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1920-1929 frustration with the lawlessness. More infu- riating, over a two-year period, no jury would convict a single miner of wrong doing. Bloody Williamson County would make headline news throughout the decade leading to a nationwide boycott on Union produced coal from southern Illinois. In the September 24, 1925, issue, special contributor Sydney A. Hale published a piece titled "How Strong is the Miners Union?" that attempted to parse out how powerful the UMWA still was after all the bloodshed. Asking "Has the strength which in 1922 moved President [Warren G. Harding] to confess that 'except for such coal as comes from the districts worked by unorganized miners, the country is at the mercy of the United Mine Workers' been so dissipated that the organization headed by John L. Lewis is no longer the controlling factor in the labor situation in the bitumi- nous fields of the nation?' Have the gains so painfully made in the early days of the movement and so effectively consolidated in later years been flung away in an obsti- nate and unreasoning attempt to maintain a wage basis that is economically out of line with competitive costs?" Hale summarized the strength of the union after the Great War. "In the general strike of 1919 the power of the United Mine Workers was such that at one time or anoth- er during that six weeks' suspension it was able to close down 71.6 percent of the actual productive capacity—measured by 1918 performance—of the bituminous coalfields of the United States. Between the end of that strike and March 31, 1922, union control weakened notably in eastern Kentucky and in the low-volatile regions of West Virginia, where the war had given organization a tem- porary foothold. Nevertheless when the call went out from Indianapolis for another gen- eral strike three years ago, the union was able to marshal enough support to cut off 73.3 percent of the productive capacity." A truce signed in Cleveland, Ohio, in August 1922 "marked the beginning of the end of the general bituminous strike which had started four and one-half months before. That truce continued the basic rates…fixed by the United States Bituminous Coal Commission in 1920, and averaging 27 per- cent above the war time scale…Another truce extended these rates until April 1, 1924. By the Jacksonville (Fla.) compact signed a year ago last February these rates are to be continued until April 1, 1927." This history was vital in understanding that current pay scales were based on August 2012 *Coal Age, September 24, 1925 wartime compromises and made during an economy that no longer was in existence. In order for union operations to remain com- petitive with non-union mines, they had to increase productivity and further mecha- nize. Under-capitalized mines in union dis- tricts worked less days or became idled. However by 1925, union operations in Pennsylvania were still operating an aver- age of 213 days or more. In Illinois "which is, except for small country banks, com- pletely unionized, [production] averaged just eleven days less than [non-union] West Virginia. Franklin County…lagged only six days behind McDowell County W.Va." In essence, only the "better situated producing companies throughout the country were able to show a profit on their year's busi- ness." This was done despite spot prices plummeting from $4.38 per ton in January 1923 to only $2.18 in December of that year, less than the spot price of coal in 1918, 1920 and each year since. Faced with high costs, operators had no choice but to try to change the terms of the contract or sever ties with union. "No important union district has escaped some manifestation, some evi- dence of a determination to carry on with- out the union since it was impossible to carry on with it." Further strikes and skir- mishes seemed inevitable in 1925. Though the Great Depression began in 1929, by then much of the coal industry 100th Anniversary Special Issue had already been slumping for some time. Over production, speculation, high labor costs, crushing competition between union and non-union mines, less railroad traffic, declining industrial requirements and a tidal wave of cheap oil were all cut- ting into coal's piece of the energy pie. Production plummeted almost 100 million tons from 1926 to 1928 from 657 million tons to 575 million tons, rebounded a bit the following year and fell back sharply to just 536 million tons in 1930—the high water mark for more than a decade to come. Nationwide producers began cut- ting production. Led by Consolidation Coal Co., operators throughout Appalachia began "concentrating" mining activity at only the most productive mines. In a July 1928 article, executives from around the nation were quoted in favor of further con- solidation. "Elimination of sufficient excess capacity to bring production in line with consumption offers the only hope of permanent relief, in the opinion of William J. Clothier, president, Boone County Coal Corp. 'Only those mines will be shut down which are forced to do so because their owners believe they cannot be made prof- itable. This is the survival of the fittest. The sooner those in the industry realize it and those operations are closed…the better it will be' for the surviving operators, the miners and the public." www.coalage.com 61