DISASTER FOR HARD COAL: THE ANTHRACITE STRIKE OF 1925-1926.

In the decade following World War I the anthracite coal industry of Pennsylvania found its domination of the domestic fuel market in the eastern U.S. under serious challenge. The emergence of intense competition from oil, gas, electricity and soft coal threatened to destroy the entire hard-coal business. Under these circumstances the anthracite industry could ill afford to indulge itself in bitter labor disputes. Strikes only created a vacuum for the new substitute fuels to fill. Indeed, short work stoppages in 1920 and 1923 and a hundred-and-sixty-three day strike in 1922 put the hard-coal industry on the brink of extinction. Yet it was impossible to conclude that another anthracite strike might be avoided in 1925. The identical problems, which caused the previous strikes, persisted. At the contract negotiations in July 1925 representatives of the anthracite operators and the United Mine Workers of America reached an impasse from the outset. The union demanded a 10 percent wage increase while the operators claimed that, to save the industry, a reduction of wages was mandatory.