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COAL TRADE BULLETIN^
Vol. XIII. PITTSBURGH, PA., OCTOBER 16, 1905. No. 10.
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN:
PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH.
Copyrighted by THE COAL TRADE COMPANY, 1905.
A. R. HAMILTON, Proprietor and Publisher,
H. J. STBAUB, Managing Editor.
SUBSCRIPTION, - - - - $2.00 A YEAR.
Correspondence and communications upon all matters
relating to coal or coal production are invited.
All communications and remittances to
THK COAL TRADE COMPANY.
926-930 PARK BUILDINO, PITTSBURGH, PA.
Long Distance Telephone 250 Grant.
[Entered at the Post Office at Pittsburgh, Pa., as
Second Class Mail Matter.]
Mn. F. L. ROBBINS, PRESIDENT of the Pittsburgh
Coal Co.. addressing those present at the recent
dinner given by the Merchants & Manufacturers
Association in Pittsburgh, defined succinctly his
attitude on the relationship of employer and em­
ployed. The address is printed in full in this
issue. Mr. Robbins has talked on the topic before
but this address is of special interest because of
the thorough and comprehensive manner in which
the subject was handled before an audience of
employers. These utterances, coming from a man
whose interests employ upward of 70,000 men,
demand consideration. They held in rapt atten­
tion many men of affairs, men who in their busy
career have never thought on the subject in any
such lines as Mr. Robbins drew'. These men were
more than interested. Some of them expressed
with enthusiasm the strong and satisfying impres­
sion made upon them. It was said by some that
Mr. Robbins had presented the labor and capital
question in such convincing manner mat his atti­
tude must never be lost sight of even if not ac­ purpose to organize for a wage redueuon. Mr.
cepted. He declared conviction in the right of
capital and labor to organize within tne law to
deal as organized bodies with each other; dis­
claimed firmly that compulsory arbitration could
solve the issue and declared for compulsory edu­
cation. The trade wage agreement he endorsed,
standing back of it as a man who leads the coal
operators of the interstate bituminous fields in
such agreements with the miners. He backed his
statements with facts and figures on the satis­
factory working of the co-operative and profit-
sharing system of the Pittsburgh Coal Co. in addi­
tion to the patent success up to this time of the
interstate wage agreement. If Mr. Robbins is not
proven right in decades to come, his declarations
must at least lie given serious consideration. They
were by his listeners on October 10.
* * •
MR. JOHN P. REESE, WHO IS MUCH INTERESTED in
closer co-operation of bituminous producing in­
terests, has issued an open letter discrediting
statements made in the press that the proposed
conference of operators at Chicago, November 22,
purposes to make a stand on the wage question.
He rightly declares that such a conference, in­
cluding representatives of fields outside of the
territory of the interstate fields of Western Penn­
sylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, could not
fix a wage scale platform for the latter. That is
their own affair and no outside interests were
ever consulted in past conferences and will not be
now unless the improbable step of broadening the
territory is taken. Mr. Reese, whose letter ap­
pears elsewhere in this issue, is in error when
he indicates that Mr. Robbins of the Pittsburgh
Coal Co. had declared the purpose of his com­
pany not to be represented because of an alleged
Robbins has been misquoted in anything which