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READING WILL DEVELOP EXTENSIVE
TRACT, HUSBANDED FOR THIRTY YEARS.
When the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron
Co., 30 years ago, purchased the Reevesdale tract
in the Schuylkill valley, west of Tamaqua, admitted
to contain the richest and largest hard coal
deposits in the world, and Mr. Franklin B. Gowen,
its president, announced that the company would
"salt down" the veins until such a time as coal
could be mined at a greater profit than then, he
was subjected to a great deal of criticism. Many
of the stockholders took the stand that the company
had a great deal of money invested in the
tract, and that it should realize something on it.
But Mr. Gowen was firm, and time has shown that
his judgment was good. Since that day to this
the rich veins have been undisturbed. Now the
Reading company, feeling that the propitious time
that Mr. Gowen looked forward to has arrived, is
making preparations to open up the veins and erect
the largest coal-preparing plant in the world.
Drilling machines were placed in position last
week to test the veins preparatory to selecting the
location for a shaft. The drill holes will be put
down about 200 yards north of the old Stapleton
slope, and will cut the Primrose vein, 10 feet thick;
the big vein, 25 to 30'feet thick; the Skidmore, 9
to 13 feet thick, and the Buck Mountain, about 10
feet thick. The Reevesdale tract lies in the
Schuylkill valley, and is about four miles long.
What is known as "the basin," in which lie the
richest beds of hard coal in the world, is about
1,200 feet below the surface. Prior to 1873 a little
coal was taken out of the tract, but it was virtually
only the outer crust of the veins. It is expected
that the company will spend several million
dollars in developments during the next year. It
is estimated that when the work is completed about
5,000 tons of coal will be mined and shipped daily.
COMMISSIONER REESE O F IOWA OPERA­
TORS DISCUSSES PURPOSE OF MEETING
OF OPERATORS IN CHICAGO NEXT
MONTH.
Mr. John P. Reese, commissioner of the Iowa
Coal Operators' Association, has taken exceptions
to alleged inaccurate statements in the press on
the purposes of the Chicago conference of bituminous
coal operators November 22. He says in
an open letter from his headquarters at Albia,
Iowa, under date of October 3, addressed to the
editor of the National Labor Tribune, Pittsburgh:
"In your issue of September 21 I noted with a
great deal of pleasure that the operators of the
Pittsburgh district had decided to participate in
the Chicago meeting to be held on November 22,
and that the principal operator in your district,
Mr. Robbins, had denied the rumors that this
THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN. 31
meeting was called for the purpose oi inaugurating
a fight on the United Mine Workers, and other
equally erroneous statements that had appeared
in the press regarding reductions, etc. But when
your issue of September 28 reached me, I was
greatly surprised to find your editorial entitled
"Hot Heads Among the Coal Operators," in which
the Chicago meeting is looked upon as a strike
meeting and I was especially surprised and disappointed
to learn that the leading operators of
the Pittsburgh district had decided that they
would not attend said meeting, and assigned as
their principal reason that it was because said
meeting was called for the purpose of demanding
a reduction at the next interstate joint conference.
There is so much difference in these two articles
that I can hardly realize that they were both
published in the same paper within seven days of
each other. Now I am not writing this letter for
the purpose of taking issue with anyone nor for
the purpose of criticising either article of the persons
quoted therein, but I feel compelled to make
a statement regarding the proposed meeting at
Chicago, for the reason that I, as a delegate to
fhe commissioners and secretaries' meeting in
Columbus was one of the parties who are responsible
for calling the Chicago meeting, and I wish
to state emphatically that the Chicago meeting is
not called for the purpose of organizing a fight
on the United Mine Workers, neither is it called
for the purpose of considering the question of a
reduction at the next interstate joint meeting.
"The purpose of the Chicago meeting is to consider
the advisability of forming a national association
of bituminous coal operators and for no
other purpose, any statements to the contrary
notwithstanding. If the readers of your paper
who are familiar with the bituminous coal industry
will stop and think a minute for themselves,
they will know that the Chicago meeting
is not called for the purpose of organizing a fight
on the United Mine Workers for the reason that
the people who called the Chicago convention are
nearly, if not all, men who believe in the principles
advocated by the United Mine Workers of
America, and they are all men who believe in the
trade agreement. Hence the statement that they
called a meeting for the purpose ot organizing a
fight on the United Mine Workers, is so absurd
that it does not need to be refuted to those persons
who are in close touch with the situation.
"The statement that the Chicago meeting was
called for the purpose of instructing the operators
who will attend the joint conference in Indianapolis,
is equally absurd when you stop to think
that the Chicago meeting will be attended by representatives
not of the four states of Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Indiana and Illinois, alone but from the
out-lying district as well; hence the majority of