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companies, were pressing all the time for dividends, dividends. But, of course, there had been no earnings from these mines for years.

There was a company having its headquarters in Chicago which owned and operated the mines in Illinois. I can't recall the name at this moment, but it's a very well known company, with excellent people, good, honorable American business men running it. Even John L. Lewis spoke well of them. On the whole in years past they had reasonable relationships with their workers through the United Mine Workers contracts. Although they owned a lot of low grade and middle grade mines they had had very competent operation of them and had made themselves sort of responsible for the civic life of the community. That is, they had contributed to hospitals and schools and libraries, had not taken their money cut of the community and then gone away and left the community. They had attempted to put some of it back into the community.

That company was regarded as one of the solid companies. There were a lot of others that were not. Practically every coal mining company in the country was depressed and the actual owners and operators were so in despair that one looks back on it now and thinks that they were almost having abnormal neurotic melanocholia. The problems of the industry itself - that is, the problems of machinery, the problems of