A Political-Economic Solution of the Coal Problem

Abstract

-T HE IMPORTANT strikes of the United Mine Workers during the last three years have again brought attention to the problems of what President Truman, in 1949, called the sick bituminous-coal industry when he began considering the need for a new investigation of it. The present interest in this industry is not new, however, either in its cause or in its possible results. The 1922 strike resulted in the investigations of the United States Coal Commission.1 In 1928 the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce investigated conditions in the coal fields following the strike of 1927-1928.2 Some major legislation has been directed at solving the problems of the industry. The Guffey coal act of 1935 aimed at correcting overproduction and ruthless competition in the industry.3 When this act was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court,4 a new bituminous-coal act was enacted to replace it in 1937.5 The industry itself attempted solution of its difficulties through the creation of a regional marketing agency, which was found by the Supreme Court to be unable to fix prices and to be innocent of monopolization.6 The relative ineffectiveness of these measures in solving the coal ills is evident in the renewed attention now being given the industry. If it is true, as seems likely, that the chief ill of the industry lies in the existence of excess capacity,7 one solution may be the removal of excess capacity by the imposition of a tax on mines. Special taxation on bituminous-coal mining is not new. The Guffey coal acts of 1935 and 1937 relied for their