Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-11-25 | Page 4 | Declares Operators Made Indefensible Profits in Wartime

DECLARES OPERATORS MADE INDEFENSIBLE PROFITS IN WARTIME NEW YORK, Nov. 24. Soft coal mine owners "made shocking and indefensible'' indefensi-ble'' profits in 1917, and there is. "grave doubt" that they are entitled to increased in-creased prices because of the proposed 31 per cent increase in miners' wages, William G. McAdbo, former secretary of the treasury, declared today in a telegram tele-gram to Federal Fuel Administrator Garfield. Gar-field. The owners' profits, as shown by their income tax returns, examined by him as secretary of the treasury in 191S. he said, showed earnings on capital stock ranging from 15 to 2000 per cent. "I km convinced that the wage increases in-creases proposed for the mine workers are just and reasonable," he stated. Before deduction of excess profits taxes which were less in 1917 than now these income tax returns showed that "earnings of 100 to 300 per cent on capital stock were common," Mr. Mc-Adoo's Mc-Adoo's telegram asserted. Referring to the bituminous mine owners' own-ers' income tax returns for 191S. which, he said, he had not seen, the telegram said: "If they disclose any such profits as earned by the bituminous coal operators in 1917, it would be a grave wrong to permit per-mit the operators to take from the pub-- pub-- lie additional profits in the form of increased in-creased prices' Tor bituminous' coal." Mr. McAdoo urged that no increase in prices of coal to "consumers Oe allowed and that the -income tax returns of the ; , soft coal mine owners be made public.