Show Bru charts washington digest weakness of unsound legislation does not remain concealed long old Is striking example of careless Law lawmaking mall now comes up the unworkable conditions of guffey law that has cost coal industry millions by WILLIAM BRUCKART service national preys press washington D 0 washington unsound and unworkable laws have a way ol of concealing c th their air weaknesses for varying lengths of time it seems to be true however that those weaknesses like ones sins will be found out this Is especially true ot of written laws that are predicated upon a formula ot of how bow things ought to be done rather than upon the basis of known acts and customs and living conditions of the people who make up 0 our ur nation take the old NHA for example its glaring weaknesses and impossible prescriptions were discovered rather soon by the persons and businesses who had to abide by the terms of that law I 1 it t was not so long however before most of us disc discovered 0 vered that the artist who had sketched the original design of the blue eagle had bad made a mistake you will recall of course course that the design had 13 feathers in one wing and 12 to in the other that was bound to make the bird fly in a circle and how true it was of the law even then there were many persons who believed the law was not given a sufficient trial before the supreme court mowed it down among those who held a conviction that would work was senator guffey the pennsylvania new dealer it is the same senator gulley guffey who attempted to destroy politically all democrats who disagreed with president roosevelt tried to read them out of the party in a radio address senator guffey with the aid of john L lewis and the C 1 I 0 pushed through congress the so called guffey little NHA coal law the coal industry was divided in sentiment about the bill as I 1 remember the legislative battle but senator guffey won there came about a national bituminous coal commission with power to fix prices with power to compel a lot of other things including the right of punishment under other laws if a coal mine owner should commit the horrible crime ot of selling below cost in order to get rid of his coal guffey law cost the coal industry many millions the first law so enacted was mowed down by the supreme court just the same as the original and big brother senator guffey tried again and so for two years or thereabouts there has been a law in force that applied the same principles of regimentation as NHA KRA to the coal industry and during that time according to official reports the soft coal industry has lost money it lost in 1937 and it lost about last year the coal commission has reported naturally the coal mine owners are not taking this loss without a squawk it is not a great deal more than a chirp however because the production of coal dropped from tons in 1937 to tons in 1933 that is pretty rapid reducing even if the industry were really eala fat in consequence of this and other conditions affecting labor and property representative auen alien a pennsylvania syl vanla democrat has introduced in the house a bill to reconstruct the guffey law his proposal would eliminate the price fixing it would eliminate the special tax on the coal industry for upkeep of the high powered but more or less futile coal commission and it would place the industry again on a basis where its individual mines would be competing for public patronage instead of inducing bootlegging of coal I 1 mentioned above that the industry had lost money well you and I 1 as buyers and consumers of coal not to mention the thousands of great manufacturing plants using coal also lost money because of the guffey law we lost money because of the price conditions we would be penalized in a big way if the coal commission could ever have accomplished the almost insurmountable job of establishing a set of federally fixed prices it would have cost us money because we would pay the price that was fixed and that price would have to be high enough to allow a profit for the lowest grade and most inefficient mine operator another tug of war between coal miners and operators one of the the mine owners lost money was because many who supported the law were convinced it would mean increased wages for the workers the united mine workers ot of america headed by mr lewis believed so and two years ago they demanded and obtained an Inc increase of 10 per cent during thi the debate on the bill in con gress it was talked freely that the miners could get a wage ln in creasi crease and it could be passed on to the ion consumers this would be true it was said because thecial the coal con commission mission would krould fix the prices and the selling price as fixedly fix edby law would have to be above production costs certainly labors wage haip is a a part of bf pro costs and the public W would uld not feel eel it the contract then negotiated expired recently and a new one is now being considered in the regular tug of war that occurs between miners and 0 operators pera tors every two years in the meantime however things happened to labor in the soft coal mines As I 1 mentioned above there was a decline in production of coal it figures out at 22 per cent that obviously means that while labor obtained an increase of one tenth in the rate of pay it worked only four fifths as much time according to the records available to me I 1 fail to see where labor gained from the law moreover from the federal relief authorities I 1 learn that living conditions and buying power ar nong among the persons living in coal m mining ining areas have declined almost in direct ratio to decline in production of coal with respect to the added taxation placed upon the owners of the mines the surface indications and the original declarations of support ers of the law have proved to be quite misleading the law required the industry to pay a tax of 0 one cent a ton and to meet assessments to cover the expenses of boards that were set up in the various regional areas it is easy to calculate that the one cent tax raised on tons produced last year but that figure does not show the extra assessments that were paid to the regional boards nor does it reveal e that every mine owner had to hire extra clerks in the company offices to take care ot of all of the various and sundry reports that the national commission and the regional boards saw fit to require simply became an added expense borne by industry again awas expected that these costs and taxes would w be absorbed a nice word for or concealing the fa facts c ts from the consumers in the selling ng price that was to be fixed but as I 1 reported earlier the commission never quite got around to fixing the prices under the current law hence the hundreds of thousands of dollars which the laws sponsors said would be passed on simply became an added expense home borne by the industry the law has another feature which you and 1 I as individuals do not feel directly it is another one of those concealed things the law specifies that no contract can be signed between operator and consumer jo to last for or more ithan than 30 days that is to say no price can be quoted for or more than 30 days in advance that may not appear important but it is highly important the practice of large users ot of coal is to enter into a contract for or a supply ot of coal to last for example lor for a whole years operation having such contract the owner odthe manufacturing establishment for instance will be able to know what his fuel costs are when calculating the price of the goods he manufactures and sells fuel costs are important and it therefore becomes plain that large users of fuel have an unknown factor in their expense item for a years plans what do they do they have to estimate that item and they tabe the maximum that they can expect to pay for coal and users of their product have to pay that added amount whether in breakfast food or harvesting machinery e or railroad freight r rates ates that one feature of the law alone has completely disorganized the coal coah industry coal operators are left with supply in sizes not needed the 30 day limit also has had another effect when a mine owner could make a years contract or a number of such contracts he knew whether it was lump coal or stove coal or slack that his customers needed without a contract the big buyers naturally shop around to get the lowest price A mine operator therefore may sell to one firm one month and the next month some other mine will supply the coal the result is that one mine may find itself with hundred tons or even thousands ot of tons of lump coal when all that can be sold in a given month is slack or stove coal well it is the ordinary practice in business that it if too large a stock is on hand prices are reduced to induce someone to buy but not so in the soft coal industry under the gut fey law if theorice the price is reduced below the actual cost of mining costs approved by y a bunch of accountants sitting bitting here in washington the law steps in ia not the guffey law but two other laws they are I 1 the federal trade commission act and the rob inson patman act under either one of these laws the mine operator who cuts prices below costs becomes tagged as a very bad boy who must be punished by fine or imprisonment ment bothe so the unwanted coal caal lies des in piles beside the mine crumbling and ana becoming of less les 1 l value dally daily as the weather take takes i its ts toll 0 newspaper union |