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