BOOTLEG COAL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 4845, 14 May 1936, Page 7

BOOTLEG COAL

MINERS SEIZE OLD PITS. A new form of bootlegging has grown up in America, states a New York correspondent of the "Daily Express." The authorities are afraid to act, for they know that if they do there will be riots. Fourteen thousand destitute coal miners help themselves to five million tons of hard coal every year, and receive £7,000,000 for it. The mine owners in North Eastern Pennsylvania were indirectly responsible for starting what has been described as "the worst outbreak of lawlessness since the Civil War." Now they cannot stop it. In the dark days of the depression the owners allowed their discharged employees to mine coal for their own use. The miners began to sell it. News of the movement spread. Mines which had ben closed were reopened, and the bootleg coal was taken to neighbouring States and sold at 10s a ton under the legal price. Owners dismantled the machinery, but the men installed petrol engines from old motor cars and used back axles of "flivvers" to wind the pit cages up and down. Mine owners are urging the civic authorities to take action, but there is great popular sympathy with the men. Governor George H. Earle, of Pennsylvania, has flatly refused to do anything about it.