in the bill, he is going to order the men withdrawn from the mine, or the section, and notify them, it would be different. But if he had to concur in it and be a joint responsibility, then it would be more advantageous to both the miners and the mine owners to have it that

Chairman BARDEN. Is it your feeling that if a bill was passed taking over, so to speak, and superseding any law, regulation, and so forth, the States may have, with the closing of mines, and so forth, by the Federal Government, that there would be a general resentment among the State mine inspection service people throughout the mining area?

Mr. LINKOUS. Definitely so. I do not think anyone who wants to be honest and fair could say otherwise. As stated previously, something close to the individual miner, regardless of what his station in life may be, there is just something there, and I do not know how to explain it. It does not exist between Federal and State inspectors. Generally, a Federal inspector, now-for instance, I was employed in Kentucky when I went to work with the Bureau of Mines, and they stationed me in West Virginia, and they always send you to a foreign State, unless it has changed in the last few weeks. In one way it may have its advantages, but I have always contended if a man is a crook, he is going to be a crook away from home the same way as he would be at home. And whether that is the purpose of it or not, I cannot understand, because they are not familiar with the conditions and the terminology or anything else that exists in these other fields. It is foreign to them. Just like a baby, they have to learn to crawl before they can walk again.

Mr. PERKINS. I have one question, Mr. Chairman.

Now, from your training and experience in both fields, with the State and Federal Government, have you observed, particularly while you were working for the Federal Government as a mine inspector, that the death traps existed in different sections of the country, and that the States had not taken any action to do anything about those death traps? I am talking about mines, to find the mines in that condition.

Mr. LINKOUS. Personally, I do not think that there is such a thing as a mine without a violation. A lot of fellows will take issue with me on that. We have had mines that received perfect reports, and in fact, we have had one or two. I do not think that there is such a thing. If you are going in there and you have six or seven hundred things that you are looking for, it is easy to find those things.

I will say this: that back when the Bureau of Mines or the Coal Mines Administration had taken over the mines and were operating them for the Government, I did not have any mines in the territory that I supervised that we had to shut down on account of conditions like that.

Mr. PERKINS. Now, you do not know the facts that surround the West Frankfort explosion, do you?

Mr. LINKOUS. No, sir. All I know is what I have read; that is all. And it is third- or fourth- or fifth-hand, and I do not know except what I read in the papers.

Mr. PERKINS. You are not able to state whether the accident could have been avoided in the event we had had a law to take care of cases of that kind?

Mr. LINKOUS. Well, in a case like that, after an explosion it is the easiest thing in the world to see; it is just like second-guessing anything, and I would not want to say "Yes" or "No."

Mr. PERKINS. That is all.

Chairman BARDEN. How many mines do you have contact with?

Mr. LINKOUS. At the present time, our company operates a total of 18 mines in West Virginia and Kentucky. We have 17 deep mines and one strip operation. We have roughly 6,500 union employees, and that would be around seventy-four or seventy-five hundred total employees, actually.

Chairman BARDEN. All organized?

Mr. LINKOUS. All of our mines are signed up with the UMW, yes, sir.

Chairman BARDEN. How long have they been signed up?

Mr. LINKOUS. Since back when they organized that field, I would say in the 30's sometime, about 1932 to 1935, somewhere along in there. The last two, of course, they signed up when they opened up their new operations, 212 or 3 years ago.

Chairman BARDEN. You did not have the unpleasantness of having "law and order leagues" visit you, like the other gentleman the other day, who had 400 to come down and break his superintendent's jaw in five places?

Mr. LINKOUS. We have had some of that, but our relations have been very good, and we have lots of friends in the United States Bureau of Mines and also in the UMW. Mr. Ferguson is a very good friend of mine, and I consider him as such, and I hope he feels the same way. We try to cooperate with those people; and I think he will substantiate the next statement that I make; that all of the correspondence that we receive from him, he gets an answer within 3 or 4 days, and we try to do that because we feel like cooperation is a two-way street. We cannot expect him to cooperate if we do not, and so on.

We have had one or two instances where they have beaten up one of our superintendents, and things like that, but it was a local affair and it was not sanctioned by these people here. It has occurred, though.

Mr. PERKINS. In general, you have gotten along well with the leadership of the United Mine Workers?

Mr. LINKOUS. We like to think so. We try to be fair with them, and we expect the same thing from them.

Chairman BARDEN. The committtee will recess for a few minutes. (Short recess.)

Chairman BARDEN. The committee will resume its hearing.
Is Mr. Boyd present?

Mr. BOYD. I would like to have Mr. Lewis, my colleague sit with me. Chairman BARDEN. We will be glad to have Mr. Lewis sit with you, Mr. Boyd.

Will you identify yourself for the record, and then you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DEGEN BOYD, PRESIDENT OF THE ARKANSASOKLAHOMA COAL OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION, ACCOMPANIED BY ISAAC LEWIS, PRESIDENT OF THE QUALITY EXCELSIOR COAL CO., GREENWOOD, ARK., AND A DIRECTOR OF THE ARKANSAS-OKLAHOMA COAL OPERATORS' ASSOCIATION

Mr. BOYD. My name is Degen Boyd. I am president of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Coal Operators' Association and vice president of the Boyd Excelsior Fuel Co. I live at Fort Smith, Ark.

This is Isaac Lewis, and he is president of the Quality Excelsior Coal Co. at Greenwood, Ark.; and he is a director in the ArkansasOklahoma Coal Operators' Association.

I am appearing before your committee as president of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Coal Operators' Association, representing our 30 member companies; and in addition, I also represent numerous small producers who are not affiliated with our association.

We are opposed to this H. R. 7408 because it will not make our coal mines safe, but will only tend to burden our industry.

Our mines are all small, the underground mines of the State of Arkansas numbering 82; 57 of which employ 10 men or less, and 12 of which employ 10 to 25 men. Only 2 mines employ from 25 to 50 men in Arkansas, and only 11 mines over 50 men each. A summary of the mines by size is as follows:

Most of the operators of these mines in Arkansas and Oklahoma are old miners, and practically all of them have at one time or now belong to the United Mine Workers of America. They have opened these small mines and are selling coal to trucks, or they are hauling their coal to preparation plants and selling it to other operators who have a market for the coal after it is prepared. In Arkansas, there are at least 20 such small mines operating which move their coal through one preparation plant.

We in Arkansas and Oklahoma who produce coal from underground mines have extremely high-production costs, due to the difficult mining conditions encountered in the two States. Our coal pitches as much as 60 degrees, and we have thin seams, bad roof, and other extremely submarginal conditions. Our cost of production in the underground mines of the two States is the highest in the United States, and we, as coal producers, cannot hope to continue in business if we are burdened with the additional costs that H. R. 7408 entail.

Safety cannot be legislated in the coal mines any more than it can be legislated in the airline and air-transport business, or on our highways, by speed laws, and so forth. Much so-called safety legislation is on our statute books to cover these activities, but no one can say

that the presence of such laws has done anything to eliminate accidents in the air and on our highways.

These small mines in Arkansas and Oklahoma are operated by old miners who employ their relatives and friends, and both employer and employee alike are doing everything in their power to work safely, and have work done safely. The closing of these mines by "police power" granted the Bureau of Mines inspectors would work a great hardship on the owners, employees, and the entire communities which surround these mines. All the mining towns are small, and they would certainly be ghost towns should such legislation be enacted.

What is needed in the mines of our two States is more cooperation and less legislation by the Federal Government. Send your Bureau of Mines inspectors to the mines, give advice and make suggestions, but do not give them needless police power. We know that safety cannot be legislated, and know the inevitable result of such a bill as is now proposed. If passed, our mines will close and our communities will be destroyed.

Let our State mining departments enforce necessary coal mine safety legislation, and use the Bureau of Mines for its intended purpose: education and as an advisory agency.

Our domestic coal industry is dying due to unfavorable market conditions which are caused by gas and oil competition, and also from competition from coal being produced by low-cost strip mines in ours and adjoining States. Our coal must be shipped directly through strip-mine fields to arrive at our natural domestic markets in Kansas City, Omaha, Sioux City, and points north in the Missouri River Valley. Our freight rates are therefore higher than our coal competition. Do not further increase our difficulty by passing legislation that will close most of our mines. Oil has taken the railroad business that we had in earlier years, and now large gas pipelines have been laid to cities in our domestic market, and are taking our business there due to lower costs to the consumer.

Most of the coal now being mined by the companies I represent is very high-grade, low-volatile, metallurgical coal, and is costly coal to mine since the better coal lies in thinner veins and because of the adverse conditions of mining heretofore mentioned. The reserves of this quality coal are limited, but are being mined now and the coal shipped to two Texas steel mills, and to four steel mills in Colorado, Utah, and California. If the supply of this coal is denied these mills, the quality of their coke will be lowered, and the production of their steel reduced. In these times this is a serious matter. The major portion of the mines I represent would be forced to close if this "police power" legislation is passed, and in this case the very high-grade, much-needed coal will be denied the six above-mentioned steel plants. Consider the result of this carefully before you vote to put our Arkansas and Oklahoma mines out of business, for a vote for this, or any similar bill, will do just that.

Gentlemen, we are fighting now for our very existence, but we cannot surmount our own difficulties and in addition have Congress put this additional burden on us. We are small, but our business means just as much to us as operators as the largest producing mines mean to their owners. We own our mines as individuals, or as partners, and do most of our own supervision and book work. In many of the com

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panies the mine foreman keeps the books after mining hours and does everything possible to keep his company in operation.

Gentlemen, underground coal mining is a tough proposition in our two States, and we need help instead of the added difficulties that this H. R. 7408, or any other "police power" bill would cause.

Some of you who might favor this H. R. 7408 will say that there is machinery set up in the bill to give an operator recourse if his mine is closed by the Federal inspector, but it is our opinion that such recourse is unworkable as far as we are concerned. Very few of the operators could stand the expense of a trip to Washington, and the lost time that such a hearing would cause. It is easy to set up such machinery, but with all the "red tape" involved in such matters it would certainly be worthless to our Arkansas and Oklahoma mines.

No penalties are provided in this bill for any except the coal operator, or his agent. Any safety legislation, or safety rules, whether Federal or State, should contain provisions penalizing the employees for carrying matches, cigarettes, or lighters, or otherwise violating the safety rules and regulations. The employee must be made a part of any program.

We are bitterly opposed to this H. R. 7408 or any other legislation labeled "Safety Measure," for we know safety cannot be legislated.

Our production per man per day in Arkansas and Oklahoma underground mines is the lowest in the United States. A miner in these States produces about 3 tons per day, while the national average is almost three times this amount. We have a safety record not below the national average, in spite of the fact that a coal miner in Arkansas and Oklahoma has to remain underground about three times as long to produce that ton of coal as the national average miner does. In face of these facts, no one can say that we in Arkansas and Oklahoma are not safety-minded, and are not doing all possible to maintain a good safety record.

Gentlemen, I believe I have shown you what such legislation as this H. R. 7408 will do to our coal mining industry in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and certainly hope that you will consider the matter very, very carefully before you vote for any legislation that will cause our industry in the two States to fold, and thereby throw into idleness approximately 4,000 coal miners who depend upon the small mines for a livelihood.

Safety cannot be legislated, but we can follow the course we are now pursuing, and by education, cooperation, and work we can show greater strides in safety than we could by means of such legislation. Chairman BARDEN. Are there any questions?

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. Boyd, were you present when Mr. Linkous testified?

Mr. BOYD. I think I heard most of his testimony.

Mr. BAILEY. You heard him testify that you could not legislate safety into an individual, any more than you could religion, and some other things.

Mr. BOYD. Yes, sir.

Mr. BAILEY. If you followed that through, would not that put you in opposition to the legislation that creates your State mine department, if you carried that thought of his through?

Mr. BOYD. Well, I do not know whether it would or not, Mr. Bailey. Mr. BAILEY. Do you have a State mine department?