garfieljf and his associates hold that a price raisf would be justified only by the necessity of providing the miners a fair wage and the operators a fair profit. The owners’ profits, as shown by their income tax returns, examined by him as secretary of the treasury in 1918, he said, showed earnings on capital 'Stock ranging from 15 to 2,000 per cent.