Conditions in Coal Mining.
Mr. John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers of America, tells us in the October Cosmopolitan that for every 270,000 tons of coal brought to the surface of the mine, one employe’s life is sacrificed, and five times that number are maimed and injured; in other words, of every 450 men employed in the mines, one is killed and five are injured each year. This makes a total of 900 persons who yield up their lives each year, and 4,500 suffer serious injury. In no other industry in the United States are there so many fatalities in proportion to the total number of employes. He tells us further that there are more men employed in this country than are needed to mine the coal demanded by 150,000, because bituminous coal deteriorates by exposure, and most of it must be mined when used in the winter; many, therefore, earn only two-thirds the wages they would if steadily employed. Mr. Mitchell tells us a sympathetic and readable story, and one that should help the public better to appreciate this hard-working class, who labor under such trying circumstances. Surely in the mining business there has been the cold, cruel, hard hand of the oppression of the poor, in which the principles operative are the fulfilment of Habakkuk 1 and 2, and James 5.