i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
i STEAM COAL - Clpdigital.org
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problem. The consolidation of the Pittsburgh<br />
coal properties, however, was the one factor<br />
needed to conserve the beneficent influences<br />
wrought upon the labor phase of the coal industry<br />
by the adoption of the first joint interstate agreement."<br />
President Robbins has for many years been the<br />
leader of the coal operators in their interstate<br />
meetings and conventions, and in the joint conventions<br />
of operators and miners which annually<br />
work out and agree upon the wage scale and conditions<br />
under which 175,000 miners dig and ship<br />
the bituminous coal output of Western Pennsylvania,<br />
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. His views, therefore,<br />
on what constitutes right relations between<br />
capital and labor are on record. I would like,<br />
however, as an aid to the consideration of our<br />
subject this evening to quote from a speech made<br />
by Mr. Robbins at a meeting of the National Civic<br />
Federation in Chicago in October, 1903.<br />
(Mr. Robbins' address on this occasion was<br />
published in full in THE <strong>COAL</strong> TRADE BULLETIN,<br />
and is therefore omitted).<br />
When I came to Pittsburgh in the fall of 1899<br />
at the <strong>org</strong>anization of the Pittsburgh Coal Co., I<br />
was deeply impressed with the thought that the<br />
formation of the large corporation presented a<br />
great opportunity to firing about better relations<br />
between employer and employe than those which<br />
existed under the old competitive order so graphically<br />
described by Mr. Hamilton. Of course, all<br />
of the officers of the company, like myself, were<br />
busy men during those first months of the <strong>org</strong>anization,<br />
and, looking back at this time, I can hardly<br />
understand how it happened that within a year<br />
after the formation of the company, and amid all<br />
the strenuous work of consolidating the affairs of<br />
more than sixty corporations and partnerships in<br />
an orderly and systematic way into the departments<br />
of one corporation, we should have found<br />
time to take up and consider an employes' welfare<br />
scheme, yet we did, and I think it should be set<br />
down to our credit. Of course, there was the<br />
business, as well as the altruistic standpoint,<br />
from which this question had to be approached,<br />
and the plan (first worked out and submitted by<br />
myself) was carefully designed to bind the employer<br />
and employe with the golden cord of self<br />
,interest. Our plan was simplicity itself, proposing<br />
to make employers, as well as employes,<br />
of as many of the latter class as could be brought<br />
to save money and invest it in the company's<br />
securities. The benefits, to the employes, of an<br />
<strong>org</strong>anization to take their savings, 50 cents<br />
semi-monthly or upwards, and handle them in a<br />
way to secure for them the maximum of earnings<br />
consistent with absolute security for the principal,<br />
and to do this free of charge, are very direct and<br />
THE <strong>COAL</strong> TRADE BULLETIN. 27<br />
apparent, while on the other hand, the benefits<br />
to stockholders of a corporation resulting from a<br />
movement which places stockholders in the mines<br />
and shops, on the railroad and docks, and which<br />
introduces the leaven of sobriety, thrift and conservatism<br />
into the lump so often given over to<br />
drunkenness, improvidence and radicalism, while<br />
indirect, are also very real and substantial.<br />
The stock purchase plan, which has never been<br />
modified or changed, was presented to the employes<br />
of the company in a booklet published<br />
November 15. 1900, from which I will read.<br />
(The matter contained in the booklet referred<br />
to has already been published in THE <strong>COAL</strong> TRADE<br />
BULLETIN and is therefore omitted).<br />
The flrst series of stock purchase contracts hecame<br />
effective on December 1, 1900, from which<br />
time forward there has been a new series of contracts<br />
effective on the first day of each succeeding<br />
month. Up to and including January 1, this year,<br />
therefore, there had been fifty series of contracts,<br />
and net earnings represented by dividends paid on<br />
the stock carried in the association's treasury,<br />
over interest charges, amounted in all to $129,-<br />
240.20, of which $79,232.74 was distributed to the<br />
purchasers in the series 1 to 9 inclusive. There<br />
were, in these first nine series, 234 employes who<br />
became owners of 2,460 shares of the company's<br />
stock. The net average cost of this stock to the<br />
purchaser was $41.36 per share. It is estimated<br />
that one series of the contracts will mature each<br />
month and that until such time as the association<br />
shall have to pay a considerably larger price per<br />
share for the stock which it purchases on the<br />
market than the average price of the shares now<br />
in the treasury, the cost to the purchasers will<br />
not be greatly increased, although it is very likely<br />
that the average for the first nine series of contracts<br />
marks the least possible cost of the stock<br />
to the employes. This, of course, is due to the<br />
fact that the association purchased a considerable<br />
quantity of stock at the low prices prevalent a<br />
year ago, when the market value of all securities<br />
was greatly reduced.<br />
There are at this time about 2,400 purchasers of<br />
preferred stock through the association making<br />
monthly payments on 19,000 shares of Pittsburgh<br />
Coal Co. preferred stock. Not the least of the<br />
benefits to the employes who have acquired stock<br />
of the company in this way. and the benefit that<br />
will be lasting in results, is that it has led and<br />
wil lead many to form the habit of saving, which<br />
otherwise probably they would not have done. 1<br />
recall that at a recent meeting of our mine superintendents,<br />
two men, well advanced in years, made<br />
substantially the same statement—"I have worked<br />
hard all my life and for many years I have made<br />
what might be called good wages, but the certi-