OCR Text |
Show For Federal Control of Coal Mining COINCIDENTLY with the failure to reach an agreement for a miners' wage scale to supplant the national na-tional agreement, which expires next March, two far-reaching bills concerning con-cerning the coal industry were Introduced Intro-duced in the senate by Senator Ken-yon Ken-yon of Iowa, chairman of the committee commit-tee on education and labor, which has been investigating conditions In West Virginia, the failure was announced after a four-hour discussion at the White House, at which were present the President, Secretaries Hoover and Davis and President Lewis and other official's of the United Mine Workers of America. One of the Kenyon measures Imposes Im-poses heavy penalties for profiteering In coal. The other Is a revision of the original Calder bill, giving broad powers 1x the President, the federal trade commission, the geological survey sur-vey and the interstate commerce commission. com-mission. The Calder bill, as revised by Mr. Kenyon, provides that whenever the federal trade commission shall determine deter-mine that an emergency exists "which seems likely to produce a shortage or bring about unusual, unwarranted or unreasonable coal prices and be detrimental detri-mental to the public health," the President Pres-ident shall be empowered to fix maxi- i mum coal prices and dealers' commis- j sions and margins. The President also Is authorized under such circumstances to deal In coal and to control Its production and distribution. The President may go so far as to take over the operation of coal mines. The companion bill provides a penalty pen-alty of not less than $100 nor more than $10,000 for the first offense of a coal operator or dealer convicted of violation of the law, and for each succeeding suc-ceeding offense a fine of not less than $1,000 and imprisonment for not less than 90 days nor more than five years. In defining what shall be considered profiteering, the bill specifies margins of profit for coal operators and dealers ranging from 10 to 40 cents per ton, according to the amount of business done. Margins are provided not only for individual sales, but also In the case of aggregate sales covering a year's period. |