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1930-1939 The 1930 Government Controls Follow the Failure of Normalcy 1930-1939 D uring the late afternoon of October 29, 1929, the zip of the jazz era began to slip away into the overarching gloom of the Great Depression. The worst day in a series of stock sell offs that autumn, Black Tuesday's plunge was just one point in a cascading systemic global economic failure. Following the stock market crash, the Hoover administration and the Republican- led Congress pursued various remedies to shore up American industries that ultimate- ly made things worse. The protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill of 1930, passed over the opposition of many leading Republicans, raised the prices of most imported good into the U.S. and led to recip- rocal tariffs worldwide that effectively shut the door on American exports. That in turn led to even greater stock sell offs and further declines in industrial demand. As the dust settled on the rubble of the global economy, hardest hit were raw material producers and miners. Coal production fell off a cliff from a 1929 high of 608 million tons to 536 million tons in 1930, 441 million tons in 1931, and down to a low in 1932 of only 359 million tons. The lowest tonnage total since 1904, U.S. production would not return to even 1929 figures again until 1942. Between 1929 and World War II, no industry was hit as hard as the coal sector. Mechanization, already in full swing by 1929 became virtually the only way to cut costs and stay in business as hundreds of mines shut—many for good. Liquidation loomed for many venerable companies, in particular in the older anthracite fields, as eastern manufacturing hemorrhaged jobs on falling demand. There were many days in 1932 and during the Depression when 80%-95% of the miners in dozens of coal towns across the U.S. were out of work—and even then, you were not guaranteed a full week's worth as jobs were often rationed. One of the few growth sectors in the industry were in the bootleg dog-holes that popped up through- out the coalfields as desperate miners and often their families scrounged around for coal to heat their homes, cook their meals or 62 www.coalage.com sell for subsistence. America had never known such despair. In 1932, the new Roosevelt administra- tion took over the reins of government with a massive mandate for real change. The near immediate passage of the National Recovery Act (NRA) and its sister, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) were the first of hundreds of new regulatory laws that began to control, stabilize and grow the moribund economy. 1933 brought a tiny glimpse of hope as production slowly began to rise, a trend that continued through the decade to a "high" of only 497 million tons in 1937. But the following year coal output plunged by more than 100 million tons as a third devastating round of contractions hit the economy again in 1938. By the end of 1939, America was getting back on its collec- tive feet, but was still incredibly impaired; coal production was still down to only 446 million tons—barely 60% of 1929 totals. The early part of the decade until 1933 was a desperate gambol toward survivabili- ty. Markets died. Producers had no place and no one to sell coal to, let alone the money to pay employees. Wages were cut, then cut again. Coal communities were desperate. The United Mine Workers was driven by internal division as more radical elements broke off from the John L. Lewis led majority. But as it fractured in the face of endless cost cutting and mechanization, organized labor lost more and more ground. Forced to take any wages they could, coal miners were desperate to get by; and the coal companies themselves were racing each other to the bottom to staunch their own bleeding. Mechanization, Normalcy & Consol A return to normalcy was a long way off when Editor Sydney A. Hale, in a July 1930 editorial asked "When will business be nor- mal again?" After nearly a year and with no end in sight, Hale was frustrated with the "pollyannas of last fall who declared that the industrial depression at its worst was only a fleeting visitation." But he also chastised 100th Anniversary Special Issue those who—in their despair—had begun to abandon the exuberance of the 1920s. "Disillusionment over the collapse of 'the new era' which was to overturn all prece- dent and all economic law seems to have blinded many business men to the opportu- nities which the present situation offers to sound and progressive management." Lamenting that obviously "Weeping has been easier than working," he wonders what will come in the wake of the stock crash. "Will the return to normalcy revive the fatu- ous doctrines so recently and so painfully discredited?" Like a good cheerleader rallying the team when they are down, Hale reminded Coal Age's readers that though the nation had been quite prosperous, those dizzying heights had not really been that high for the coal industry. Thus toughened, despite the economic prognostication, "No industry is in a better position to meet these new condi- tions than coal. On business as a whole, the precipitous pitch from eight soft years of super-prosperity has produced industrial shell-shock. Coal has denied cushioned ease for a decade. Many of the physical readjust- ments which industry at large now must make, coal already has made under the com- pulsion of necessity. To coal, for example, the law of diminishing growth is an actuali- ty—not an economist's theory. Leadership in coal, therefore, has an unusual opportunity to build soundly on the return to normalcy." In the October 1930 article "Tenth Annual Model Mining Number," Coal Age singled out the inspiring leadership of the venerable Consolidated Coal Company that had in 1929 initiated massive internal read- justments to stay ahead of the financial onslaught. Showing a survivalist's instinct, Consol had cut production, consolidated mines into more sustainable regional units, and re-invested in achieving high productiv- ity without sacrificing core goals such as safety, innovation and a longer term return on investment. "Such a re-organization, reaching into all departments and affecting every group of workers, has not been easy. August 2012