Another Civil War: Labor, Capital, and the State in the Anthracite Regions of Pennsylvania, 1840-1868

2. The Industry:Speculation, Competition,and Control 1820-60

2 The Industry: Speculation, Competition, and Control 1820-60 "If ever a nation had occasion for thanksgiving," the Philadelphia Public Ledger proclaimed in November 1863, "we are that people." Despite the devastation of "a gigantic war," the paper explained, industrial production had reached new heights, particularly in Pennsylvania. "Our iron, our coal, the timber of our forests ... have all been abundantly produced ... ," the paper proudly announced, "and at prices the mighty remunerating." The Pottsville Miners' Journal concurred. Rejoicing that the year 1862 had "yielded a greater coal production than had then been known" and that the tonnage in 1863 had proved "also enormous ," the paper promised even higher returns in 1864. Encouraged by reports that "new and expensive shafts are being sunk, lateral railroads b~ing built, [and] coal cars constructed in fabulous numbers," the Miners' Journal confidently predicted that this vast expansion would provide "profit enough for all." Such optimism notwithstanding, one branch of the industry still seemed hell-bent on destroying prosperity: miners and laborers, who had recently "urged a bloody resistance to the draft," were now in the throes of a serious strike wave. 1 In fact, around the same time that the market for coal began to stabilize in 1862, miners throughout the coal regions had begun to organize their forces. "They claim that at short notice they can rally three thousand men to engage in their unlawful work," the Miners' Journal reported, adding that the owners were at the mercy of this labor "combination" that claimed the 16 Speculation, Competition, and Control 17 right to "dictate who should be employed and who shall not, what mines shall be worked and what shall be abandoned." Even more troubling, however, was the fact that, by 1864, these miner combinations had exacted "such wages as were never before known in a coal mine." Used to paying their hands about twenty cents per ton in a good year, operators were now being forced to pay four times that rate. "If these high-handed outrages are permitted to go on unchecked," the paper feared, "property will depreciate in value and life will be more unsafe than it is among the savage guerrillas of the south."2 Unable to reconcile this seemingly self-destructive behavior with evidence of prosperity and future expansion, observers blamed outside agitators and disloyal Democrats for stirring up industrial conflict. Miners, however, needed no such prodding. According to their experience, expanded production and industrial growth in no way guaranteed that employers would share the fruits of economic prosperity equally. Already by the summer of 1863, in fact, the operators had confirmed the miners ' suspicions by securing a plentiful supply of newly arrived immigrants who would undercut wages at the same time that production rates soared ever higher. Nor was this experience a new one. Whether the operators and their supporters cared to recognize it or not, the logic and the history of the anthracite trade itself encouraged miners to organize their forces if they intended to benefit from industrial expansion. "If it is properly managed, the coal business will settle down into a regular system," the Lehigh Pioneer predicted in 1831, "producing a fair return to the enterprising men who have introduce[dJ to market ... a new article of commerce...." But, the paper warned, if competition to dominate the trade led to ruinous overproduction, that "fair return" could not be guaranteed . "Give the people no more coal than they will purchase at equitable prices," the Pioneer advised, "do not hold out the delusive idea that it will be sold for a song and make a Croesus of him who sells it."3 Although independent operators and shippers would hear the same advice in one form or another over the next fifty years, they could not easily abandon their speculative dreams: rapidly increasing demand for anthracite, for 18 ANOTHER CIVIL WAR both domestic and manufacturing purposes, together with a general belief in the inexhaustibility of Pennsylvania's coal supply , buoyed hopes that vast fortunes would be made in the coal regIons. The industry's spectacular takeoff seemingly confirmed these "delusive" ideas. Beginning with barely 400 tons in 1820, the coal trade boasted 174,734 tons in 1830, and almost five times that ten years later. In fact, between 1820 and 1840 some five million tons of anthracite had been mined and sent to market.4 At the same time, real estate values in the coal regions...