LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 331.8 B813S I.H.S. The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theff, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action ond may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161— O-1096 FROM Yt)im CONGRESS f441^ C. W„ "Runt" E;- ^'-^ SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION DIVISION OF RESEARCH Division of Research Work Projects Administration Research Monographs I. Six Rural Problem Areas, Relief — Resources — Rehabilitation II. Comparative Study of Rural Relief and Non-Relief Households III. The Transient Unemployed IV. Urban Workers on Relief V. Landlord and Tenant on the Cotton Plantation VI. Chronology of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, May 12, 1933, to December 31, 1935 VII. The Migratory-Casual Worker VIII. Farmers on Relief and Rehabilitation IX. Part-Time Farming in the Southeast X. Trends in Relief Expenditures, 1910-1935 XI. Rural Youth on Relief XII. Intercity Differences in Costs of Living in March 1935, 59 Cities XIII. Effects of the Works Program on Rural Relief XIV. Changing Aspects of Rural Relief XV. Rural Youth: Their Situation and Prospects XVI. Farming Hazards in the Drought Area XVII. Rural Families on Relief XVIII. Migrant Families XIX. Rural Migration in the United States XX. State Public Welfare Legislation XXI. Youth in Agricultural Villages XXII. The Plantation South, 1934-1937 XXIII. Seven Stranded Coal Towns FROM YOUR CONGRESSMANf fc. W. "Runt" Bishop V ■^ZK.StXj'ti'-J^^ // ^ ' 'RRARY OF THE '- - - M i.lNOIS I 1 ;! ^-W- il-~ ^^^^ ■iiritij AdmiiiistKit Kill ii:on,-t< 'There's nothing here but just coal. A ^liuHi-'s Back Yard in Carrier Mills, 111. FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY John M. Carmody, Administrator WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION Howard O. Hunter, Commissioner Corrinston Gill, Assistant Commissioner DIVISION OF RESEARCH Howard B. Myers, Director SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS A Study of an American Depressed Area By Malcolm Brown and John N. Webb • RESEARCH MONOGRAPH XXIII 1941 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON -r '0 Letter of Transmittal Work Pkojkcts Administration, Washington, D. C, Janvary 9, 1941. Sir: The problem of "derelict," economically WTecked areas in the United States has long been of particular concern to the Work Projects Administration. More than any other agency of the Government, the WPA bears responsibility for relieving their extraordinary unemploy- ment biu'den, and, indeed, for preventing utter collapse in these com- munities which private industry has abandoned. This is no light responsibility. Before the initiation of the national defense program, one could identify some fifty-odd separate, chroni- cally depressed areas scattered across the coimtry. Within them were concentrated about one- tenth of the total United States popidation, about one-sixth of all the unemployed, about one-fifth of all the recipients of public assistance. Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 111., a part of the V" southern Illinois coal field, constitute one such >i.rea. These three ^' comities, and especially seven selected coal to'v^^^s within the counties, "^ are the subject of the present report. 33 The southern Illinois problem, as the report shows, is threefold. In 3 the first place, three out of every four jobs which formerly existed in ^ Franklin, Saline, and Williamson coal mines — the area's sole indus- try- — ^have today disappeared, swept away by either mine abandon- ment or mechanization. Recent years of Nation-wide recoveiy have ^ not halted this trend; at the beginning of 1941 the southern Illinois coal mines employed fewer men than at aii}^ time during the preceding quarter of a century. Secondly, no new industries have appeared to fill this gap in the area's economy. For two generations coal-town businessmen have campaigned ardently for "outside industry" to supplant the declining coal industry. By 1941, however, these campaigns had still to win their first industry and to create their- first lasting job in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties. Meanwhile — and this is the third essential of the problem — the size of the area's population has suffered only a shght decline over a period of 20 years. Thus, intense local miemployment has become almost a normal .^ state of things. Thousands of good workers have had no jobs for many years. Thousands of youth, blocked from entering industry, have reached their most productive years without ever having held a III IV • LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL job. Nearly half the people are dependent on public aid year after year, and intense poverty is common. The conditions necessar}^ for the dissolution of the depressed areas are of course implicit in the circumstances of theii- origin. Either the declining industry must be rejuvenated, or it must be supplanted, or the people must move aAvay — obviousl}^ there are no other solutions. The National defense program will eventually bring temporarj^ relief of one kind or another to many of the depressed areas. In southern Illinois, for example, the immediate prospect is not totally black, in spite of the continued stagnation of the local coal industry. Since this report was written, coal-field unemployment has already been slightly reduced by the emigration of young workers to defense areas. Two years from now the coal field expects to have 6,000 new defense jobs of its own at the War Department's proposed ordnance plant on Crab Orchard Lake near Herrhi. Such developments do not justify a complacent outlook upon the problems of the depressed areas. The decline of depressed -area unemployment, waiting as it must upon the solution of Nation-wide unemployment, is likely to be much slower than might be hoped for. And whatever improvement the depressed areas may enjoy will in most cases disappear with the passing of the national emergency. Aggravated crisis within the depressed areas will be among America's foremost postdefense problems. The present study was made m the Division of Research under the duection of Howard B. Myers, Director of the Division. The report was prepared by Malcolm Brown and John N. Webb, of the Social Research Section. Special acknowledgment is made to M. Starr Northrop, who supervised the census of population and unemploy- ment; to Elizabeth J. Greenwood, who supervised the survey of buying patterns among the long unemployed; to William G. Nowell and D. C. Smith, who conducted research into the history and other special aspects of the community; to Rebecca PfeffeiTnan, who supervised the preparation of tabidar and graphic materials and assisted m the analysis; to Albert Westefeld, who assisted in the analysis of chapter VII; to Frances McDonald, who prepared the manuscript for publication; and to Roy E. Stryker, of the Historical Section, Division of Information, Farm Secui'ity Administration, for the photographs used. Warm thanks are extended also to the scores of residents of southern Illinois — particularly to luiion officials, working miners, and the unemployed — who patiently assisted the research workers in theu- inquiries. Respectfully submitted. CORRINGTON GiLL, Assistant Commissioner. Hon. Howard O. Hunter, Commissioner of Work Projects. Contents Page Introduction _______________________ xv Summary ________________________ xxiii Chapter I. The origins of a vulnerable community ______ 1 The coal boom ___________________ 3 Discovery and consolidation ___________ 3 Labor _____________________ 5 The product of the new field ___________ 6 Prosperity ___________________ 7 The structure of local enterprise __________ 10 Real estate _ __________________ 11 Real-estate speculation ___________ 13 The building and loan associations ________ 16 Banking ____________________ 17 The tax structure ___ ______________ 18 The changing tax base_ _____________ 18 The rise of tax income ______________ 20 Chapter II. A depressed area ________________ 23 Unemployment and underemployment _________ 25 The labor force _________________ 25 The unemployed ________________ 26 Underemployment _______________ 28 Disadvantaged workers _______________ 29 Employment policy in the mines _________ 29 Unemployment among coal miners ________ 31 Age and unemployment _ ___________ 33 Youth in the depressed area _________ 34 Family unemployment _ _______________ 34 V VI • CONTENTS Page Chapter III. Long unemployment in the depressed area _____ 37 Duration of unemployiiu'iit_ ____-___--__- 38 Displaced miners ______--_--___-_ 39 The rest of the long unemployed _________ 39 Inexperienced workers ______________ 40 Youth 41 The rest of the inexperienced _________ 41 Work-program employment ___________ 43 Long-unemployed families ____________ 44 The living standards of the long unemployed ______ 45 Income ____________________ 45 Expenditure patterns ______________ 46 Food 47 Clothing 48 Housing __________________ 49 Medical care ________________ 49 Other needs ________________ 50 Hand-to-mouth living ______________ 51 Chapter IV. The decline of the southern Illinois coal industry _ _ _ 53 The Nation-wide coal depression ___________ 53 Over expansion of mine capacity _________ 53 Loss of markets ________________ 54 Liquidation of surplus capacity __________ 55 Recovery — but the problems remain _______ 55 The postwar position of southern Illinois coal _____ 56 Competition __________________ 56 Wage scales __________________ 57 The reduced share of southern Illinois in the coal market ___________________ 58 Abandonment of mines __■_____________ 59 Reasons for a-bandonmenl ____________ 61 New mines ___________________ 61 Total effect of mii\e abandonment _ ________ 62 CONTENTS • VII Page Mechanization of loading ______________ 64 Machine loading ________________ 65 Total effect of mechanization ___________ 66 A depressed area __________________ 66 Chapter V. Community bankruptcy _____________ 71 The collapse of the real-estate boom _________ 71 The end of real-estate promotion _________ 72 Real-estate values in the 1920's _________ 74 Building-and-loan activity ______________ 75 The reasons for the building-and-loan boom _ _ _ _ 75 The end of the building-and-loan boom ______ 77 House wrecking ________________ 79 The bank crash __________________ 80 The condition of the banks in the 1920's. _____ 80 The collapse __________________ 82 Postal savings _________________ 83 Bankrupt governments _______________ 84 Tax income in the early 1920's __________ 85 Unpaid taxes __________________ 85 Chapter VI. Attempts at a solution _____________ 89 Attempts to check mine unemployment ________ 89 Attempts to eliminate the machines ________ 90 Attempts to reopen abandoned mines _______ 91 Sharing the work at the mines __________ 92 The "gopher holes" _______________ 93 Attempts to bring in industry ____________ 95 What the coal field had to offer _________ 96 "Land a factory" ________________ 97 "Sink or swim"_ ________________ 100 Back to the farm __________________ 102 Farming in the three counties before 1980 _____ 103 The depression _________________ 104 The possibilities for a return to farming ______ 105 VIII • CONTENTS Page Chapter VII. Migration 107 Local forces affecting emigTation ________--- 108 Occupational experience _______------ 108 The people 109 The settlement of the coal towns _________ HO Money for moving _____--_------- 112 A stranded population ______-_------- 113 The record of depression mobility _ ________ 114 Population changes between 1920 and 1930 _ _ _ _ 115 Population changes since 1930 __________ 116 Age differentials in migration __________ 118 Bu'th-rate changes _______________ 119 Prospects for futiu'e migration ____________ 120 Chapter VIII. Relief 123 Traditions in local relief ___________---- 123 Pauper-relief standards _____________ 125 Predepression relief expenditures _________ 126 The dark days 128 Public assistance after 1933 _ 132 Extent of dependency ______________ 134 Typ(^s of dependency and assistance in the coal field _ 137 Work relief 139 Chapter IX. Conclusions __________________ 143 Recent public policj^ ________________ 143 American policy ________________ 143 The work programs _____________ 144 British policy _________________ 146 Transference ________________ 146 Inducements for investors __________ 147 The heart of the problem ______________ 148 The depressed areas in the national defense program _ _ 149 The two special plans: What they involve _ _ _ 149 CONTENTS • IX Page Long-time problems. _____________ 151 Public assistance ______________ 151 Local improvements. ____________ 151 Regional conservation and development _ _ . _ 152 Spontaneous migration ___________ 152 Appendix A. Tables ___________________ 157 Appendix B. List of tables _________________ 177 Index 179 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures Figure 1. Men employed at shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1921 _ ________ 8 2. Capacity and production of shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1921 _____ 9 3. Indices of local business activity in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1921 __________ 12 4. An appeal to real-estate speculators from The Franklin County Independent, October 1906 __________ 14 5. Unemployment and underemployment in 7 southern Illinois coal townis and in Birmingham, New Bedford. Toledo, and San Francisco _____________ 27 6. Industry of usual occupation of unemploj'ed workers, by sex, in 7 southern Illinois coal towns ________ 82 7. Percent of labor force unemployed in 7 southern Illinois coal towns and in Birmingham, New Bedford, Toledo, and San Francisco, by age groups __________ 33 8. Unemployment among families in 7 southern Illinois coal towns and in Birmingham, New Bedford, Toledo, and San Francisco __________________ 35 9. Average duration of unemployment since last full-time job of workers in 7 southern Illinois coal towns and in Bir- mingham, New Bedford, Toledo, and San Francisco _ _ 38 10. Industry of last full-time job of workers unemployed more than 1 year and more than 3 years in 7 southern Illinois coal towns ____________________ 40 X • CONTENTS Figure ^«»« 11. Workers under 25 years of age who never held a full-time job, 7 southern Illinois coal towns, Birmingham, New Bedford, Toledo, and San Francisco __._-____ 42 12. Percent of unemployed workers on work programs in 7 southern Illinois coal towns and in Birmingham, New Bedford, Toledo, and San Francisco _ _ ^ _ _ . - _ _ 44 13. Shipping mines operating at the close of 1925 and 1939 in Franklin, Salme, and Williamson Counties ______ 63 14. Men employed at shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1921-1940 67 15. Capacity and production of shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and WilUamson Counties, 1921-1940 68 16. Indices of local business activity in Franklin. Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1921-1938 73 17. Popvilation of school age, and men employed at shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1918-1938 - 114 18. Gain or loss in population of 7 southern Illinois coal towns, 1930-1939 - . - _ 117 19. Gain or loss in population attributable to migration, by age group, 5 southern Illinois coal towns, 1930-1939 _ _ _ 118 20. Persons dependent on public assistanc(> in Franklin, Saline. and Williamson Counties, April 1933-June 1939_ _ _ _ 133 21. Percent of population dependent on public assistance in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties and in Illinois, April 1933-June 1939 135 22. Estimated annual coal-mine pay roll and annual expendi- tures for public assistance in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1925-1938_ 136 Photosraphs A miner's back yard in Carrier Mills, 111. ______ Frontispiece One of the big Franklin County mines _______ Facing 10 Unemployed southern Illinois miner ________ Facing 30 A young southern Illinois worker _________ Facing 40 The home of an unemployed miner in Franklin County, 111. __________________ Facing 48 CONTENTS • XI Page Abandoned . . . Bush Mine, Franklin County, IlL _ Facing 58 Abandoned stores in Zeigler, IlL __________ Facing 78 A gopher hole near Marion, 111. __________ Facing 94 Strip mine near Carterville, IlL __________ Facing 104 Main Street, Cambria, IlL ____________ Facing 138 Seven Stranded Coal Towns XIII INTRODUCTION C ERTAIN AMERICAN commmiities have borne far more than theu' share of unemployment and relief since 1929. Some were already reporting typical middepression unemployment rates at the time of the 1930 Census, 6 months after the stock-market crash. During the operation of the Federal Emergency Relief Administra- tion (1933-1935) some were accustomed to carrymg as much as half or more of their entire population on the relief rolls. The 1936 recovery passed them by. And in the trough of the 1937 recession thej^ reported 3 times, 10 times, some even 50 times higher unem- ployment rates than their more fortimate neighbors at the other end of the scale. These communities, comparable to the mdustrially decadent "black districts" of Great Britain, are America's depressed areas. The problem of depressed areas is considerably more serious than is generally realized. Late in the decade of the 1930's (before the national defense program was initiated) one could identify some fifty-odd distinct depressed areas in the United States.^ These areas contained an aggregate population of 13 million, about one-tenth of the total population of the United States. In January 1935 more ^ The use of counties as the geographical unit for identifying depressed areas conditions the results obtained. County data conceal pockets of unemployment which more detailed data would reveal. Xew York City, for example, doubt- less contains a number of "depressed areas," but they cannot be isolated by the use of existing data. The aieas were identified on the basis of their relief load in January 1935 and the percent of gainful workers reporting unemployment in November 1937. The lower limits of the identifying measures were arbitrarily set to include speci- fied areas which had been shown by case studies to be, beyond reasonable doubt, chronically depressed areas. Several weU-known "problem areas" were not "depressed areas" according to the measures used. In particular, the greater part of the Cotton Belt was excluded, since it reported relatively low relief and unemployment throughout the 1930's. No attempt was made to include plane of living as a criterion. These figures will, of course, bear substantial revision when the data on earn- ings and duration of unemployment in the 1940 Census are available. XV XVI • INTRODUCTION than 3K million persons in these areas received general relief, and they accounted for nearly one-fifth of the total relief population of the United States. In November 1937 the depressed areas contained more than 1)2 million totally unemployed workers, and their excess of unemployment over their average share was equal to the total unemployment of Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Cleveland combined. THE ORIGIN OF DEPRESSED AREAS Depressed areas come forcefully to public attention only during a period of general unemployment. Superficially, they then appear as merely another manifestation of the depression itself, as the depres- sion's special victims, where unemployment has struck hardest and persisted most stubbornly. It would be a mistake to suppose that the distinction between the depressed areas and their neighbors ends with this observation. Beyond the general problems of the depres- sion, depressed areas are a special problem in themselves. In one sense a depressed area is nothing new on the American scene. Essentially it is a modem instance of a community whose basic function has been rendered unprofitable by noncyclical trends in the pattern of economic interrelations. During the past 100 years there have been scores of such communities. In the past, however, two opposing forces have usually come into play, preventing the full development of a depressed area. In the fu'st place, the workers not needed in a given community might move away and find work elsewhere. Thus, with the depletion of the westeiTJ gold fields in the 1880's the population simply decamped, sometimes to the last man. Even as late as the 1920's half the popula- tion of numerous central Georgia counties were still able to pick up and move out after the boll-weevil invasion. More often, however, wholesale emigration was unnecessary; ordinarily the community itself could rebuild its wrecked economic base by shifting to an expand- ing industry. New Bedford, for example, shifted from whaling to textiles; South Bend turned its wagon industiy to manufacturing automobiles; Key West became a shipping center when its cigar industry collapsed. Baltimore, Louisville, St. Louis, and numerous other American cities have passed through such metamorphoses since the Civil War. After 1929 both of these self-healing remedies faUed. The general disappearance of job opportunities not only checked the exodus of surplus workers from the declining communities but often turned the stream backward. As a result, "redundant" workers found them- selves for the first time stranded in large numbers within areas where opportunity had disappeared. The possibility of developing sub- stitute industries to absorb the unemployed locally also vanished; INTRODUCTION • XVII investors who shunned the depressed areas m prosperous times found even less reason for favoring them afterwards. On top of all, the general depression intensified the decline within these communities, and hastened the economic degeneration already latent. Overnight the long-developing difficulties reached maturity. Unemployed workers piled up by the thousands, the relief load soared, and poverty became the lot of a great part of the people. At this point the prob- lems of the depressed areas achieved sudden recognition. The Vulnerable Communities Not all areas are equally vulnerable to this type of disintegration; in the aggregate, depressed areas have their own peculiar character- istics. Although several diversified areas have been identified as depressed, highly specialized areas — whether engaged in extractive or manufacturing industries— are predominant. The vulnerabihty of such commimities is clearly related to the narrowness of their economic base.^ Depletion, as in the stranded oil fields and lumbering districts; or the loss of markets, as in depressed cotton-growing areas and bituminous coal fields; or technological obsolescence, as in several steel-processing centers; or the emigration of industry, as in stranded cigar and textile centers — these forces paralyze the sole foundation of economic life in the specialized communities. Without buffer industries, whole areas are disrupted. Isolation of one sort or another is a second characteristic of the de- pressed areas identified. Several areas, especially those devoted to extractive industries, are set off at a gi*eat distance from the nearest labor market, so that the emigration of workers is extremely difficult. Specialized skills tend to immobilize stranded workers in some of the depressed areas, particularly in the coal fields and steel centers where technological changes have played special havoc. In other areas, the problem is comphcated still further by ethnic isolation, involving not only Negroes, but also important Spanish-language groups in Florida and Texas. Finally, such depressed areas as the Appalachian and Ozark Highlands are isolated by a singular culture pattern. In each instance, the dispersion of "redundant population," difficult enough in any case, is made even more difficult. The Effects Internally, the pathology of a depressed area also foUows its own special logic. The extraordinary impact of unemployment, often * It does not follow that all specialized communities are vulnerable; indeed, quite the contrary is true. Many of the least depressed communities are also specialized — the Iowa food-industry cities, the Piedmont textile districts, and the CJonnecticut metalworks cities, for example. XVllI • INTRODUCTION involving half or more of an entire labor force, leads to qualitative differences of the utmost gravity. The youth problem, for example, takes on a new aspect, for a large proportion of the younger workers grow into their most productive years without ever knowing the expe- rience of a job in private industry. The long unemployed — those ex- perienced workers who have not worked in private industry for a year, 2 years, even 5 years — form a substantial part of the entire labor force, and thousands of workers in middle age give up all hope of ever working again. Some of the workers, particularly the youth, leave the community to seek work elsewhere, and a few get jobs. But the great majority, pauperized by bank failures, foreclosures, and years of unemployment, lack the resources as well as the contacts necessary for migration, and they never get away. Many who leave eventually come home again. Spontaneous migration does not proceed rapidly enough to diminish appreciably the size of the population. Such migration as does occur drains away the ablest workers, leaving a people heavily weighted with the aged, and laying the basis for even more serious problems in years to come. The people of the depressed area are helpless in the face of the dis- aster. Enthusiastic campaigns to rebuild the economic base— "to land outside industry" — fritter away without producing substantial results. The attempt to save the tottering industrial structure by a return to more primitive techniques creates as many problems as it solves. Subsistence farming for the unemployed finds many willing recruits, but in practice it has usually been ineffectual. The bankrupt local governments are powerless to carry on their normal activities, let alone to give relief to the unemployed. Large-scale grants from the Federal and State Governments are required to save the commu- nity from utter collapse. THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL FIELD Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, in southern Illinois, are such an area. These thi-ee counties have long been of special interest to the Work Projects Administration because they have required, year after year, WPA employment quotas thi-ee or four times greater than average American communities of the same size. In order to get full information on the characteristics and problems of this de- pressed area — and in turn, to throw light on the problems of depressed areas generally — the WPA Division of Research conducted a detailed survey of the community in 1939. The results of this survey are the subject of the pi-esent report. The principal Illinois coal field consists of 13 counties extending nearly 200 miles southward from the center of the State in the shape INTRODUCTION • XIX of the letter "C." The top of the field is at Springfield, the center at East St. Louis, the bottom at Harrisburg, 111., 50 miles north of Padu- cah, Ky. In the northern part of this area coal mining is only one of several diverse activities (except in two specialized coal counties) ; and in several counties it holds a distinctly miaor position in the total economy. South of East St. Louis, however, the size and frequency of the mines encountered gradually increases, while the farms become poorer and other industries gradually disappear. At the very bottom of the field are Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, almost en- tirely dependent upon a group of gigantic coal mines. The Three Counties Of the three coimties Franklin is by far the most important coal producer, mining nearly 9 million tons in 1939. In spite of its reverses during recent years, Franklin is still one of the half-dozen leading coal-mining counties in the United States and the top producer west of the Appalachians. Franklin Count}^ coal is aU "deep-vein," lying 300 to 600 feet below the surface of the prairie. It can thus be re- covered only by shaft mining.^ Ample sources of capital, together with several peculiar advantages in the seam,^ have led to large-scale operation; one of the Franklin County mines is the largest on earth, and three others have a daily output of more than 5,000 tons. Frank- Ihi County operators have also been able to take advantage of most of the recent revolutionary advances in coal-recovery techniques, so that in 1941 the Franklin County mines were among the most modem and efficient shaft mines in the United States. Saline County, with a 1939 output of over S% million tons, ranks fourth among the Illinois coal-producing counties. In the northem part of the county the coal is recovered by deep-vein shaft mines similar to those in Franklin County, though somewhat smaller. Towards the south, however, the seam rises gradually to the sm-face of the prairie, so that shaft muiing is no longer necessary. Along the southern edge of the seam a considerable area of coal lies under an overburden of only about 100 feet. In this ai'ea several highly efficient slope mines ^ have recently been developed. Further south ' A shaft mine is one in which loaded pit cars are hoisted from the underground workings to the surface bj- means of a system of tandem elevators, or "cages," operating in a vertical shaft. * The No. 6 seam in Franklin Count}- lies almost level, and is relatively free from faults. The underground transportation system can accordingly radiate great distances off the central shaft \\ithout encountering diflBculties. ^ In slope mines coal is brought to the surface either by means of an inclined track on which the pit cars run, or on an inclined belt conveyor. In either case, the elaborate sj'stem of cages and hoists used in shaft mines is eliminated. XX • INTRODUCTION still there is an area with an overbm-den of 60 feet or less. Here the coal is recovered by strip mining,*' the most eflScient of all mining methods. Williamson Comity, once the leading coal county in Illinois, ranked only eighth in 1939 with an output of 2% million tons. Like Saline, Williamson County mines both deep-vein and shallow-vein coal; hence it uses the thi'ee recovery techniques — shaft mining, slope mining, and stripping. In addition, there are in Williamson some one-hundred-and-fifty-odd small, makeshift workings called "gopher holes," ^ where farmers and displaced workers from the great mines near by dig shallow-vein coal for the local trade. These mines, which work the leavings of the coal lands under the most primitive technical conditions, represent a return to handicraft methods of production under the stress of the depression. The one other primary industry is agriculture. There are scattered, small communities of prosperous farmers within the three counties, particularly in Saline County, which has, indeed, been partially stabilized by its farm economy. By and large, however, the land withm the area is poor; erosion has taken a heavy toll in some sec- tions; and many of the farms are too small for profitable operation. For generations farmers throughout "Egypt" ^ have counted them- selves lucky when they raised half the corn crop regularly grown on the richer lands 100 miles to the north. As a matter of fact, several of the purely agricultural southern Illinois counties adjoining the coal field are more depressed than the coal counties themselves. There are 140,000 people living within the area of the 3 counties, more than half of them living in some twenty-odd coal towns i-anging in size from 500 to 13,000 population. The majority of these people are descended from settlers who came into lUinois between 1870 and 1910 from the West Kentucky hills; thus, in speech and nu- merous folkways, the area is at bottom culturally homogeneous with the western Appalachians and distinctly unlike the Illinois Corn Belt communities. In addition to the Kentuckians, several large foreign-born groups — principally Italians, Hungarians, Croatians, and Ukrainians- — settled in southern Illinois between 1900 and 1920 for work in the mines. Finally, Williamson County contains a separate Negro settlement of about 3,000 persons. • In strip mines huge power shovels first remove the overburden from the seam, then simply load out the coal in the open air. ^ "Gopher holes" are ofllicially known as "local" mines, because they produce coal for the trucking trade and are distinguished from the "shipping" mines, which produce for railway shipment. Most of them employ from 5 to 10 workers for a short season at substandard wages. 8 "Egypt" is the local name for the southernmost one-fourth of Illinois, lying south of a line drawn between Vincennes, Ind., and St. Louis, Mo. The three coal counties are in the heart of this district. INTRODUCTION • XXI The Study of the Depressed Area The present study is based mainly upon three primary sources of information. The first source is a census of unemployment and population, conducted between December 1938 and March 1939 in seven coal towns selected to present a fair cross section of the non- agricultural population. The towns chosen were: „ , , ^ Population County and town (lO'^iQ) ■ Franklin County: West Frankfort 12,733 Zeigler 3,017 Saline County: Carrier Mills 2, 234 Eldorado 4, 620 Williamson County: Bush 643 Herrin 9, 608 Johnston City 5, 353 This list includes the larger towns as well as the small mine villages, towns where mine mechanization was complete as well as the towns dependent (at the time) on hand loading, and it includes the most prosperous towns remaining in the area as weU as the most utterly depressed. This survey was supplemented with a detailed study of the buying patterns of long-unemployed famihes in four of the seven towns. The second step in the research was a thorough examination of all pertinent local records on the development of the community. Spe- cial emphasis was given to courthouse records dealing with coal-land ownership, real-estate transfers, real-estate values, the distribution of the tax load, and tax delinquency. The minutes kept by the county commissioners and county supervisors were traced for infor- mation on the history of poor relief, and for the record of all county and township expenditures. Local newspaper files covering 40 years in the life of the coal field were read in detail to reconstruct the history of the community. Finally, field research workers informally discussed the problems of the coal field with hundreds of local residents. All sections of the community were covered in this work, and each of the dozens of conflicting points of view expressed was carefully considered. Min- isters, merchants, editors, coal operators, bankers, pubhc officials, relief case workers, and teachers were interviewed, together with scores of workers of all types — miners at the face, union officials, shopkeepers, clerks, farmers, and the unemployed. The organization of the report may be briefly outlined. Chapter I traces the economic history of the three counties tlirough two decades XXII • INTRODUCTION of the great southern Illinois coal boom. The condition of the coal field in 1939 is described in chapters II and III, with special reference to the peculiarities of a depressed labor market. The decline of the Franklin, Saline, and Williamson coal industry is discussed in chapter IV, and the parallel collapse of local enterprise is traced in chapter V. Chapter VI deals with the various local attempts, all more or less futile, to solve the communities' problems. Chapter VII discusses the emigration of workers from southern Illinois since the dark days first set in. The extraordmary record of relief in the three coimties is presented in chapter VIII. Finally, chapter IX discusses the general problem of depressed areas, with an analysis of the possible solutions that might be attempted. SUMMARY lEW COMMUNITIES in America are more specialized than Frank- lin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, three contiguous counties in the southern Illinois coal field. Outside of agriculture, which has never prospered on the relatively sterile lands of southern Illinois, the three counties have only one industry — coal. Between 1900 and the middle of the 1920's coal mines served the community well. For a quarter of a century the southern Illinois coal industry enjoyed a dramatic growth, employing an ever-increasing number of miners to produce coal for an ever-expanding market. More than 100 mines hoisted coal each day in the 3 counties. Sesser had 3 mines, Benton had 4, Johnston City had 8, Pittsburg had 3, and 16 mines operated in and around Herrin. About 15 years ago, however, the southern Illinois field began to lose markets rapidly to rival coal fields and to competing fuels. Prosperity suddenly ended. The few mines which survived were saved only by the continual introduction of new laborsaving tech- niques, with the result that increased efficiency displaced thousands of workers. Sixty of the hundred mines were abandoned and more thousands of miners were thrown out of work. At last there were no mines left in Sesser, in Benton, in Johnston City, in Pittsburg; and of Herrin's 16 mines, only 1 — equipped with the most modem and efficient machinery — remained. In the wake of mounting unemployment came great waves of bank- ruptcies and foreclosures. A total of 34 coal-town banks collapsed within 2 years, and 7 million dollars in savings were swept away. The building and loan associations, to whom a large part of the population was debtor, found themselves unable to collect high interest on property that had suddenly become almost worthless. There followed score upon score of repossessions, and hundreds of budduig-and-loan houses were razed for secondhand lumber. Little businessmen by the dozens closed their doors. The tax structm-e collapsed. XXIil XXIV • SUMMARY UNEMPLOYMENT The disintegration of the local coal industry has left the three counties economically prostrate. At no time during the past 4 years has less than one-third of the population been dependent on public assistance and the proportion rose to half for short periods during both 1938 and 1939. In the seven towns surveyed, more than two- fifths of all available workers were unemployed at the jyeak of the 1939 mining season; in Jolmston City 60 percent were unemployed; in the little mine village of Bush unemployment claimed four out of every five workers. The distress of the coal towns had apparently become still more grave by the early autumn of 1940, when 4 of the larger mines operating at the time of the 1939 survey had been abandoned and their 1,200 employees dismissed. The great majority of the unemployed in the coal towns fall into two groups. The largest of these consists of the long unemployed. As the local labor market tightened year after year, there came a time when a man who lost his job was not likely to find another. His qualifications, his experience, his union, even his friends, could do him little service, for job opportunities had all but vanished. Unemployed workers thus became in the course of time long-unemployed workers. By 1939 half the coal-town unemployed consisted of experienced workers who had held no private job for at least 1 year. Among the long-unemployed workers coal miners are of course most numerous. The displaced miners, as a group, reported con- tinuous unemployment for an average of more than 5 years at the time of the study. The group was, moreover, heavily weighted with older workers whose industrial experience had been confuied princi- pally to loading coal by hand, an occupation now largely obsolete in southern Illinois. The rest of the long unemployed had been dis- charged from a score of industries devoted either to servicing the com- munity or to servicing the coal industry itself. Since the coal field contains virtually no manufacturing industries, very few operatives were included among the unemployed. The second major unemployed group was composed of youth who had reached working age and who had found no job after months and even years in the labor market. By 1939 one unemployed worker in every three was a new worker who had never held a job in private industry. Four-fifths of all the unemployed were thus either long- unemployed or inexperienced workers. SUMMARY • XXV PROSPECTS FOR NEW EMPLOYMENT At the Mines It is obviously impossible to predict the extent of the market for southern Illinois coal during the next few years. The University of Illinois is now developing a technique for briquetting southern Illinois coals and making them smokeless; if perfected, the technique would, of course, increase the demand for southern Illinois coal. On the other hand, the field suffers increasing competition from a great oil and gas pool recently brought into production at Salem and Centralia, 111., only 75 miles from Herrin. The effects of the national defense program on the southern Illinois coal industry cannot be clearly foreseen. If one supposed that the community could again market as much coal as it produced in 1917^ — a somewhat dubious assumption — the prospects for reem- ployment at the mines would still be extremely meager. The efficiency of the average southern Illinois miner has exactly doubled since 1917. The tonnage mined in 1917 required 25,000 miners; the same tonnage could be mined in 1941 with only 12,500 miners, fewer than were actually employed at the bottom of the depression in 1933. New Industries For 30 years the coal towns have campaigned ardently to secure new industries to supplant the declining coal industry. They have offered subsidies to outside manufacturers; they have donated land and buildings; they have offered guarantees against imionization ; for many years they have advertised the industrial advantages of the community. But the few investors who have accepted such offers have long since failed; and three decades of attempting to broaden the area's economic base must be accounted an utter failure. EMIGRATION There has been a slight population decrease in southern Illinois since the decline of the coal industry first began. In 1920 the 3 counties contained 157,000 persons; in 1930, population had fallen to 150,000 persons; and by 1940 it had declined to 140,000 persons. Over a period of two decades, the area thus lost 10 percent of its population. Population decrease, however, has lagged far behind the decline in economic opportunity. During the period when population was declining 10 percent, the number of men employed at the coal mines fell from 29,000 to 10,000, a drop of 66 percent. XXVI • SUMMARY The migrants who have left southern Illinois during the past decade have consisted principally of youth of both sexes. In the older age groups emigration has been insignificant; among the very old, indeed, there has recently been a net increase from migration. These tend- encies have resulted in a rapid "aging" of the general population, thus storing up more serious problems for the future of the com- munity. Emigration of coal-town youth in response to defense activ- ity will doubtless be accelerated in the immediate future. Among the older workers, however, emigration will still be liindered by the fact that years of unemployment and relief have left large sections of the population without the resources necessary for migration in search of work. Chapter I THE ORIGINS OF A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY Less than two decades ago the southern Illinois coal field was riding the crest of a prolonged and spectacular boom. At that time the coal industry of Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties had behind it a record of more than 20 years of uninterrupted advance, and it was still expandmg. The territory between the towns of West Frankfort and Benton was bemg surveyed for the site of the New Orient, the largest coal mme ever developed. Workers were in de- mand. Nearly every school boy was going into the mines as soon as he finished the eighth grade. Herrin residents remember those years as the time when "you could stand on the roof of the city hall and see smoke from 16 mines every day." Coal-town service enterprises — the banks, the stores, the real-estate agencies, the buUding and loan asso- ciations — reflected the activity at the mines and flourished more dramaticallj' than the coal industry itself. The prosperity of the area appeared in those times to be as solid as one could hope for. The three counties were built on coal, and coal was basic to the American economy. The southern Illinois coal reserves, then as now, were never spoken of except in terms of being "almost inexliaustible." Above all, the great natural advantages of the coal field — the level-lying coal deposit, the 8-foot seam in the No. 6 coal, the high B. t. u. and low sulphur content, the flat top land, and the short run to Chicago ("largest coal market in the world") — seemed to assure the favorable competitive position of southern Illinois coal for years to come. Two decades ago a person would have supposed that the thi-ee counties were to have a vastly different future from the one which actually lay in store. Today the southern Illinois coal field presents a picture, almost unrelieved, of utter economic devastation. The years since 1923 have 1 2 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS seen the community lose three out of every four of its mines. They have seen a half-dozen once lively coal centers gradually sink to ghost towns. They have seen the building-and-loan bubble burst in every coal town and every bank throughout the greater part of the coal field driven into bankruptcy. They have seen employment shrink imtil two out of every five workers were "surplus" at the busiest season of the year, while the public-assistance load climbed until it included more than half the entire population of the three counties. They have seen the coal boom subside and give way to hopeless poverty.^ How did so radical and unexpected a decline in the fortunes of Franklm, Saline, and Williamson Counties come about? One may hear many pat answers to this question. The "Jacksonville Scale," which set up a higher wage for Illinois miners than was paid in com- peting nonunion fields, is usually isolated as the one villain in the piece. But one may justifiably wonder what connection the Jackson- ville Scale, abandoned in 1928, could have had with the failure of coal-field banks in 1932, with the foreclosure of miners' homes in 1935, or with tax delinquency in 1940. Another common explanation is that the miners "couldn't stand prosperity" when they earned high daily wages during the middle 1920's,2 that they "squandered their money on silk shirts" and automobiles, that they failed to save for a less prosperous time, and that their current plight is somehow a just recompense for earlier folly. But careful examination shows that the legend of the "silk- shirt era," as retold today, is built as much on fancy as on fact. In any case, the accumulation of savings in banks that were eventually to crash could hardly have altered the history of the coal field. One will also be told that the present condition of the three counties was brought on by loading machines, or by the Herrin riots in 1922, or by the movement off the farms between 1900 and 1930. Actually, the story of distress in the southern Illinois coal field cannot be reduced to a simple, single cause. The complex forces at work upon the fortunes of the three counties can, however, be sepa- rated into two main threads. One of these is the coal industiy itself, whose rise and fall of course played a dominant, though not a lone, role in the history of the coal field. The other thread, less often ' This was written late in 1939, before the national defense program got under way. In September 1940 a field research worker revisited the community and found its condition in no way improved. Three mines which were operating when this study was conducted had been abandoned by September 1940, displacing 1,250 men. 2 Such, for example, is the judgment of a writer who discussed another declining American coal field in Harpers Magazine, March 1940, p. 412 (Rice, Millard Milburn, "Footnote on Arthurdale"). This general attitude is also popular among coal-town businessmen. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 3 recognized, lies in the structure of local finance and enterprise which was created in response to the activity of the mines, but which often ran a strange independent course of its own. To understand each of these threads in the history of the coal field, it will be profitable to begin with their origins 40 years ago, when southern Illinois first became one of America's important coal fields. THE COAL BOOM Discovery and Consolidation At the turn of the twentieth century the great coal deposits of Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties were for the most part still undiscovered. Here and there a few small mines had started commercial operation, some as early as the 1880's, but for many years development proceeded slowly. According to the legend, prosjjectors had believed that the district's coal occurred only in pockets, so that if drillers found coal in one place their discovery was taken as proof that coal could not be found elsewhere in the neighborhood. Several decades of hit-and-miss exploration had turned up only a few isolated "pockets," one at Carterville, one at Johnston City, and one at Marion — all in WiUiamson County — ^and one at Ledford in Saline Coimty. Not long before 1900 came the first realization that southern Illinois might have a coal deposit of Nation-wide importance. A group of small landowners near the present town of Ilerrin had become skep- tical of the accepted notions about coal o^^j^rrence in southern Illinois and had started drilling on a plot of poor farmland midway between the Carterville and Johnston City mines. At 150 feet below the surface they struck a rich 9-foot seam of high quality coal. Soon afterward new drill holes were put do\\Ti and coal was foimd to run all the way across Herrin's Prairie from Carterville to Johnston City. The new Herrin field, some thirty-odd square miles of coal, was the small investor's opportimity. Only three large blocks of coal were consolidated, two of them coming imder the control of directors of the Missoiu-i Pacific Railroad. The rest of the new field was parceled out to numerous small promoters, each taking up blocks varying from 200 to 1,000 acres. Williamson County coal all lay so close to the surface that exploitation usually required only a small accumulation of capital, and the new operators set to the work of development immediately. By 1900 three new mines in western Williamson County were already hoisting coal, and more than a score of others were being planned. There were certain investors who took very careful note of the Herrin discovery. Among these were the more powerful Chicago mineowners and retail coaldealers, who observed that the northern 4 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Illinois fields were rapidly playing out and that a newly discovered high-grade coal, mined close at hand, might soon command the mid- western fuel market. By 1903 this group was fortified with earnings made during the Chicago coal famines (which followed the great anthracite strikes) and were ready to move on to larger enterprises. Several wildcat coal promoters, fresh from the job of opening new coal properties at New River, or the Hocking Valley, or Kansas, or Indiana, were looking for newer fields to exploit. Steel manufacturers were anxious to find a coking coal somewhere near their Chicago mills. Most interested of all were the raih-oads, not only because of their operating needs, but also because they were deep in a plan to organize the soft-coal industry as a subsidiary of the carriers, just as Pennsylvania anthracite had already been organized. The Herrin discovery had brought into question all the old notions about coal occurrence in southern Illinois and suggested the existence of large undiscovered deposits. The four groups of investors re- sponded quickly to the suggestion. Throughout 1900 drill crews prospected quietly across eastern Williamson County. Land dealers followed, buying up the land. Within a short time about 15 sections of coal land east of Johnston City had been consolidated and purchased by the Illinois Central, and another block of 4,000 acres was taken up by the Illinois Steel Company. North of Herrin, a wildcatter financed by John W. (Bet-a-mUlion) Gates took title to another large block of Williamson coal. A leading Chicago coaldealer bought two operating mines at Marion and drove a railroad from Williamson into the heart of Saline County, buying up the mineral rights along the way. The most startling discovery was stUl to come. About 1900 a wealthy young Chicago promoter named Joseph Leiter bought out the patent rights on a special cokmg process, and started a search for a coking coal. Eventually he experimented with Carterville coal and thought it satisfactory (mistakenly, as it later developed). After an unsuccessful attempt to buy the Carterville mine, Leiter hired a geologist to discover whether similar coal might be found near by. The geologist concluded that the Carterville seam ran northward into Franklin County; and when test drill holes were sunk, the cores showed that there existed beneath 400 feet of overburden a new field more extensive and valuable than any yet discovered in southern Illinois. In 1903 Leiter bought a solid square block of 7,000 acres, started sinking a shaft, and built the company town of Zeigler. By 1904 the findmgs of Leiter 's geologist had brought America's largest corporations scramblmg for land in southern Illinois, and es- pecially in Franklin County. The Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad bought some 10,000 acres of coal land at Valier, and started extension of its tracks to the coal field. The United States Steel A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 5 Corporation took up the greater part of two townships east of Benton. The Missouri Pacific consolidated an extensive block of coal at Bush; the Illinois Central took over twenty-thousand-odd acres north of Carterville, together with an operating mine; and the Frisco Lines got control of a block between Benton and West Frankfort. A wildcatter and a northern Illinois operator bought a couple of townships of mineral rights in Franklin and Williamson. In Saline a coal operator controlled by the New York Central Railroad bought up thousands of acres from Eldorado to Carrier Mills. The pattern of coal ownership which has since dominated the southern Illinois field was firmly established by 1907, when the last stray mineral rights were brought under control. In the gaps between the great coal blocks of Franklin and Saline Counties a few small investors — some local, some absentee — had gained a foothold; and in western Williamson County, where the boom first started, the small holders were numerous. But the great majority of the coal had come into the hands of about a dozen companies, holdmg from 10 to 50 sections each. Fom- of these holdings were "captive" to the railroads, that is, held with a view to supplying the raihoads' own coal needs.^ Two others were captive to steel manufacturers. The other half-dozen great blocks were held by companies connected more or less directly with Chicago and St. Louis coaldealers. The fortunes of the southern Illinois coal field were dependent from the start upon these few ab- sentee operators and then- successors, and the decisions of these Chicago, New York, and Boston investors were in the course of time to make their share of history in the three counties. Labor The Illinois miners' union and the southern Illinois coal field were bom at the same time and grew up together. In 1898, just at the openmg of the first mine on Herrin's Prairie, the United Mine Workers of America (Illinois District) won their first considerable victory in the State and successfully negotiated contracts with most of the Illinois operators. Nearly all of the few small miaes that had already started operation in Williamson and Saline Counties signed contracts in 1898, and the transition to collective bargaining at each new mine developed after 1898 came for the most part without great strain or friction. There were, however, two significant exceptions, which had a profoimd influence on the history of the southern Illinois union. In 1899 a Carterville operator had decided to import Negro miners to 3 The original railroad plan for controlling all the output of the field was wrecked by the Hepburn Act of 1906, which prevented railroads from engaging in the coal business except to supply their own operating needs. 6 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS break a strike at his tipple. Inevitably, violence followed and numerous persons were killed. This tactic isolated the operator and led most of the community to support the strike. The operator was eventually driven to banlo-uptcy, and finally, after 7 years of nonunion operation, he gave way to an operator who immediately signed a contract with the union. A similar incident occurred in Franklin County, where another isolated operator tactlessly housed his strike- breakers in a stockade protected with Gatling guns. Again there was violence, again the community supported the strikers, again the union won after years of bitterness. In 1910, when this last nonmiion 'mine started operating imder union contract, collective bargaining had become a part of the natural order of things in the southern Illinois coal field. The Product of the New Field Even before the great landholdings were consolidated, the rush to develop the field had begun. From 1900 through 1904 Williamson and Saline Counties saw 29 new mines opened and during the next 3 years another 21 mines started hoisting coal. In Franklin County the Zeigler shaft was rushed to completion and began hoisting late in 1904. The next year two other Franklin County mines opened, followed in 1907 by five more (appendix table 1). By 1907 southern Illinois coal had become a competitor to be reckoned with in every midwestern coal market from Bismarck to Chicago. The new coal had many substantial advantages. In competition with the dwindling supply of coal from northern Illmois, southern Illinois coal had to meet a somewhat higher freight rate, but mining costs were so favorable that they offset the freight differential. In competition with Indiana coal, southern Illinois also had a slight disadvantage in freight rates to Chicago (though not to St. Louis), but most Indiana coals were of poorer quality. The chief fuel on the Chicago market of better quality than southern Illinois coal was a soft coal from the Hocking Valley of Ohio and Pennsylvania anthra- cite, both of which had to bear a far higher freight rate than southern Illinois coal. The investors who opened the field provided a different kind of advantage. Joseph Leiter was able to spend a considerable sum of money advertising Zeigler, and thereby helped to build a reputation for all the Franklin County coal. The new Williamson mines cashed in similarly on the advertising of a Carterville operator who had made "Carterville prepared lump" well known on the Chicago market before the boom started. Several of the mines had enough capital to provide washers and other cleaning equipment, a new departure for the time. The railroad mines were helped along with ready-made contracts and sometimes special rates, while freight rebates came to A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 7 the aid of several favored independent operators. Finally, many of the new mines were closely tied to the larger Chicago coaldealers, who naturally pushed the sale of coal from their own tipples. Thus, throughout the early period the West Virginia and Kentucky coal jobbers, who were later to affect so decisively the fortunes of southern Illinois, were still begging orders from office to office in Chicago, and offering their coal on consignment to overcome the reluctance of mid western buyers. Prosperity Under all these favorable influences, the new field pushed rapidly into the midwestem coal market. Year after year the sale of southern lUinois coal mcreased. Coal output and mine capacity expanded with an amazing regularity. Each year saw more men digging coal in the three counties than the year before. At times the growth was rapid, as in the early discovery years and the World War boom. At other times — in the depression of 1907 and the prewar slump — the growth was slower. But every single year for a quarter of a century, from the discovery of coal on Herrin's Prairie in 1896 until the post- war depression in 1921, there was always some advance and never a backward step (figs. 1 and 2). The magnitude of growth during the long period of steady advance was particularly impressive: the average net increase in employment each year between 1900 and 1923 was 1,400 men. The average growth of coal output during the same period was 1 million tons, roughly equal to the total output of the field during the year 1900. From 1900 to 1923 an average of two mines was abandoned per year, but an average of six new mines started hoisting coal (see appendix table 1 ). At the beginning of the coal boom southern Illinois coal supplied only an insignificant part of the demand on the Chicago and St. Louis markets; at the end, the three counties were by far the greatest coal-producing region west of the Appalachians and one of the two or three leading coal regions in the United States. There was onty one catch to this remarkable record of advance: the growth of production was constantly being outrun by the growth of mine capacity. For, while output was advancing at the rate of a 1-million-ton increase annually, the field's capacity to produce coal was being increased at the average rate of 2 million tons annually. Throughout the long coal boom, this tendency had caused periodic difficulties. The field was only a few years old when the cry of "cutthroat" competition was first heard, and the complaint that rivals sold their coal "below the cost of production" was reiterated year after year. As early as 1905 attempts were made to form combines in southern Illinois which would control supply, and despite repeated failure, the attempts were repeated every few years until as late as 192G. 8 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Fig.l — MEN EMPLOYED AT SHIPPING COAL MINES IN FRANKLIN, SALINE, AND WILLIAMSON COUNTIES, 1900-1921 Thousond men 40 Thousond men 40 30 20 10 I II I I L 1 ' _-J ' ' ' ' -,-' ' 30 20 1900 1903 1906 1909 Source: Appendix table 2. 1912 1915 1918 1921 The symptom of overexpanded mine capacity was a tendency for the work year to contract as time passed. In the discovery period a work year of 220 days was not imcommon (appendix table 3). Such a work year indicated a brisk demand for coal. Capital re- sponded readily to the demand and flowed into the field faster than was needed. Capacity thus increased rapidly and soon far outran production (fig. 2). By 1911 the work year had fallen to only 165 days. At this point new investment slackened, production began to catch up again with capacity and the work year lengthened. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 9 Fig.2-CAPACITY AND PRODUCTION OF SHIPPING COAL MINES IN FRANKLIN, SALINE, AND WILLIAMSON COUNTIES, 1900-1921 Million tons 50 Million tons 50 40 30 20 10 / / / / / / / / Copo / city .^^/ / / /'y vJ / / / / J r^Produ ction 1 1 1 1 r 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 L.... _ 40 30 20 10 1900 1903 1906 1909 Source; Appendix toble 3. 1912 1915 1918 1921 The extraordinary wartime demand for coal started a new cycle. In 1918 production soared, the work year lengthened to 254 days, capacity in excess of output nearly disappeared. But again, and on a bigger scale than ever before, capital flowed into the field, and capacity soared again as huge new mines, developed to meet the wartime demand, started hoisting coal. In 1919 peace and the postwar coal strike halted the expansion of output. By 1920 the work year had fallen back to 183 days. The time had come for further growth of the market for southern Illinois coal. Unless 10 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS it continued to expand — as it had for a quarter of a century — calamity was certain. At the peak of the boom in the early 1920's coal had become not only the leadhig industry in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties but virtually the only industry. Coal had made the once poor farming community rich and prosperous, and had made it an important cog in American industry. But coal had also made the three counties vul- nerable. Their welfare had come to depend solely upon the great impersonal coal market and upon the accidents which determined then- position in competing for the market. An increase in the demand for steel, a mild winter in the Dakotas, a change in the price of crude oil, the installation of domestic stokers in Minneapolis, a wage cut in the Harlan County coal mines, a new freight rate from West Virginia to Lake Erie — all such remote occurrences had come to mean the difference between prosperity and poverty in southern Illinois. THE STRUaURE OF LOCAL ENTERPRISE Local bankers antl businessmen in the southern IlHnois coal field have had very little direct connection with coal minmg itself. When the rapid development of the southern Illinois coal field began in 1900, the three counties were a poor and isolated farming community. Local capital, which existed mainly m the form of poor farm land and deposits in small rural banks, was altogether inadequate for the oppor- tunity at hand.^ Only a few local entrepreneurs were able to gather enough capital for speculating in coal-land options, let alone for extensive development of producing mines. From the first the absentee investors controlled the greater part of the output of the southern Illmois mines, and not many years passed before they had almost complete ownership. No combination of local capital was ever strong enough to gain a lasting or important foothold in the mining industiy. The coal operators, on the other hand, were not able to set up any extensive system of company-town paternalism in southern IlKnois. Unlike the mountain districts of West Virginia and Kentucky, the Illinois prairies provided the coal companies with no monopoly on townsites. Moreover, the Illinois mhiers, many of whom were drawn from farms and rural villages near the mine tipples, were organized early enough to prevent the operators from requiring residence on company property as a condition for a job. Wliile several company towns and company stores were built early in the development of the southern Illinois field, they were soon forced to compete with inde- * In 1900 bank deposits in the three counties totaled $523,403, scarcely enough to develop a single good-sized coal property. Security Admiiiistratioii {liotlnstehi). "Orient Number One Blows Work." One of the Big Franklin County Mines. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 11 pendent towns near by. Under such circumstances, company towns had no particular purpose.^ By 1910 the job of housing and servicmg the rapidly growing population of the coal field had passed in large part to local entrepreneurs in real estate and banking. Real Estate With local entrepreneurs excluded from direct participation in the coal industry, real-estate values came to be the foundation of the financial structure of the coal towns and the basic form of wealth available to the community itself. The banks, the building and loan associations, and the local governments themselves were in large part built upon the security represented in real-estate values. x\n impor- tant key to an understanding of the development of the southern Illinois coal communities thus lies in the history of its real-estate activity. The sudden transformation of Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties from a poor farming area into one of America's leading coal fields naturally created a boom in town real estate. The sud- den influx of new workers soon led to a housing shortage, and new building became a very real need. Actual need, in turn, soon brought less tangible factors into play. Undue optimism was inevitable. An enthusiastic local newspaper computed (somewhat incorrectly) that southern Illinois coal would not be exhausted until A. D. 9279. The flow of capital into the field during the discovery j'^ears appeared to make the outlook still brighter; if the great financiers of America "had faith in southern Illinois," its future was indubitably assured. Moreover, the early stages of the real-estate boom brought the rise of the real-estate promoters, local businessmen who were in most instances connected with the banks, the buildmg-supply houses, the larger stores, or the building and loan associations. These entre- preneurs busied themselves with buying up farm land on the periphery of the growing towns, subdividing it into town lots, and offering it to the public at the end of an intensive advertismg campaign. Making a frank appeal to speculators and promising that investment in real estate would "return a handsome profit," the promoters carried on a thriving business. Their activity is reflected in figure 3-A, which shows the number of deeds for town lots recorded in the thi-ee counties from 1900 to 1921. ^ The town of Zeigler, for example, continued to be a company town through a period of nonunion operation at the Zeigler mine from 1904 to 1910. In 1910 the Zeigler mine signed a contract with the miners' union. The lands around the tipple were then opened up for real-estate promotion. 1 2 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Fig. 3 -INDICES OF LOCAL BUSINESS ACTIVITY IN FRANKLIN, SALINE, AND WILLIAMSON COUNTIES, 1900-1921 A NUMBER AND AVERAGE VALUE B. ASSETS AND NEW LOANS OF BUILDING OF DEEDS FOR TOWN LOTS AND LOAN ASSOCIATIONS Thousand Assets dollars Million dollars 1.6 20 1900 1905 1910 ♦Williamson County only. 1915 1920 New loans Million dollars 5 1 / / > New loons--^ / 1 / / / I / ty ^^?^ 1 1 1 1 ,,— --^|-Assets 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 C. BANK DEPOSITS D. TAXES EXTENDED AND COLLECTED Million dollars 40 30 20 / / Ba nk deposits ^.^^^ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 J 1 1 1 1 Million dollars 40 Million dollars 4 30 3 20 2 Million dollars 4 / Taxes ixlended--... r Jt yi 1 1 1 1 ^ r^ Taxes c 1 I 1 1 1 ,1._L_1... sllecled 1 1 1 1 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920 Source: Appendix fables 21,22, 23, and 24. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 1 3 Real-Estate Speculation Although the development of the southern Illinois coal industry- was constant year after year for two decades, the real-estate boom did not progress evenly. Periodically the turnover in town lots showed strong speculative tendencies, and for a short time the activity of the real-estate promoters would run far ahead of the activity justified by the actual condition of the industry. The periods of inflation would then pass into periods of relative depression. The local entrepreneurs, seeing the foundation of theii- local financial structure weakened, immediately would become apprehensive and start to plan ways and means "to halt the decline of property values." But as long as the coal industry continued to expand, these fears would soon be allayed. Before many years had passed, the activity of the mines would catch up once more; increased real-estate activity would again increase and another period of land-value inflation would set in. The real-estate boom thus rose in waves of alternating inflation and depression. The first of the waves began with the discovery of coal in Franklin County in 1902. Within a short time drilling crews were set up in all parts of the field, and month by month the full significance of the discovery became clearer. The most important deposit of coal west of the Appalachians had been found, and everyone thought he had a chance to get in on the ground floor in the com- munity," if not in the industry. The real-estate promoters went to work (fig. 4). By 1906 such typical advertisements as this were appearing weekly: Just 18 months ago the first car of coal was shipped from the field, since which time has doubled her population and is now the home of 4,000 people . . . the most conservative predict that within 3 to 5 years, will be a city of 15,000 people. . . . We believe these lots wiU be worth at least 50 percent more by this time next year. As an investment, whether for holding or disposing of quickly, or for improvement and occupation ... an investor cannot lose but on the contrary is bound to make a handsome profit. . . . An increase in value of 50 percent in a year is quite conservative. * The accounts of the early activity in the coal field read Uke descriptions of an oil boom. In 1904 a coal-field visitor wrote: "We had heard much about the magic city of , to which people were flocking from everywhere. . . . We found it was one of the Ixisiest and most thriving towns we had ever seen. . . . On ahnost every street new homes were going up. The song of the saw and hammer was everywhere in the air. People walked fast. They were all busj- and they were happy." Another visitor reported in 1903, "\'iUages have sprung up where but yesterday the land was yielding a bounteous wheat crop. Cities have greatly enlarged their area and population and the whole section is ahve to the possibilities of the future." 14 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Fig. 4 -AN APPEAL TO REAL-ESTATE SPECULATORS FROM THE FRANKLIN COUNTY INDEPENDENT October 1906 This advertisement, one of the scores that appeared, ran as a half -page spread Wait! Watch and Be Ready! Monday, October 15th, 1906. The greatest lot sale in the entire history of Franklin County will positively take place on the above date at the new and Thriving Town of Sesser Every Lot in the Original Plat Has been sold, and every purchaser has been offered a handsome profit on thrir investment, ufhich is a sufficient guar- antee that you w/ill make money on any lots you purchase in this new addition, which lays up to the southern boundry of, and directly between the original town and the Keller Coal Shaft, which is in the choice section of the entire coal field of Franklin County. The shaft has been completed to the coal, and the work of installing the machinery will be pushed to completion. Remember the date and be with us. You will make money. Watch Next Week's Paper for the Full Particulars E. FITZGERRELL, Trustee. After a few years of such hysteria, the first boom in real estate had gone far beyond all reasonable bounds. The promised increment of 50 percent a year failed to materialize, and sales of real estate slack- ened sharply. Soon afterward came the depression of 1907, which for several years slowed the rate of growth of the local coal industry. The real-estate business became progressively more sluggish, and property values wavered. As this slump continued it caused con- siderable anxiety among local businessmen and real-estate dealers, who were fearful above all of their wavering property values; this was the first local intimation of the vulnerability of the one-industry community. It led to the first schemes for bringing in outside industry, which — significantly — Avere coupled with real-estate promo- tion drives.^ ' See pp. 97, 98. One of the main arguments advanced to raise local money for factories in 1912 was that new factories "would make a veritable boom in real- estate values." One town naivel}' computed that for every 100 new factory jobs created, an increment of $420,000 would be added automatically to the total value of the town's real estate. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 1 5 By 1912 the inflated land prices resulting from the first wave of speculation had been absorbed in large part by the constant increase in the number of employees working in the mines. During the same year the real-estate dealers launched their second sales campaign, based on the prospect of establishing factories in the coal field.* Once more the invitations to get sudden profits from real-estate speculation was freely extended: Lots in the addition, as soon as the stove factory and foundry are built, should be worth more than is now asked. Lots in Factory Heights will change hands at an increase in value. The dust had not settled on the roads before Mr was offered an advance of $25 upon his lot purchase. Likewise Mr was offered $12.50, as well as many others. Once more the turnover in town lots began to climb (fig. 3-A), and a second real-estate boom got under way. "The past sale of lots," said one newspaper, "is only the beginning of a greater sale of lots." The second real-estate boom lasted 3 years. Those who had in- vested their money in the various "Factory Heights" additions to the coal towns in 1913 and 1914 were to be sadly disappointed soon afterward when the factories that had been promised failed to arrive. At the same time the rate of growth of employment in southern Illinois coal mines was again slowed down by the short depression which accompanied the first years of the World War. As soon as the factory promotion schemes were clearly discredited in 1914, there followed a second slump in real-estate activity. This slump was short-lived, however. Before 2 years had passed, the activity of the mines had again caught up Avith real-estate expansion and a third wave of inflation had started. The World War and the years inmtiediately following brought the real-estate boom to its final climax. The unprecedented demand for southern Illinois coal, beginning in 1916, attracted thousands of new workers to the coal field and created a critical housing shortage. Dozens of jerry-built "shotgun houses," assembled in 24 hours, were erected in every town. Rents and real-estate values soared. As figure 3-A shows, the activity of the real-estate promoters once more * The schemes advanced in 1912-1915 proposed to raise funds for subsidizing new industries out of the profit from the sale of lots near the projected factory site. See pp. 97-98. The economics of these schemes was explained as follows: "The aznount neces- sary to secure [these] factories will be less than $100,000, and if this money be raised by the sale of lots, the increase in [real-estate] values will make the lots an exceptional investment, especiallj' when we consider the certain [added] popu- lation of 5,000 to 6,000 people who will be compelled to use these same lots for residences." 16 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS began to increase, reaching a new record in 1917 and continuing to climb rapidly through the period of the war.^ The strike of 1919 and the postwar depression failed to deflate the real-estate boom. The housing shortage persisted, and even the coal companies which had long since abandoned the company-town system were forced to build houses in order to hold their workers. The productive capacity of the field continued to increase as new mines, started during the war, began actual operation. The financiers of New York, Boston, and Chicago also continued to demonstrate their optimism about the future of the field by their policy of absorbing the smaller producers throughout the three counties. In 1920 the miners started a relatively long period of steady work at wages well above the wartime scale. With this last period of prosperity, the wave of real-estate speculation reached its third and final peak, far above the highest wartime levels. The Building and Loan Associations During the period of the development of the southern Illinois coal field local entrepreneurs had organized — in very leisurely fashion — a number of mutual building and loan associations in the larger coal towTis. Some of these associations were headed by the building- supply dealers, who had discovered that the home-loan system en- couraged building and at the same time provided ample returns on the money invested. Also included among the directors of the asso- ciations were most of the real-estate promoters whose activities were traced in the preceding section, the leading bankers and professional people, and occasionally one or two of the more important coal-town merchants. By 1918 there were 20 such associations operating in the 3 counties. Their activities, however, had played no unportant part as yet in the life of the communities, even though the communities were already nearly full-grown. The total assets of the associations in 1918 were onlj' about 2% million dollars, and the number of new loans issued had not yet passed the 1 -million-dollar mark (fig. 3-B). By this time the towns in the 3 counties had already been built from sleepy rural villages containing, all told, less than 15,000 persons at the turn of the century to active towns with a total population of more than 80,000. The coal towns had grown to maturity quite without the assistance of building-and-loan dancing. ' The boom was apparently not altogether spontaneous. The usual fanfare in connection with the sale of lots in a new subdivision continued during the war boom, with free transportation, free picnic lunch, and brass bands provided for the customers. One promoter gave each purchaser of a lot a chance on a two- story house, which was later deeded to the f)erson holding the lucky number after the lots were sold. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 17 In the midst of the 1920 housing famine many famiUes who were unable to find places to rent were forced to buy lots and build their own houses. In order to build in the emergency, however, a con- siderable smn of money was needed quickly; and for the first time in the history of the coal field, the miners began to tm-n to the building and loan associations for loans. Within the space of 4 years the amount of new loans issued by the associations quadrupled. By 1921, when new loans passed the 2j4-miUion-dollar mark for the first time, the associations were doing 10 times the business they had enjoyed when the war began. The beginning of intense activity among the home-loan associations thus coincided with the period in which the real-estate activity in the coal towns reached the final and record peak discussed in the preceding section (fig. 3-B). The sudden spurt in the home-loan business during the housing boom in 1920 and 1921 had built up a sizable backlog of capital for the associations. The interest rate was high — interest and "premiums" netted more than half a million dollars in 1921 on total loans of over 5% million dollars — ^hence, local capital flowed freely into the growing loan enterprises (appendix table 23). Installment payments on association stock sold in connection with the original loans provided other capital; by 1921 the associations liad accumulated 2% million dollars for loans from this soiu-ce alone. On this basis the associations prepared themselves for a long and profitable business. Bankins Southern Illinois banking has always been the private domain of local businessmen rather than of absentee coal operators. The banks in the coal field have accordingly not dealt du-ectly in any large degree with the coal-mining industry, and the job of providing banking facili- ties and credits to the mines has fallen to Chicago and St. Louis banks. Local banks have perforce confined their activities to servicing the miners, farmers, and merchants within the community — to receiving the savings of the miners, carrying the deposits of local merchants, and providing credit for the community itself. Until the time of the World War these functions did not assume great importance. Mine wages were not high, and the community's share from the coal industry went principally into physical expansion of housing and inventories, rather than into cash surplus. Another diffi- culty faced by local bankers before the war was that the foreign born, who comprised a large part of the working population, were t^radi- tionally suspicious of ''the banking institutions of this country." In- stead of depositing their money in the local banks, they preferred to send it to Europe for deposit in government-controlled savings banks. '° '" For this reason the local businessmen welcomed the Postal Savings System. See p. 83. 1 8 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Bank deposits thus accumulated slowly during the period which saw the greatest development of the coal field. During the first real-estate boom (1900-1906) they increased from }^ million dollars to nearly 4 million dollars. Some of this increase, however, was subsequently lost during the depression of 1907. The period of the second real-estate boom (1911-1913) brought deposits to more than 7 million dollars; but again a recession which accompanied the first years of the war wiped out a part of the gains. Not until the beginning of wartime activity in the coal field did the local banking business come into its own. (See appendix table 24.) The World War simultaneously increased the pay roll in the coal field — through a lengthened work year, higher wages, and the crea- tion of thousands of new jobs — and cut off the flow of savings to Europe. Under these circumstances, bank deposits shot upward at an amazing rate. While it required 16 years for the three counties to accumulate their first 7 million dollars in bank deposits, the second 7 million dollars was deposited in less than 2 years during 1917 and 1918. After the war a further rise in wages and employment con- tinued to increase deposits; from 15K miUion dollars in 1918, deposits climbed to almost 26^2 million dollars in 1921. For each dollar de- posited in coal-field banks in 1916 there were nearly $4 on deposit in 1921 (fig. 3-C). The sudden skyrocketing of bank deposits was mterpreted in the coal field to be a reflection not only of the prosperity of the commu- nity^ — which no one could deny^ — but of its "soundness" as well. A local newspaper boasted: All the banks are in a most healthy and prosperous condition and reflect our prosperity in a most emphatic manner. We are enjoying the greatest measure of sound, substantial prosperity and growth in our history. Even the foreign born cast off their suspicions and began to deposit their money in the local banks. THE TAX STRUCTURE The Changins Tax Base Before the rapid development of southern Illinois coal reserves got under way in 1900, the lands, improvements, and personalty of farms represented the chief form of wealth in Franklin, Saline, and Wil- liamson Counties; and what little tax income was required to keep up the limited tasks of local government was paid almost altogether by farmers. As the coal mines were developed, three other forms of taxable wealth were created: coal in the ground, assessed sometimes with top land and sometimes separately as mineral rights; coal-land improvements in the form of tipples, hoisting, and screening equip- ment, etc.; and residence and business property in the growing coal A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 19 towns. The tax base was accoi-dingly shifted from farm property to the community's new property. The manner of the shift, determined as it was by the informal and empirical approach of local tax asses- sors, was to have far-reaching effects upon the later life of the coal field. The contribution of farm property to the total assessed valuation of the three counties continued to be important in spite of the growth of the coal industry. The State of Illinois had long followed a tradi- tion of "encouraging" the coal industry through favorable taxation. At one time coal mines were even declared to be exempt from State (but not local) levies; and although the courts later decided other- wise, the forces which made for the original exemption continued to operate through other channels. Since their earliest contacts with the great absentee coal operators, local tax assessors in the three counties appear to have been lenient in appraising mine property. And when the assessors did not take this approach the operators' lawyers were not slow to appear before the local equalization boards demanding adjustments. In any case, it appears that the burden of taxes outside the coal towns was not shared equitably between farmers and coal operators. By 1913 the gross value of products from the mining industry was roughly four times that of products from the farms in the three counties." Yet the assessed valuation of all real property connected with the coal industry was only half that of farm property. During the war period this disproportion was heightened, as wartime prices for coal pushed the value of mining products up to about eight times the value of farm products. After the war there was a general adjust- ment of rural assessments; but the coal industry, which was still producing about four times as much gross value as the farms, even then carried no more assessed valuation than the aggregate farm land of the community (appendix table 20). The attitude of the local assessors toward the coal industiy may be illustrated by the valuation of a typical mine property: In 1924 the company's real property was assessed on the basis of half its full-and-true value at 2 million dollars, and was accordingly judged to have a full value of 4 million dollars. " For value of farm products in the three counties during the period 1910-1925 see Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, Agriculture Vol. VI, 1913, pp. 442-445; Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920, Agri- culture Vol. VI, Part 1, 1922, pp. 365-409; and United States Census of Agricul- ture: 1925, Part 1, 1927, pp. 520-547, U. S. Department of Commerce, Washing- ton, D. C. For the value of mine products during the same period see Mineral Resources of the United States, issued annually by the U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, D. C, for the years 1910 through 1923 and by the Bureau of Mines, U. S. Dei)art- ment of the Interior, Washington, D. C, for the years 1924 ff. 20 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS During the same year an impartial and reputable mining engineer appraised the value of the same property at 27 million dollars. While the coal operators tended to benefit at the expense of the farmers in the apportionment of rural taxes, they also benefited at the expense of the townspeople in the division of the total tax load of the three counties. County-wide expenditures — for maintaining the coimty offices, county roads, poor farms, etc. — were from the start borne more heavily by town property than by coal property. ^^ No matter how fast coal-property valuations might increase during the coal boom, they were always accompanied by greater increases in the valuation of town lots (appendix table 20). In terms of actual tax collections, the disproportionate division of the tax burden between coal towns and coal operators was far greater. It naturally fell to the towns to maintain their own strictly local services, such as the police force and the fire department. But the burden of providing revenues for the schools also fell principally upon the towns. The mines, located in almost every uistance beyond the city limits of the towns, paid taxes in rural school districts where few people lived, while thousands of the miners' children went to school in the towns, where the mine operators contributed nothing. Even the high schools, whose district boundaries frequently included an entire township, were often financed largely by the coal towns because the miners' homes were not located in the same townships as the mines. The most important source of tax revenue in the three coimties thus came to be coal-town real property. The local governments rested on the same foundation as the banks and the building and loan associations. The Rise of Tax income Until the time of the World War taxation in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties presented no special problems. The services of the local government were restricted to paying the county judges, juries, and sheriffs, patching up the roads now and then, and main- taining a somewhat primitive school system. The coal industry had grown up in the midst of a backward agricultural community, and as far as the function of local government was concerned, the rural shell was not cracked until the industry reached maturity. Not until the beginning of wartime activity in the coal industry did the community undertake to do the work it had long neglected. One pressing job was to build roads. As late as 1917 a drayman starting from Herrin in the early morning to deliver a load of 12 Railroad property valuation also increased progressively, but it played a small part in the total property valuation, and is therefore not included above. Per- sonal property is also omitted from this discussion because its assessment appears to have been distributed much like real property. A VULNERABLE COMMUNITY • 21 merchandise in Marion, 10 miles away, would not return home until dark. The scope of the independent towns was particularly restricted by inadequate roads. Miners depended on railroad transportation to get to their work in out-of-the-way mines, and where railroad connec- tions were poor, the independent towns lost population and trade. From Benton, for example, it was possible to ride 7 miles by train to work in the Buclcner mine; but there was no transportation to Rend City, which was only 6 miles away. Rend City, accordingly, became a company town, with consequent inconvenience to the miners and losses to the businessmen of Benton. The school system was also clearly inadequate for the needs of the community. In 1912, when the total popidation of the 3 counties was about 110,000 persons, the expenditure for pubhc high schools was only $64,000, scarcely enough to maintain even a semblance of a high- school system. Elementary schools were similarly hampered by an amazing expenditure per student of $10 per year.'^ Many of the school buildings were so old and unsanitary that they had been condemned wholesale by the State. For many years the schools had not kept pace with the growth and added wealth of the community, and one of the first jobs needed at the time of the World War was to expand and overhaul the education system. In 1919 the State of Illinois changed the assessment rate of all taxable property from one-third to one-half of full-and-true value. The three counties took advantage of the broadened base, and not only readjusted valuations according to the new State regulation, but reconsidered assessments generally and raised them still further. In this way the tax base was increased in 1 year from about 22 million dollars to over 40 million dollars. At the same time the total le\y of the three counties jumped from IK million dollars to almost 2% million (fig. 3-D). The long-awaited local improvements could get under way at last. In the early 1920's the commimity thus began to assume some of the more important responsibilities it had neglected. The coal towns set about to provide themselves with sidewalks, gravel streets, sewage disposal, and city water. The school system was expanded. The problem of caring for widows and for the blind began to enter — however dimly — into the consciousness of the county officials. The local government officials recognized that increased population had brought new needs, and they made provision for new expenditures for policing, fire protection, and all the regular services of the towns and counties — including the cloud no bigger than a man's hand, pauper relief. *^ The cost per pupil in schools throughout the country during the same period was $36. Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ended June SO, 1913. Vol. II, U. S. Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C, 1914, p. 34. Chapter II A DEPRESSED AREA J OBS IN THE southern Illinois coal industry were still plentiful in 1926. Franklin, Saline, and Williamson coal production for the year set a new postwar mark and, indeed, almost equaled the wartime record itself. Southern Illinois coal went upon the world market for the first time in 1920, when European buyers ordered several train- loads of Franklin County coal for export through New Orleans. The world's record for coal tonnage hoisted in an 8-hour shift at a single mine — held for years by one or another southern Illinois operator — was broken many times during the year as the New Orient in Franklin County proceeded every month or so to surpass its own previous record. The working miners enjoyed a satisfying degree of economic independence. If a miner disliked his boss, or if he objected to lax safety practices, or if he found his earnings falhng because of poor coal, he could always quit liis job, knowing that in a week or so he could find another one. Youth, too, had an agreeable choice to make in 1926: They could, if they wished, take advantage of the excellent new high schools recently built throughout the coal field; or they could go to work at the mines as soon as they were grown. ^ The Franklin, Saline, and Wilhamson mine pay roU in 1926 amounted to about 40 million dollars, enough to provide a comfortable livelihood for the entire working population and enough to initiate a boom in the trad(^ and service industries. Miners were averaging be- tween $50 and $60 for each 2-weeks' work in 1926, and sometimes "a pay" would run as high as $100. The automobile dealers, the ' "As quickly as boys became of any size, their fathers took them to the mine. Boys could not see the necessity for going to school when the almighty dollar could be earned so easily." Qarstens, Arthur and White, Ina, A Semi-Stranded Area, unpublished ms., Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Washington, D. C, 1935, p. 18. 23 24 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS grocers, the clothing merchants, the furniture and music stores all flourished, and the newspapers carried advertisements for grand pianos. Earl Carroll's Vanities, and men's $10 shoes as well as for necessities. When someone discovered a destitute family living on a garbage dump near Sesser, the entire community was shocked. Bank deposits in the three counties increased 3 million dollars in 1926, bringing the aggregate to 32 million dollars and breaking still another prosperity record. "The thing for our people to do," said a local newspaper that year, "is to settle down to a life of enjoyment and contentment." But there was little time left for either enjoyment or contentment, for the collapse came quickly. Within less than a decade the whole structure of prosperity lay in utter ruin. Where great noisy tipples had stood, one found a few years later only weed-covered railroad sidings, crumbling mine buildings, and scrub oaks growing in the silent mine yards. Sesser once had three mines and Benton had four; all were abandoned. Johnston City had eight mines, and they were all abandoned too. Out of the 16 mines which could once be seen from the Herrin city hall, 15 were gone forever. Throughout the 3 counties, 109 mines were abandoned from 1923 through 1938, leaving the countryside dotted with industrial tombstones — burnt-out slack piles, rotting tipples, here and there a smokestack standing alone in the middle of a pasture — to mark the graveyard of almost 20,000 jobs. (See appendix table 1.) Of course not all the mines had been abandoned ; most of the largest mines, indeed, were still operating. But they too had undergone great changes. The old atomistic system of coal recovery, based upon pairs of independent, versatile hand loaders, had almost disap- peared from Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties. The center of underground activity was now the great, new, automatic coal loaders, which could put as much coal into pit cars within a minute as hand loaders could load in an hour. Men were now organized into gangs; their jobs were simplified and specialized; the tempo of their work was heightened. At Herrin and Carrier Mills, operators had reorganized the haulage system too; the standard system of hoisting coal in cages running in a vertical shaft was replaced by a simple endless belt, fed underground by rubber-tired trucks. All in all, mine efficiency had nearly doubled. The coal towns had been transformed. Whole crowded sections of the larger coal towns had fallen into decay. The paint had worn oft' the houses, windows long broken were patched with cardboard and adhesive tape, foundations had rotted away, leaving the roofs sagging and the walls askew. Other sections of town, where the miners' homes had been repossessed and razed for secondhand lumber, had vanished altogether. Block after block of vacant store space lined A DEPRESSED AREA • 25 the business streets, testifying to the ruin of scores of businessmen. In some of the towns one found famiUes Hving in tents, in shanties built on the garbage dumps, in chicken houses. A half dozen once active nune villages had degenerated mto dilapidated, crowded, poverty-ridden rural slums. In a few short years the coal towns had seen many strange things happen. Out of every four coal diggers who had once worked m the/ mmes, only one — ^who counted himself exceedmgly lucky — still held his job ; and even so his yearly mcome had shrunk from $1,350 to $700. Sometimes singly, sometunes in batches, a total of 34 coal-town banks had collapsed, and some 7 million dollars in savings had been swept \ away. The high schools had suddenly filled to overflowing; but the \ teachers went unpaid, and members of the graduating classes regularly took their places in the ranks of the unemployed. The coal towns had seen families reduced to living on a dole as low as 78 cents a week, had seen outside charities set up soup kitchens for their imdemour- ished children, and had seen thousands of their people at hunger's door. What had happened? To begin with, the community had lost half its coal market, three-fourths of its coal-mine jobs, and four-fifths of its mme pay rolls, the community's basic income. No new mdustries whatever appeared to fill these gaps in the coal towns' economy. And meanwhile, the size of the population in the three counties suffered only an insignificant decline. In brief, the community no longer offered support for a large section of its population. UNEMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT Just how serious the economic plight of the southern Illinois coal field had become may be judged, first of all, on the basis of the extent of unemployment among its workers and families. Statistics on imemployment are provided in a special survey of unem- ployment conducted in seven southern Illinois coal towns between December 1938 and March 1939.2 The Labor Force At the time of the special census rougiily two-fifths of the entire population of the coal towns were workers: that is, they came within 2 The census determined the employment status of workers as of a "census week" just prior to enumeration. The census week was changed from town to town as the enumeration progressed, but was never changed within a town. Enumeration began in Bush on December 19, 1938, with reference to the census week December 11-17, 1938. The latest census week used was March 12-18, 1939, applied in Herrin. Throughout chapters II and III, all mention of employment, unemployment, and labor-market status refers to the workers' activities during the census week. 26 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS one of three categories — employed persons, unemployed persons actively seeking work, or persons normally employed but temporarily neither working nor seekmg work (appendix table 10). Compared with the labor force in four American cities, ^ this proportion appears to have been somewhat small. Among males the difference was not great, though the seven coal towns did have a smaller proportion of males m the labor force. The difference was principally the result of a much smaller proportion of female workers in southern Illinois, where only 18 percent of all females were workers, as compared with 24 to 36 percent in the four cities. The fact that coal mining offers no job opportunities for women obviously accounts for this difference. The important point is that numerous persons who might have sought work under other circumstances were not seekmg work in southern Illinois. Such persons are not, of course, counted among the com- munity's workers, and hence are likewise excluded in the count of the unemployed. The Unemployed The census of unemployment in the seven coal towns was timed to coincide ^vith the peak of the year's mining activity,* and it accord- ingly shows employment in the best possible light. The census caught Eldorado, for example, just after one mine had resumed work after a period of bankruptcy and reorganization, and just before a second mine shut down for the springtime slump. At Herrin the enumeration found another mine crew briefly enjoying the only stretch of employment it had had since 1937. Many other workers reportmg private employment during the census period had only * The same survey of unemployment was also conducted in Birmingham, Ala.; New Bedford, Mass.; Toledo, Ohio; and San Francisco, Calif., at about the same time as the southern Illinois census. In the seven coal towns 41 percent of the population were workers; in Birmingham, 47 percent; in New Bedford, .51 percent; in Toledo, 45 percent; in San Francisco, .52 percent. For data on Birmingham, Toledo, and San Francisco see Webb, John N. and Bevis, Joseph C, Facta About Unemployment, WPA Social Problem Series Number 4, Division of Research, Work Projects Administration, Federal Works Agency, Washington, D. C, 1940. The data on New Bedford are derived from The Decline of a Cotton Textile City: A Study of New Bedford, a manuscript in preparation by Seymour L. Wolfbein, Division of Research, Work Projects Administration. '' An index of seasonal variation in coal tonnage in Franklin, Saline, and Wil- liamson Counties for the period 1922-1937 shows that the peak of activity occurs between October and March, and the low point between April and August. Peak activity is regularly more than double the activity at the slack period. This remarkably wide seasonal fluctuation results in part from the timing of union stoppages, which ordinarily begin on April first of an "agreement year," i. e., a year in which a new union contract must be negotiated. But in other years, the seasonal fluctuation is still very wide. Southern Illinois, unlike the Appalachian fields, gets little business from the summertime Great Lakes coal traffic. A DEPRESSED AREA • 27 recently resumed work or were soon to be laid off to face months of smnmertime unemployment. The mine work week was also longer than average dmiag the census period, so that underemployment was at its minimum, too, for the year. But even under peak-season activity, the conmnmity's workers suffered a staggering loss through unemployment (fig. 5). Fig 5- UNEMPLOYMENT AND UNDEREMPLOYMENT IN 7 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL TOWNS AND IN BIRMINGHAM, NEW BEDFORD, TOLEDO, AND SAN FRANCISCO Percent of labor force 100 ' 80 60 40 20 ^ m Percent of lobor force 100 80 i 60 40 Employed, but working j less than 30 hours per week j po Unemployed <2? ■^^ part of the remainder were none too secure, as the figures on underemployment reveal. The seven coal towns have undergone a depression so severe that today they take their place, not, as before, among the most prosperous American communi- ties, but among the most prostrate. In the 1920's superlatives were applicable to the prosperity of the coal field. Today, superlatives are again applicable, but they are the old ones reversed. '^ In Birmingham 7 percent of the families had no workers and an additional 16 percent had workers without jobs: in New Bedford and San Francisco the pro- portions were, respectively, 11 percent and 15 percent; and hi Toledo, 9 percent and 22 percent. Note that the proportion of families without workers in the four cities was roughly the same as in the seven coal towns. Chapter LONG UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE DEPRESSED AREA Ti HE WORKERS employed in most "normal" American industrial commmiities are constantly shifting and changing. A part of the labor foi'ce will always be losing its jobs; another part will be returning to work; a third part will be entering industry for the first time. The constant labor turnover means that at any given time a considerable part of the unemployed will have been out of work onl}^ a short time, and will have a leasonable chance of shortly returning to work. This situation reflects itself in a relatively short duration of unemployment among a cross section of all the jobless workers. In the southern Illinois coal field there was also once a time when an unemployed worker could find another job without much trouble. But as more and more mines shut down, as more and more stores, garages, banks, and other local businesses disappeared, jobs became increasingly difficult to find. Men at work held to their jobs tena- ciously; mobility from job to job was stopped; the labor market was frozen. At last there came a time when a man who had lost his job was very unlikely to find another. His qualifications, his experience, his union, even his friends might do him little service, for job oppor- tunities had all but vanished. Such was the prevailing condition of the coal-town labor market at the time of the special miemployment survey in 1939. The constantly narrowing chance for reemployment in the coal field reflects itself in the long period of unemployment reported by the coal-town jobless workers. Long unemployment, m turn, implies a whole train of consequences for a people who were prosperous only a short time ago. It means drastically reduced income and depend- ence upon public aid. It means the sacrifice of the normal accumula- tions against want and old age, and the destruction of former living standards. It also means immeasm-able anxiety, hopelessness, and despair. 37 38 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT The average duration of unemployment among all the unemployed workers m the seven coal towns is shown in appendix table 16 and figiu-e 9. Fig. 9 - AVERAGE* DURATION OF UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE LAST FULL-TIME JOB OF WORKERS IN 7 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL TOWNS AND IN BIRMINGHAM, NEW BEDFORD, TOLEDO, AND SAN FRANCISCO Months 36 48 *Medion. Source: Appendix table 16. *■** ^®*' These figures, it must be remembered, do not indicate the time lost through unemployment during the past few years, but only the time elapsed since the last 2-weeks' job of at least 30 hours' work each week. Workers who had picked up occasional odd jobs would shorten the average duration and put the best face on the matter. Even so, the figures are almost incredible. The record of experienced ^ and able- bodied workers out of a job for an average of from 2 to 6 years is an extraordmary showing for a cross section of all the imemployed in an area. What unemployment of such duration means as a measure of the general economic collapse of the coal towns will be clear by com- parison with four American cities, where the average duration of unemployment dining the same period was roughly 1 year. Coal- town workers in southern Illinois had not only suffered half again as much unemployment as might have been expected in an "average" community during 1939, but their imemployment had lasted three times as long. ' Duration of unemployment could not, of course, be computed for the numerous new workers in the seven towns who had never had a full-time job in private industry. This group is discussed later; see pp. 40-43. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 39 Displaced Miners Although coal miners enjoy a measure of secm-ity as long as the mine employing them continues to work, those who have lost their jobs face a particularly difficult problem. Once a miner is out of the mines, his chances of returning are small, especially if he happens to be an older worker. Unemployed coal miners accordingly reported the highest average dm-ation of unemployment of all the major indus- trial groups withm the coal towns. Half of all the unemployed coal miners had been out of work for 68 months or more — over 5K years. (See appendix table 17.) Unemployed coal miners' time out of work increased with their age. Among those over 55 years, for example, the average dm-ation of unemployment was Q}i years. Unemployed miners under 45 years, on the other hand, had been out of work about half as long. This difference reflects a somewhat more favorable labor market for the younger displaced miners. Avenues closed to older displaced miners are not altogether closed to the younger men. Some of them have been rehired in other mines, some have moved away, a few — probably very few — have shifted to other industries. In spite of these advan- tages, however, even the most favored among the unemployed miners had still been out of work for an average of more than Sji years. The displaced coal miners in southern Illinois are obviously a dis- advantaged group of workers. Out of work for more than 5 years on the average, skilled workers in a declining industry, replaced by machines, lacking the resources and the qualifications to seek work in another labor market, likely m many cases, indeed, to spend the rest of their days outside of private industry, these workers suffer long imemployment at its worst. The Rest of the Long Unemployed If we arbitrarily set up 1 year of unemployment as a convenient dividing line between "short-term" and "long-term" unemployment, we may identify that part of the labor force which has suft'ered most through loss of work. In the 7 coal towns there were 3,117 such long-unemployed workers (appendix table 17). They constituted nearly one-fourth of all the experienced ^ workers in the coal towns and almost three-fourths of all the experienced unemployed workers. We may make a further distinction and identify the workers unem- ployed more than 3 years as the "very long" unemployed. There were 2,223 such workers in the coal towns. They made up about one-seventh of all workers and roughly half of all the unemployed. Who were these workers? 2 The term "experienced" applies to workers who have had a full-time private job. 40 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Coal miners made up by far the largest single gi-oup of these long and very long miemployed. The remamder were distributed among scores of other industries, with no significant concentration in any one industry. When combined, however, these other industries con- tributed one long-unemployed worker for each one contributed by the coal mmes. The burden of unemployment in a one-industry com- munity falls not alone on workers in the main industry. Fig. 10- INDUSTRY OF LAST FULL-TIME JOB OF WORKERS UNEMPLOYED MORE THAN I YEAR AND MORE THAN 3 YEARS IN 7 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL TOWNS 60 Percent 40 20 Percent 20 40 60 m 1 1 Agriculture ond forestry Public ond professionol service Trode Tronsportotion ond communicotion Domestic ond personol service Manufacturing ond mechonicol Cool mining 5^ Worliiiiii '' i,i^cci(ritu Administration {Hotlistein). Times are sure bad for everybody. But the young ones— they got it worse." A Young Southern Illinois Worker. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 41 Youth As we have seen, coal- town youth suffer an extremely high inci- dence of unemployment; nearly three workers out of every five under 25 years of age were jobless at the time of the special survey. This figure tells only a part of their predicament. Ordinarily, the economic problems of youth consist more in the kinds of jobs they get — the wages they receive, the hours they work, the insecm-ity of then* jobs — than in their failure to get jobs of any sort. A recent study of urban youth in the labor market has shown that however many problems young workers faced, most of them have at least held a job at one time or another.^ In the southern Illinois coal field, however, quite another situation prevails. A substantial part of the coal-town youth are not only unemployed, but have still to find their first job. Nearly two-fifths of the new generation of workers in the coal towns have come to their best productive years without ever having held a full-time job in private mdustry. In the more severely stricken towns the proportion rose to half of all young workers; and even in the most active of the towns siu-veyed more than one-fourth of the youth had never been employed. Among all the coal-town youth who were jobless at the time of the special survey, nearly two-thirds had never held a full-time job at any time in the past. (See appendix table 18.) In most American industrial commimities the case for youth — bad as it is — has one relieving feature: unemployed youth are at least future workers. At any given time, it is true, a section of youth are in the position of awaiting their turn in industry. But in the course of time most of them will presumably be dra^vn into private jobs. Youth generally do not fall into the category of the long unemployed. In the southern Illinois coal field, however, even such qualified opti- mism is not possible. Looking at the problem of coal-town youth as one of waiting for work, one will conclude that for many the wait must be very long indeed. The general predicament of youth in the depressed area suggests an analogy with sections of youth in postwar England and Germany, the ''lost generation" which has grown to middle age without every lal0^viIlg the experience of a private job. TJie Rest of the Inexperienced Although most of the inexperienced coal-town workers were youth, a few were older workers. Among the workers under 25 years nearly two-fifths were inexperienced; among the workers over 25 years, only about 1 in each 20 was inexperienced (appendix table 18). 3 Payne, Stanley L., Disadvantaged Youth on the Labor Market, Series I, No. 25, Division of Research, Work Projects Administration, Federal Works Agency, Washington, D. C, 1940. 42 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Fig. II- WORKERS UNDER 25 YEARS OF AGE WHO NEVER HELD A FULL-TIME JOB, 7 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL TOWNS, BIRMINGHAM, NEW BEDFORD, TOLEDO, AND SAN FRANCISCO Percent 1001 A. AS A PERCENT OF ALL WORKERS UNDER 25 80 60 40 20 m Ll Mb. Percent 100 80 60 40 20 Percent B. AS A PERCENT OF ALL UNEMPLOYED WORKERS UNDER 25 Percent 100 .^ .5^ Source: Appendix table 18. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 43 Many of these, naturally enough, were in the age group 25-29 years, and represent persons who have been unsuccessfully seeking work over a period of some years. Others, of course, represent new entrants to the labor market, and in particular, inexperienced women forced by circumstances to seek work for the fii'st time at near middle age or beyond. It may be noted, however, that these older inexperienced workers formed a smaller part of the total coal-town labor force than would be expected in most communities. Work-Program Employment Obviously, a workingman cannot maintain himself and his family for 1 or 2 years — let alone 5 years — without work. The first shock of long unemployment may perhaps be taken up by accumulated re- serves, by savings accounts, life-insurance policies, and home owner- ship. In southern Illinois, however, the early years of the depression wiped out a great part of the community's reserves through bank failure, lapsed payments, and the collapse of real-estate values. Once these resources had vanished, and once the debts with landlord, grocer, and butcher had reached the hmits allowed, some form of public assistance became essential. At the time of the special survey employment on the work pro- grams * was the principal form of assistance available to the able- bodied unemployed; and the proportion of the unemployed holding work-program jobs was, again, unusually high (fig. 12). Ordinarily, the proportion of unemployed workers on the work programs remains low. For the coimtry as a whole an estimated 20 to 25 percent of the unemployed had work-program jobs at about the time of the coal-toA\Ti survey. Depressed areas are an exception to this general rule. The rate of labor turnover is low, the long unemployed forai an unduly large group of workers, and the normal activity of seeking a job has little chance of success. In southern Illinois the work programs have necessarily become indispensable props to the economic life of the community. The work programs for youth were of special importance to the coal to^vns. Nearly half the unemployed coal-town youth, and well over one-quarter of all the youth in the labor market, held jobs on either the NYA, the CCC, or the WPA. In contrast, four American cities reported an average of about 20 percent of the unemployed youth, and 7 percent of the youth in the labor market, holding work- ^ As used here this term includes the Works Progress Administration, the Na- tional Youth Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and other emer- gency work programs of the Federal Government. Of these, the WPA is by far the largest. 44 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS program jobs." On the basis of a given number of unemployed youth, the coal towns thus had more than double the work-program employ- ment of a cross section of urban youth. And on the basis of a given number of youth in the labor market, the extent of work-program employment in the seven coal toAvns was four times greater. Fig. 12- PERCENT OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS ON WORK PROGRAMS'* IN 7 SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL TOWNS AND IN BIRMINGHAM, NEW BEDFORD, TOLEDO, AND SAN FRANCISCO Percent Percent Includes WPA, NYA. CCC, and ottier Federal emergency programs Source: Appendix table 10. wpa 3646 Long-Unemployed Families Long unemployment is a famil}^ disastei'. A substantial number of coal-town families, it will be recalled, had none of their workers employed in private industry at the time of the southern Illinois unemployment survey.'' These families had frequently been without private employment for a period of some years. Long-unemployed 5 In the seven coal towns, 48 percent of the unemployed youth and 28 percent of all yoiithful workers were on the work programs. In Birmingham the propor- tions were, respectively, 30 percent and 7 percent; in New Bedford, 20 percent and 6 percent; in Toledo, 18 percent and 10 percent; in San Francisco, 17 percent and 5 percent. The ratio of WPA to NYA to CCC among youth varies consider- ably. In the seven coal towns it was 2-2—1. In Birmingham the ratio was S-ti-l; in New Bedford, 1-1-2; in San Francisco, 1-3-1; in Toledo, 5-3-1. « See pp. 34-36. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 45 families were common not only among the coal-town families with only a single worker, but among the multiworker families as well. Among coal-towTi families whose worker members were unemployed, one group had had no job in private industry for more than a year at the time of the survey. Two-thirds of all the unemployed families fell within this group.' Another group of families contained only workers who had never held a full-time job in private industiy. A great many of these families were of course young couples who had married before the head could find a job. Others were mature families in which the breadwinner's responsibility had fallen to a youth or to an older inexperienced female head. Every ninth unem- ployed family in the coal towTis surveyed was such a family. All told, nearly four-fifths of the unemployed families contained only inexperienced or long-unemployed workers. (See appendix table 19.) These are the families who have borne the heaviest burden of the coal field's decline. A few years ago they were as necessary in the community as any other coal-town families; today they are "surplus" population, and a great gap separates them from the normal economic life of the coal to^\Tls. Their common experience is less income, greater dependence on relief, and more of all the stark compulsion of poverty than prevail among their neighbors in the depressed area. THE LIVING STANDARDS OF THE LONG UNEMPLOYED The various indexes of economic disturbance, marshaled in this and the preceding chapter, show the southern Illinois coal field to be a critically depressed community. In human terms, what does this fact mean? What does it mean to say, for example, that two- fifths of the coal-town labor force is jobless, or that four out of every five unemployed families in the coal towns have had no work for a year or longer? As an approach to these questions, the principal findings of a special survey of buying patterns among 149 long- unemployed coal-town families conducted in the spring and summer of 1939 are presented.* The income of the long unemployed is derived almost entirely from various forms of public assistance. WPA employment alone accounted for 81 percent of all the families' income during an average month; direct relief, old-age assistance, CCC, and NYA together provided another 12 percent of all income. The small remainder — ' We leave out of account here the families which contained no workers at all. * The survey included only families which contained one worker or more. Dependency growing out of the absence of workers in the family unit is not repre- sented in the 149 families surveyed. 46 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS 7 percent of all income — came from earnings on odd jobs picked up here and there in the coal towns, from gifts, and from the sale of various possessions.^ The average income of the families from all these sources was $39.30 per month — $471.60 per year The average size of family dependent upon this income was 3.5 persons. Expenditure Patterns An average monthly income of about $40 — plus some supplementa- tion by surplus commodities for large families — must thus provide all of a long-unemployed familj^'s needs. The resulting problem in household finance is difficult indeed. Each family must try to stretch this income to satisfy the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the landlord, the dry-goods merchant, the moving-pic tm-e manager, the pastor, the utility company, and the doctor. Wlien the monev does not go ai-ound the alternatives are clear. The family may possibly run nito debt, although the chances of finding a creditor are not good. Other- wise the family must simply do without and not onlj^ put up with discomfort but even get along without necessities. The resulting predicament of the families is shown in the level of buying choices the}^ must make. Early in the winter, for example, one housewife was faced with the urgent need for both a new heater and a. winter coat, but she had money enough for only one. After long thought she decided that a heater was more needed, and she bought one on the installment plan. Three months later, however, she wished she had bought the coat because "it would have cost less and we wouldn't have to owe for it." In another family an unem- ployed mmer's wife was ill, but had no doctor. "We doctor om'selves," she said; "every time you get the doctor it takes that much off what you have to eat." Another couple had 30 cents saved to celebrate theu wedding anniversary. The problem then was how to spend it, whether to buy a dish or go to the movies. Thej^ decided at last to go to the movies and do without the dish. Another family chose to have the kitchen stove repaired m preference to replacing worn-out shoes, another traded food for pillow slips, and so on. The sum of all these choices between competing needs creates a pattern imposed by the "must" items in subsistence living Each family spends its money in its own way, but as the following table indicates, there is less choice involved than one might think. » Barter is not included as a part of income. Nevertheless, some of the barter transactions among the long unemployed take on considerable imi)ortance, not to say complexity. One family, for example, set out to buy a house which had been ruined by the Ohio River floods. This deal, involving $30, was achieved through these steps: (1) trading a hog to pay for part of the house, (2) mortgaging a cow to pay the rest, and (3) selling the cow to pay for new shingles and the electric light deposit. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 47 Percent Distribution of Expenditures of Long-Unemployed Families in 3 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Item Total Carrier Mills Zeigler West Frank- fort Total Food - Clothing Personal care Housing Household operation Furniture, furnishings, and household equipment Medical care Transportation Recreation Another Food When incomes fall, the relative importance of food increases, not only because food is the most urgent of a family's needs, but also because habits of diet are powerful and tend to be maintained after other living habits have disintegrated. Ordinarily, even in families living on short income, the cost of food occupies no more than one- third of a family's total budget; and as income increases, the cost of food falls considerably below^ a third. Among the long-unemployed families in the coal towns, however, food purchases accounted for exactly half of all cash expenditures. Out of the $40 which the average family was able to spend each month, $20 went for food. In spite of the important position of food expenditures in the budgets of the coal-town long unemploj^ed, a generally satisfactory diet was by no means provided. According to the accepted standards for measuring adequacy of diets, 10 cents per person is considered to be the minimum cost per meal in a budget to be used over any long period of time; and betAveen 7.5 and 8 cents is the absolute bottom for an "emergency" l)udget designed to tide a family over a short period of poor luck. But the average sum available to the long-unemployed families in southern Illuiois was 6.3 cents a meal. Moreover, this allowance was not a temporary expedient, but had become more or less permanently established over a period lasting for many families as long as 7 or 8 years. In the process of stretching their cost per meal further than it should liave to go, the families have become accustomed to several serious deficiencies in their diets. Flour, corn meal, beans, potatoes, and l>acon are necessarily the basic foods consumed. Fresh milk is almost excluded from the average menu, even when there are smaU children in the family, and canned milk is substituted. Oleomargarine takes the place of butter. Fresh vegetables are likewise absent throughout the winter and spring, and in the summertime as well unless a family has a garden of its own. Unsalted meat is usually 48 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS foregone except for the biweekly pay-day celebration, the husband's lunch on WPA workdays, and an occasional supper of hamburger, wieners, shank bone, or some other cheap meat. Families wanting more fresh meat — the central European immigrants in particular — must trim their budgets elsewhere to make up the difference. As the number of mouths to be fed increases, the burden of providing enough food of the right kind naturally becomes more difficult. In the very large families, however, the difficulty is partly relieved by surplus commodities. "If it weren't for surplus commodities," said one housewife, "we couldn't navigate at all." Many families also raise a part of then- o\\ti food. Though by no means universal, gardens, chickens, and even pigs and cows were common, and they doubtless helped to improve the quality of many a long-unemployed family's diet. They did not, however, solve the families' food problems — as outsiders so often suppose. Nor were they always a net financial gain; feed for cows and chickens, canning supplies, seeds, and the like were items of considerable importance in the family budgets. Clothing Very little of the long-unemployed families' income goes for clothing. Out of the average income of $40 a month, 9 percent, or about $3.60, was spent on clothes. Over the course of a full year, clothes would cost the average long-unemployed family about $43, which would be less than one-third the amount provided in synthetic "maintenance" budgets, and less than half the amount provided in minimum-standard "emergency" budgets. As the wife of a long-unemployed miner commented, "You can promise your back, but you can't promise your stomach." The job of keeping a family clothed is accomplished through a variety of ingenious makeshifts in order that money which would otherwise be spent on clothing may be diverted to apply on more pressing needs. Flour sacks, sugar sacks, and feed sacks are made over for a wide variety of needs, ranging from underwear and sheeting to washrags and curtains. The life of every garment is stretched to the limit; clothes are always made over, patched, and handed down from per- son to person until "when they're finished, they're about gone." For necessary replacements many families depend on secondhand clothing, or on castoft' clothes donated by more prosperous relatives. Surplus commodity clothing — much of it made in the WPA sewing rooms — helps the larger families. Often replacement is not possible from any source. Some families had no shoes for winter weather and some had none at all; some were forced to send their children to school in rota- tion; on washday it was not unusual for family members to be confined to the house until their clothes were dry. cciirity Administiutioii (Rothvtein) "Ten years ago yon wouldn't of knowed it was the same house." The Home c»f an Unemployed Miner in Franklin County, 111. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 49 The families' clothes are usually 3 or 4 years old. Few have good dresses or suits; and a clean housedress or overalls — sarcastically called "blue serge" — serve for special occasions as well as everyday use. Inadequate clothing often results in changed social habits. Many families have not attended church since they wore out then' last Sun- day clothes, and visiting beyond the neighborhood is similarly handi- capped. An unemployed miner complained, "See my pants, a patch here, a patch there, and I have to go to town like this. I have to buy for the kids fu'st, they go to school. But I have to go among people too, once in a while." Housing Housing, like clothing, was subject to considerable skimping. The cash cost of housing in the budgets of the coal-town long unemployed absorbed 1 1 percent of the total cash outlay, and averaged about $50 per family over the period of a year. About half the families still held title to their houses and paid somewhat less than the average, while the families who rented paid somewhat more. In both situations, however, unpaid housing obligations tended to accumulate, either as delinquent taxes among owners or as past-due rent among the tenants. Both owned and rented houses had often passed into the advanced stages of disrepair. Roofs leaked ("like all outdoors"); windowpanes were cracked and sometimes missing altogether; floors sagged and doors were pulled askew from the rotting of underpinning; the paint on most of the houses had long since worn awa3^ "But if you'd come to my house 10 years ago," said a miner's wife, "you wouldn't of knowed it was the same house." In spite of aU these hardships the houses were almost invariably kept clean and neat, and decorated with the best that had come to hand — with crocheted work, bright lithographed calendars, and religious mottoes. City water, and often electricity^ as well, had been sacrificed. Out of all the long-unemployed families interviewed, 80 percent had no running water and 95 percent used outside toilets. Bathtubs had be- come an equally rare luxury. Every third family had had the elec- tricity turned oft' and had reverted to kerosene lamps. Gas for cooking was available to most of the communities, but only 3 percent of the long-unemployed families could afford to use it. In spite of the intense summertime heat in southern Illinois, half the long-unemployed families used no ice. Medical Care Southern Illinois long-unemployed families bear their full share of illness. Deficient diets extended over any period of time will leave their mark; and the insecuiity and worry of long unemployment can 50 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS contribute to a variety of disorders. Moreover, when illness does come to the families of long-unemployed workers it is likely not to be properly treated. Many of their small disorders grow into chronic undiagnosed ailments simply because the families cannot afford proper medical care. All these difficulties produced a rather unusual record of disability among the long unemployed in the coal towns. During the year ending June 30, 1939, the members of the families interviewed were disabled for an average of 25 days each.^'' The cash outlay for medical care absorbed about 5 percent of total cash expenditures of the long-unemployed families, and in a full year it cost an average of about $23 per family. This outlay, however, took care of only a small part of the total charges made against the families for medical care. Accumulated debts for past medical care amounted to an average of $34 per family at the end of the period covered. In most cases the families accepted this debt as a real obligation against their future income. But there is a limit to credit for even such necessaries as medical care. Many of the services that the families needed they did without. Hospitahzation, for example, was quite out of the question for long- unemployed families. One unemploj^ed worker "nearly went crazy with the toothache all summer," but could not afford to get treat- ment. A schoolboy had to drop out of school for a whole year because the family could not buy glasses for him. In one family a diabetic had neither proper diet nor insulin. Many persons had not been able to buy false teeth after their own were extracted. And there were instances in almost every family of home treatment for illness which would ordinarily call for medical care. Other Xeeds Several other types of wants have a necessary claim on the long- unemployed families' income. Transportation, which in most families involves nothing more than rides from home to the WPA project and back, is a substantial and inescapable item. The cost of household operation is somewhat reduced by the cheap fuel available in all the coal towns — where "gophei-hole" coal sells for as little as $1.50 a ton; but even so, the cost of fuel and lights still absorbed 6 percent of the famil}^ income. The families had also cut their expendi- '0 It should be borne in mind that tlie families studied were not "unemploy- able," but that each contained one available worker or more. The National Health Survey discovered that during 1935 and 1936 the average annual disability per person in the population at large was 9.8 days, and that among relief recipients generally the average was 16.3 days. See Division of Public Health Methods, The National Health Survey: 1935-19S6, Preliminary Reports, Bulletin No. 2, Sickness and Medical Care Series, National Institute of Health, U. S. Public Health Service, Washington, D. C, 1938, p. 4. LONG UNEMPLOYMENT • 51 tures for furniture and household equipment to the absohite minimum, but they could not eliminate this cost. Replacement of worn-out equipment, particularly worn-out stoves, took up 5 percent of all the expenditures of the long-unemployed families, and the biweekly installment payment to the furniture store was one of their more common obligations. All of these supposedly minor and supposedl}^ nonessential items, together with a meager expenditure for recreation (1 percent) and for "other" expenses, took one-fourth of all the cash outlay of the long-unemployed families. Hand-to-Mouth Livins The long-unemployed families do not make allowance for all the miscellaneous needs that must in the course of time absorb a consider- able part of their incomes. Certain needs are constant — food, for example, and electric lights, rent, transportation, and recreation. These items are, in practical terms, the families' necessities, and they absorb most of every pay check. But there are occasional needs that can no more be avoided than the grocery bill itself. The doctor's bill is one of these items, and prescriptions, clothing, replacement of household equipment, and repairs to roofs, floors, windows, and the like are others. With most of the monthly income alread}^ spoken for, these unexpected needs will in most cases throw the families into debt. And no sooner is one debt paid than others must be assumed, so that the families live perpetually in the midst of a struggle^ to pay off their small obligations. There is another difficulty. Expenditures among the long unem- ployed are natm-ally gauged to their full monthly income. But sometimes there are misfortunes. A WPA worker may lose time through bad weather, or illness, or failure to be transferred to a new project, or he may be laid ofl" altogether. From time to time every long-unemployed family must draw less than the expected full pay. In this situation, the budget is invariably thi-own out of gear. Again the family must go into debt, and frequently nothing but the comer grocer's credit will stand between it and hunger. Any approach to the broader questions of the southern Illinois depressed area must take into account the current economic predica- ment of the long unemployed. The families are without reserves of any sort. Nearly all are in debt for their current needs," and they live 1' There are two types of debts among the long unemployed. There are the "old debts," running to as high as $1,000 in a single family, accumulated in most cases during the years when there was no relief for the unemployed. The extent of old debts is amazing; a small corner grocery in one coal town, for example, had bad deljts amounting to $40,000. There is no chance whatever that the old debts can be repaid. The other type, the "current debt," which is kept distinct from the old debt, is far smaller, and is recognized as a real obligation. a OF ILL LIB. 52 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS from day-to-day. Self-initiated remedies for the predicament of the long unemployed have thus long since become impossible. The back- to-the-fai-m movement, for example, would require capital which the families do not have and could not get. Spontaneous migration of family units must likewise be ruled out as a possible solution, for migration also requires reserves which the families simply do not possess. Chapter IV THE DECLINE OF THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS COAL INDUSTRY W HEN UNEMPLOYED southern Illinois coal miners explain the causes of the predicament in which they now find themselves, they invaiiably begin with the statement: "There is notliing here but just coal." The statement is almost literall}' true. There is, of course, some agriculture. Farm land in the three counties is generally poor, however; average farm income is exceedingly low; and a con- siderable part of the coal field has never been put under cultivation. Compared with coal, agriculture is a minor contributor to the economic life of the community. There are also a few primary manufacturing establishments — a flour mill, a packing house, a brick plant — but their total pay roll has scarcely exceeded 200 workers at any time within the past 15 years. The rest of the working population is dependent upon either the mines, the industries which are subsidiary to mining, or the area's trade and local service industries. The fortunes of the coal industrj^ and the fortunes of Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties are inseparable.^ THE NATION-WIDE COAL DEPRESSION Overexpansion of Mine Capacity The underlying causes of the long depression in southern Illinois are the difficulties which beset the bituminous coal industry throughout 1 The recent discovery of oil near Benton, in Franklin County, does not alter this fact. Ironically enough, the first effects of the discovery were more detri- mental than helpful. Few of the local unemployed found work on the drilling crews which suddenly went to work all over the coal field, for these crews were manned almost altogether with skilled workers originally brought from Texas and Oklahoma. The influx of these migrants intensified the already critical shortage of housing in the coal towns. The community wiU apparently not even benefit greatly from royalties, since the great bulk of the mineral rights are of course owned by the absentee coal operators. 53 54 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS the United States. Since the turn of the century bituminous coal mining has been "unstabihzecl." During the period of a rapidly expanding coal market (1900-1918) the productive capacity of the coal industry was developed faster than coal consumption. Antici- pating futiu-e profits through occasional coal famines and through a constantly expanding market, optimistic investors not only continued to pour unneeded capital into the industry but also failed to abandon inefficient operations. Overexpansion of capacity led in turn to bitter and prolonged price wars. In order to keep the mines working and thus protect their investment against heavy shutdowTi losses, operators were forced in slack times to dump coal on the market for whatever it would bring. The many prewar attempts to control competition among the operators, whether by merger or trade agree- ment, were unsuccessful; and the industry was already in serious difficulty as it entered the wartime boom. High coal prices durmg the World War intensified the top-heavy condition of the soft-coal industry. Wlien the wartime peak of 579 million tons in production was reached in 1918, America's coal-mine capacity (i. e., the output possible under 280 days operation) had risen to 650 million tons. After the war was over and output began to declme, capacity continued to grow. The postwar shift in produc- tion from the union fields to the nonunion fields m Kentucky and West Virgmia resulted in the development of hundreds of new mines not justified by the demand for coal. By 1923 mine capacity had risen to 885 million tons, while production stood at 565 million tons.^ Loss of Markets Just when overexpansion reached its height in the years after the war, the coal industrj^ suddenly began to lose markets. Petroleum, natural gas, and hydroelectric power became serious competitors with coal for both the industrial and the domestic fuel trade. In 1918 these three sources of power had supplied only 18 percent of the total energy consumed in the United States. But by 1922 they supplied 32 percent, and in 1927 their share further increased to 36 percent. Bituminous coal fought a losing battle; between 1918 and 1927 its share in the total energy consumed dropped from 70 percent to 55 percent.^ Simultaneously, American industry began to make substantial improvements in fuel-bmiiing efficiency. Railroads, which consume more bituminous coal than any other industry, had burned 174 pounds of coal per 1,000 ton-miles in 1920. By 1927 the consumption 2 Bureau of Mines, Minerals Yearbook, U. S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C, 1936, p. 562. 3 Ibid., 1937, p. 810. DECLINE OF THE COAL INDUSTRY • 55 of coal for the same amount of hauling was only 131 pounds, a decrease of one-fourth. Central electric power stations, another large con- sumer of coal, burned 3.04 pounds of coal per kilowatt-hour in 1920, but bimied only 1.84 pounds in 1927, a decrease of 39 percent. Increased efficiency in fuel burning was also recorded for the manu- factui-e of cement and pig h'on.* Liquidation of Surplus Capacity In the face of this situation liquidation of surplus coal capacity was inevitable. The postwar iccord for coal production in the United States was set in 1926, when total output reached 573 million tons. Three years before this record was made, however, the industry began a rapid deflation in terms of both mines and men. Between 1923 and 1926, 138 million tons of mine capacity were abandoned, and 100,000 min2 percent monthly. During the next 2 or 3 years, the mine where Mr. E. worked shut down several times, and during the winter it frequently hoisted only 2 days a week. Mr. E. made his first five payments successfully, but defaulted for the next 5 months. When he resumed his payments, the first six installments went for fines and inter- est; then for several months he was able to retire the premium at the rate of about $6 a month. In 1929 he was laid off again, and this process was repeated. The outcome was that in 1931, after paying in about $700, his debt to the asso- ciation was still slightly more than $700. "Then I just moved out — didn't even wait for them to evict me." 4. Mr. F. moved into one of the coal towns in 1925, and took over a $1,500 house previously occupied by another miner who had moved away. The house had two debts, one to the company which owned the lot, the other to the Building and Loan Association. The previous purchaser had already paid in $1,000 on the first and $480 on the second debt. Through the checkoff, Mr. F. soon retired the first debt at the rate of $40 a month. He then concentrated on monthly payments of $13.75 to the association. Between 1925 and 1932 he paid in about $1,100 on the house. In 1932 he lost his job, but continued his payments until his money was exhausted in 1933. Then he defaulted but "hung on" to the house. His tenacity was rewarded, for in a few months, "when everything was going bust," the building and loan failed. rm Seciiriti/ Administration (Rotlistein) . "We used to have one of the livest little towns yon ever saw." Abandoned Stores in Zeigler, 111. COMMUNITY BANKRUPTCY • 79 For 4 years he heard nothing of his obligation. But in 1937 he received a letter from a "loan agency" stating that it had bought the assets of the association, and that a debt of S967.63 on the house "must be terminated very soon." Mr. F. estimates that the house is now worth about $200. House Wrecking It may be gathered from these incidents that the building and loan associations suddenly found themselves in possession of a large number of repossessed coal-town houses. For a short time, they were able to dispose of these houses to new borrowers. Between 1927 and 1931. however, so many unemployed miners either migrated from the coal field, or doubled up to save on rent and electric lights, that the real-estate market was soon loaded down with himdreds of vacancies. Houses could be neither rented nor sold outright. Least of all could they be closed out under the building-and-loan plan; the miners had become embittered over theii- losses and were resolved not to enter such an agreement again. But while property depreciated, taxes went on as before. The building and loan associations were faced \^ith the necessity of selling the repossessed property' before tax collectors had taken what Uttle value remained. Many of the vacant houses were bemg damaged by small boys, or were being taken away board by board to repair the mmers' houses. Moreover, the existence of so man}' vacant houses reduced the value of property that was still occupied, a consideration to which coal-field entrepreneurs have always been highly sensitive. About 1930 the associations began selling the repossessed property for secondhand lumber. Houses already vacant were closed out in short order to out-of-town buyers who wrecked them and carted the lumber away. When a new vacancy occuri'ed, the \\Tecking-crew was on hand. Houses in which the dispossessed miners had invested $1,000 to $2,000 were sold for as Uttle as $25 to $50; and town lots that had cost the miners as much as $400 were forfeited to the State by the hundreds. In this way, some of the coal towns lost as much as one-third of their total number of houses. Local newspapers looked ^^dth unconcealed favor on this process. "The sooner that these vacant houses are taken away," said one, "the better it \\iB. be for the property that is left. Every time one is pulled do\\Ti, its value proves to enhance the value of other property." They pointed to the fact that when the repossessed houses were imoccupied, they constituted a "fire hazard"; and on the other hand, when they were occupied by "squatters," they tended to "breed disease and sickness." However that might be, the fact was that the number of houses in the coal towns diminished more rapidly than the population. If one of the main purposes of house v^-recking was to eliminate the surplus 80 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS of housing, this end was achieved. Within a few years, house wreckers had demolished not only the sui-phis of housing, but a substantial number of the houses actually needed for the population. Families of the unemployed took to crowding together more than ever, to living in tents, in shanties built on the garbage dump, in chicken houses, in vacant stores. At the end of the era of building-and-loan financing, the problem of insufficient housing had become one of the more pressing difficulties of the southern Illinois coal field. ^ The disposal of repossessed building-and-loan property to the house wreckers did not save the associations from bankruptcy. As soon as the flow of money into the associations started to waver, the stockholders natm-ally asked to \vithdraw their mvestment. The associations were thus forced to meet obligations for which they had no resources, other than paper profits and depreciated real property. Beginning in 1931 the associations started to fail throughout the coal field. Out of the 35 associations which had been operating at the peak of the home-loan business, only 6 continued in operation in 1936, and the activity of those was confined almost altogether to cleaning up the few loans still outstanding. THE BANK CRASH The phenomenal rise of funds deposited in the coal-town banks during and after the World War was succeeded by a period of "stabili- zation." The establishment of the Jacksonville Scale at the mines did not bring any fm'ther increase in bank deposits, but it did allow the banks to hold their wartime gains. In 1923 deposits reached 28 million dollars, then leveled oft" (appendix table 24 and fig. 16-C). The Condition of the BonUs in the 1920's There is some evidence that many of the coal-field banks actually had more money than they were able to invest wisely. In any case, a loan policy of unusual leniency appears to have been widely adopted. Some sections of the commimity found that unsecured "friendship" loans were easy to obtain, and a considerable amount of money went for such piu-poses.^ A present-day banker in the coal field reports * The 1940 Census count of vacant housing units in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties (preliminary figures) showed that 1.3 percent of the units were not occupied. In Harrisburg (Saline County) unoccupied dwellings were 0.9 percent of the total; in West Frankfort, 0.7 percent. These figures indicate crowding in the extreme; one must search far in the entire country- to find evidence of so extraordinary a housing shortage. ' An extreme example of this type of loan came to light in the liquidation pro- ceedings of a bank in Johnston City (Williamson Comity). The bank had loaned $5,000 Mithout security to Charlie Birger, the notorious coal-field gangster. Birger's note became worthless when he was hanged for his misdeeds in 1927. Carstens, Arthur and White, Ina, A Semi-Stranded Area, unpublished ms., Federal Emergency Relief Adniinistration, Washington, D. C, pp. 42 fif. COMMUNITY BANKRUPTCY • 81 that some bankers diii-ing the early 1920's had frequently made loans on real estate up to 150 percent of the value of the property. Even where no such fantastic policy was followed, the appraisal of the value of security offered for loans often tended to be optimistic. For a tune this practice of the less cautious bankers appears to have worked successfully enough. As long as the minors kept then- money on deposit and the borrowers met theu- obligations, the mterest income of the banks was increased and prosperity reigned. The banks under more conservative leadership necessarily operated under similar, if less extreme, circumstances. Within the community itself the principal loans were secm-ed either by town and farm real estate or by the notes of local merchants. Although farm mortgages were reasonably safe, loans on town real estate, even if held to only 50 percent of appraised value, were dangerous risks in view of the boom values which prevailed during the 1920's. When mine pay rolls were high, the local merchants enjoyed a spectacular prosperity and their credit was safe. But the merchants depended on credit extendetl to muiers, and credit could easily become bad debts. Other funds not loaned locally were generally diverted to heavy investments in "conservative" bonds; these, too, were vulnerable. Even the con- servative banks (except those with their fmids in farm mortgages)" were in no position to meet a rainy day. It was not until 1927, however, that the fissures in the coal-town batd^ing structure were first observed. Anticipating a major strike in 1927, the miners had started nearly a year in advance to build up their savings; and when the strike occurred on April 1, 1927, they began on schedule to withdraw their money. Two coal-town bank officials wlio soon saw that they could not pay the strike withdrawals legitimately, forged some bogus securities for the emergency. Along in the sununer of 1927 both bankers were caught and convicted. The community was scandalized, and took careful note of this incident. Three other banks closed during the strike year, but all the rest were able to meet the situation adequately. As soon as the strike was settled, heavy withdrawals stopped (fig. 16-C). But as time passed, ugly rumors began to circulate. For example, miners at work underground in a mine at Johnston City heard one day in the summer of 1928 that a West Frankfort bank was about to close its doors. Immediately all the miners dropped their tools and rushed into town to get their money. The bank paid off' in cash all afternoon. When the president offered a reward for the arrest of the person who 8 Saline County banks turned out to be the only sound banks in the coal field; and while Franklin and Williamson together lost 26 banks, Saline lost only 4. One main reason for the survival of the Saline banks was that the territory they served depended as much on farming as on mining, and hence absorbed the shock of the declining coal industry more easily than Franklin and Williamson. 82 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS started the rumor, the run stopped and the bank was saved for the time. A few months later two Franklm County banks decided to try con- soUdati ng their position by a merger. Again suspicion was aroused. Put on the defensive, the new company issued this somewhat incoher- ent explanation to depositors: Service is always a paramount goal of every well-balanced financial corpora- tion. There is a definite and pronounced trend toward an era of consolida- tions and mergers among financial institutions. Banks, insurance companies, investment companies, and other organizations dealing in money and credit are proceeding on the theorj^ of the old adage — "in union there is strength" — and the credit fabric of the State and Nation is given greater expansive power and elasticity by means of these combinations. With these facts in mind . . . the consolidation . . . has today been perfected and ratified. Four other mergers and reorganizations were hurriedly put through in the three counties during 1929. It was too late for patching up the structure. The pinch had come, and the miners were withdrawing the savings they had put away for hard times. To meet these new demands, the banks found their portfolios filled with all too many defaulted notes, real-estate mort- gages that could never be repaid, and depreciated bonds. The Collapse The Herrm State Savings Bank, after doing business for more than a quarter of a century, finished the year 1928 with nearly half a million dollars on deposit. In 1929 unemployed miners drew heavily on their savmgs and reduced their accounts to $380,000. Withdrawals con- tinued through the first months of 1930 until finally deposits stood at $275,000. One Wednesday morning earh^ in April 1930 residents of Herrin saw that a typewritten notice had been stuck on the front door, announcing that the bank was undergoing ''examination and readjust- ment." In Johnston City, 6 miles away, the same notice had been posted that morning at the larger of the toMm's two banks. Before the day was over runs had started on every bank in Williamson County. Several days later one of the Williamson Coimty newspapers, speaking for the threatened coal-town entrepreneurs, did its bit to stop the withdrawals: Professional and business men point out that where money is taken from a bank and hidden in the home, there is danger of total loss by fire, burglary, or robbery, and that at the worst one never suffers total loss if the money is left safely in the bank.' The same issue reported that "confidence in the bank situation was ' Nearly a year later the newspaper was still pointing up news stories of bur- glaries with the moral, "Keep your mone}^ in the banks." COMMUNITY BANKRUPTCY • 83 being restored," but announced that four other Williamson County banks had just closed, bringing the week's total casualties to sLx. By the end of 1930 the 3 counties had lost 10 more of the 36 banks which operated at the first of the year. Active deposits fell from about 26 million dollars to 12 milhon dollars, partly because of the funds tied up in the 16 defunct banks and partly because of the continued drain on the stronger banks that managed to survive the year. Throughout 1931 the liquidation proceeded. Williamson County lost another bank and half of its total deposits. Franklm County lost thi-ee of its last seven banks, together with almost four-fifths of the deposits with which it started the year. (See appendix table 24.) The last of the large banks in Franklin County — the First National Bank of Zeigler — was saved only by the intervention of the Bell & ZoUer Coal & Mining Company, which bought control and hurried funds to Zeigler in time to stop a run on the bank. At the end of 1932 Franklin and Williamson Counties together had on deposit onlj^ 7 cents for each dollar held in 1928. All that remained in Franklin County was the one important bank at Zeigler and three small banks outside the coal towns. Williamson County had two small banks, neithei' of which had sufficient resources to handle more than a fraction of the county's bankmg business. Total deposits in the three counties had been reduced from 29 million dollars to 6 million dollars, of which three-fourths was held in the Saline County banks that had weathered the storm. The bank holiday of March 1933 came as something of an anticlimax in southern Illinois. By 1933 defunct banks m the three counties held 14 million dollars in frozen deposits. Not until 1934 were any substantial payments made on these claims against the banks, and even then the payments were equal to only about one-fourth of the total amount involved. Pay- ments continued, however, through 1935 and 1936 until roughly half of the deposits were repaid. During 1937 most of the receiverships were dissolved,^'' and a final deficit to depositors amomiting to approxi- mately 7 million dollars was wi'itten oft" the books. Postal Savings When the United States Postal Savings System was first established in coal-town post offices about 1910, local businessmen in the three counties hoped that as long as the foreign born refused to deposit their savings in local banks anyhow, they would at least be willmg to trust their money to "the Government's keeping." ''It is expected," they said, "that not nearly so much money will be sent out of the country hereafter." Actually, however, the Postal Savings System was 10 III the summer of 1940 a defunct bank in Johnston City, still in the courts, was about to make its first payment to depositors since April 8, 1930. 84 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS not popular with the miners. After 2 years of operation, there were only 131 postal depositors in the 3 counties. Even when the World War upset the flow of savings to Europe, postal savings gained little; the miners turned to the local banks instead. All during the 1920's the very existence of the postal system remained largely unrecognized. It was not until after the bank crash that the miners began to make use of the Postal Savings System; by that time it was too late to salvage very much of their money. During the first year of the crash, bank deposits declined 14 million dollars, but postal deposits increased only 1 million dollars. In 1931 deposits in banks dropped another 5 million doUars, while postal savings increased only about 1}^ million dollars. Postal savings did not reach their peak (4^ million dollars) until 1933, a year after the banking structure of Franklin and William- son Counties had been virtually wiped out. (See appendix tables 24 and 25 and fig. 16-C.) For whatever reason, the community had placed full confidence in the stewardship of its local entrepreneurs. The one avilable institu- tion which could have helped to cushion the shock was forgotten, and it actually helped very little. The chief function of postal savings was to provide a place of safekeeping for what httle money could be scraped together from the ruins of the banks. BANKRUPT GOVERNMENTS The increase in the coal-field tax income after 1918 had permitted the expansion of schools, roads, "charities," local improvements, and all the services so urgently needed by the newly grown-up community. These expanded fimctions required, in turn, still further increases in tax revenue. A new school building, for example, meant that the school district must hire new and better teachers, as well as pay oflP the interest on the school bonds. In order to hold what gains had been won, the community had obligated itself for further increases in its future tax revenues. In the early 1920's the job of providing the community with ade- quate social equipment had still scarcely begun. One improvement suggested another. When a new high-school building had been completed, there was less justification for neglecting the city hall, or the county poor farm, whose condition was a chronic scandal. Road construction was a job for two decades. In the middle 1920's many of the coal towns still had unpaved streets, no central water supply, no adequate sewage system. Counties and townships were required by the State to set up still other functions, such as increased aid to the blind. COMMUNITY BANKRUPTCY • 85 Tax Income in the Early 1920's It was altogether natural, then, that the coal-field tax levy should have risen steadily after the war. In 1919 the tax income for the three counties passed 2 million dollars for the first time; in 1922 it passed the 3-million-dollar mark; and in 1925 it reached nearly 4 milHon dollars (appendix table 22 and fig. 1 6-D) . But in spite of the increased tax income, local govei-mnent officials were finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet. In Franklin County, for example, the collapse of real-estate promotion schemes in 1922 had disrupted the finances of several towns, leaving firemen, policemen, and street main- tenance workers unpaid. Williamson County had similar difiiculties. The extraordinary expenses of the sheriff's and coroner's offices during the Ku Klux Klan civil war threw the county into considerable debt and revealed how precarious its fiscal base actually was. Experts who examined the count}^ records cautioned the oflScials as early as 1925 that ''strictest economy" would be necessary and recommended the budgeting of accounts, but the problem was too large to be solved in this simple way. A short "economy" drive was launched, however, in 1926, and the tax levy was reduced to encourage this eft'ort. But when the time came actually to cut expenses the local officials could think of no methods more far-reaching than moving the sheriff's offices to the jail to save rent, cutting the "pur- chase of food supplies for the county farm," and "extreme caution" in "helping paupers, so-called." After 1 j^ear of such economy' the levy was raised again. Unpaid Taxes If local government officials could not keep their house in order during the last years of the coal boom, thej were to face an utterly impossible task when the boom ended. In 1927 all the other difficul- ties of the local tax bodies were reduced to insignificance by a new and unexpected development: property holders began neglecting to pay their taxes. Collections slipped a little further behind in 1928, and warrants drawn on the local tax funds decreased in value. The need of outside help for the hard-pressed local governments had reached the point of "urgency," according to a private auditor of the counties' affairs. Tax forfeitures became far more serious in 1929. Warrants issued against the Williamson County general fund were discounted 20 percent. More trouble developed as the unemployed made increasing demands on the meager pauper-relief funds. The tone of the auditor's annual report now carried a note of hopelessness and panic. But this was only the beginning. The schools were hard hit for the first time by the disappointing 1930 school-tax collections, which reduced their revenue by nearly one-fom'th. The closing of the banks in 86 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Franklin and Williamson Counties during 1930 tied up a large part of the public money, stopping salaries of teachers and county officials and payment to paupers. In Saline County, where the banks stayed open, the extraordinary expenses for relief drained the local treasuries. wStill forfeitures increased. By 1931, even after some of the frozen bank deposits had been released, Franklin and Williamson Counties were unable to borrow in advance on anticipated taxes. In the judg- ment of the few local banks that still operated, the credit of the local tax bodies had become totally worthless. After 1931 the whole tax system stalled. The coal companies, of course, continued for the most part to pay their taxes, but they had won sharp reductions in both assessed valuations and levies and had thus cut their tax bill by more than one-third. Large numbers of farmers, particularly those whose land was superior, also kept their taxes clear. But in the towns, where the majority of the taxes were levied, and on the poorer farm land, property owners by the thousands simply stopped paying taxes altogether. Such a large proportion of the population was involved in tax delinquency that the sheriffs were not able to take any action to force collection. Although each newly elected sheriff pledged himself to collect the back taxes of the ''well-to-do" delinquents, the job of separating the well-to-do from those truly unable to pay turned out to be impossible, and the various drives for bringing in collections were all dropped after a month or two of threatening publicity. The spread of tax delinquency led to a general breakdown of most of the functions of the local governments. Pauper-relief resources diminished rapidly, while need increased. The local governments eventually threw up their hands and called on outside help to save the unemployed from starvation. The schools remained open, but teachers were dismissed by the score; buildings fell into disrepair, and the teachers who were retained had to work as long as a full year without pay. School and county warrants were cashed regularly for 50 cents on the dollar and frequently for less. The sheriff of Williamson County refused to serve papers unless his fees were paid in advance: And by fee I don't mean county orders; I mean cash. I have 8 thousand dollars in county orders now that I can't get money for, and it takes money for us to buy gasoline to drive all over the county serving papers. The town of Benton turned off the city lights, cut the police force to 1 underpaid employee (for 8,000 people), stopped work on the streets, and reduced the fire department to the minimum required by the insurance companies. Towns throughout the coal field followed suit. "The town," said a local paper, "has no money with which to pay for the expensive tastes the people cultivated when dollars were literally growin"' on trees." r COMMUNITY BANKRUPTCY • 87 The decline of tax revenues was not simply a temporary phase; local officials soon recognized that there was no hope, granted the existing tax base, of collecting revenues adequate for the needs of the community. A great deal of the property valuation in the towns had been destroyed by the building-and-loan house-wrecking policy, and the depression had brought a general reduction m valuation and levies on the remaining properties. Many of the townspeople who had forfeited theu- taxes over a period of years were eventually able to resume payments on a current basis. But by law any tax payments were credited to back taxes, w^hich in many instances were so great that they exceeded by far the value of the property itself. Rather than attempt to clear their property of all back taxes, property holders who might have kept up current taxes paid nothing at all. At one time the local governments attempted to have all back taxes written off the books in order that current taxes could be collected; the Attorney General of the State, however, ruled that the procedure was not legal. According to tlie latest figures available, the tax structure of the coal field is still hopelessly shattered. Williamson County Commissioners discovered in 1936 that the clerical cost of carrying back taxes on the records was one-fourth of the total income from the county levy. Taxes were not paid in Wilhamson County in 1936 on 31 percent of all lands, on 49 percent of personal property, and on 67 percent of the town lots. Coal towns in Franklin and Williamson Counties showed tax forfeitures in 1937 as follows: Percent of all lots Town with taxes unpaid Herrin 71 Johnston City 77 West Frankfort 71 Zeigler 70 Even in Salme County, which remained comparatively solvent through the depression, tax delinquency is serious in terms of ordinary stand- ards. Eldorado taxpavers, for example, were in arrears on 21 percent of the town lots in 1937, and in Carrier Mills the rate of forfeiture was 28 percent. In order for the community to carry on its fimctions at all, State and Federal Governments have been called upon to supply an ever increasing part of the necessary money. Local responsibility for unemployment relief broke down before the coal depression was well mider way. The three counties were able to contribute only 10 percent toward their direct relief cost during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1939. Old-age assistance, which now costs about 1 million dollars a year, is borne principally by revenues derived outside the three counties. The Federal Government pays the wages of the thousands employed on the work programs. In order to maintain • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS acceptable school standards, the State has been forced to provide a larger and larger share of the school costs; in 1937, mdeed, the State paid somewhat over half of the money required to rmi the schools. Long-postponed local improvements, which are vital to the weHare of the community but which the community itself could not con- ceivably finance, could not have been carried forward without the WPA. Chapter VI ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION B ETWEEN 1923 and 1933 the southern Illinois coal field evolved by slow stages from an active, booming mining community to one beset at every turn with deep-seated economic difficulties. Since the general causes of this state of affairs involve the whole bituminous coal mdustry and are Nation-wide in scope, the community itself has been helpless to halt the decline. Recognizing that the coal depres- sion was beyond local control, the community was forced to turn in upon itself to seek a solution for^ts growing difficulties. While some of these attempts have met with modest success, they have not con- tributed greatly to the solution of the basic economic problems of the community.' ATTEMPTS TO CHECK MINE UNEMPLOYMENT Unemployment of mmers in southern Illinois resulted either from the displacement of labor, following the mstallation of loading ma- chines, or from the abandonment of mines. Coal miners facing unem- ployment accordingly had two distmct problems, depending upon the prospects of their individual mines. If a mine stood a good chance to continue working, the miners' problem was to keep out the ma- chines. For those mines on the verge of bankruptcy, on the other hand, the problem was to work out arrangements for carrying on operations. 1 We leave out of account here such activities as bootlegging, which residents of up-State Illinois erroneously believed to be one of the principal occupations of unem])loyed miners. There was of course some illegal liquor traffic in the coal field, but it appears to have been a poor business in the dark days of the depres- sion, for — among other reasons — few could afford to buy. We also omit the various activities based on the principle that the unemployed might solve their problems by selling magazine subscriptions, collecting coat hangers, cleaning tombstones, making flowerpots out of tin cans, and other "ingenious" attempts to create services which no one wanted. 89 90 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Attempts to Eliminate the Machines When southern Illinois coal operators first began to install mechani- cal loading equipment in 1925 and 1926, no wage scale for the new occupation of operating the machines had been agreed upon. The miners, sensing from the start that the machines would eventually "revolutionize" the southern Illinois coal industry and create wide- spread teclmological unemployment, first took their stand against the machines on the question of the wage scale for machine operators. Miners who load coal by hand work on a tonnage rather than an hourly basis, and the first thought of the miners was that the new loading machines should also be operated under a tonnage wage scale. At the negotiations to fix loading-machine wages in 1926, this position was advanced by the scale committee of the Illinois union. Although the union conceded that the machine rate might be somewhat lower than the prevailing hand-loading scale, the practical effects of its demands would have been the prevention of mechanization in the field. As it developed, however, the operators were pressing for a wage reduction. The eventual outcome was a compromise in which the miners won a renewal of the prevailing wage and the operators won an hourly wage scale (considerably higher than average) for the loading machines. From this time on, the international and the Illinois union offered no resistance to mechanization as such, but took the position instead that the benefits of the machines should be passed on to the miners through a shorter workday. The miners at the face, however, frequently had a different view of the matter. They knew from experience that after an operator installed machines, reduced earnings and increased unemployment would inevitably follow. It appeared to them that the way to avoid the effects was to attack what appeared to be the causes. Accord- ingly, there developed a general antagonism against the machines themselves, leading on several occasions to unauthorized strikes in an attempt to prevent their installation. In October 1928 some 1,800 miners at New Orient went out on strilce to prevent mechanical loading devices from coming into the mine. The miners demanded that if the conveyors were set up, "all employees should be given steady work." The strike, which was not supported by the subdistrict union, was short-lived; within a few days the miners returned to work. A few months later 400 of the 1,800 miners were displaced. Two years later the Committee for the Elimination of Mining Ma- chinery was formed in southern Illinois to urge that all miners "cease work on loading machines and conveyors." The committee set a strike day and sent speakers to every mme local in Franklin and Wil- liamson Counties to build support. But again the subdistrict union did not sanction the action and the strike was a total failure. ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 91 All local action against the machines eventually failed with one exception. Following the 1932 strike tw^o of the larger Saline County operators agreed that no machines would be worked or installed at their mines. Later on, however, this agreement was also lost (though two of the mines covered in the contract were never mechanized be- cause of engineering difficulties). Since 1933 the machines have been accepted as inevitable. Except for sporadic "slowdown" strikes and occasionally a refusal to reopen bankrupt mines on a machine basis, the miners have not since opposed machine loading in southern Illinois. Attempts To Reopen Abandoned Mines Mine abandonment, as we have seen, was a far more serious cause of unemployment than the introduction of machine loading. Usually mine abandonment was presented to the miners as inevitable. Many of the larger operators decided to close certain of their mines because of lack of a market, about which the miners themselves could of course do nothing. At other mines the coal territories had been either flooded or completely worked out. There were several small bankrupt mines in southern Illinois, however, which the miners did attempt to keep operflting. A mine crew's wage claims play an important part in the reorganiza- tion of defunct mines. Wages are paid in southern Illinois on the basis of 2 weeks' work, but the actual money is not forthcoming im.til another 2 weeks have passed. Wlien an operator goes into bank- ruptcy, the miners ordinarily get no notice until "a pay is missed," that is, imtil their pay for the period ending 2 weeks earlier is defaulted. Meanwhile, the miners have put in $20,000 to $60,000 worth of w^ork. After bankruptcy, claims for the amoimt defaulted are placed against the receiver, who cannot reopen the mme until he has settled this claim to the satisfaction of the men. In spite of the miners' wage claims, the receiver ordinarily has the advantage when negotiating for reopening the mine. The miners by this time have usually been unemployed for 6 months to a year and a half,^ and are anxious to go back to work. Of course they are also very much m need of the month's missed pay. In this situation, the miners have often been wUling to make large concessions to get then- mine operating again. In reopening bankrupt marginal mines, one of two plans was ordi- narily adopted. Sometimes the miners would draw their missed pay in cash, and then go back to woi-k at w-hat amounted to lower wages. The other plan was to go back to w^ork without wage concessions, 2 Operators planning to "miss a pay" usually do so in February or March, at the beginning of the annual slump. Ordinarily attempts to reopen a defunct mine begin in the fall at the start of the coal season. 92 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS either disouised or otherwise, but to make concessions on the missed pay, taking partial payment for full settlement, or agreeing that the debt be paid off a little at a time. In each case it was usually agreed that the mine crew would put in 1 or 2 months' work without pay. cleaning up the mine before reopening. It is obvious that under each of these plans the miners were really subsidizing marginal operations. Well aware of this fact, they assumed that after a time these mines would be able to stand without help. Actually, however, such a time never came at most of the reopened bankrupt mines, and the miners were eventually faced with the choice of either granting more and more concessions, or of halting their subsidy and closing the mines. As a result, most of the attempts to open bankrupt mines failed, A mine crew at West Frankfort, which tried to keep its mine operating at all costs, missed a pay each spring for 6 years in succession, then closed down. Most of the crews at bankrupt mines, however, refused to work indefinitely under such conditions. At a marginal mine in Benton, for example, the miners worked for a full year at wages equal to 70 percent of the union scale, then demanded the full scale and closed the mine down rather than continue their subsidy. An^^ther mine crew at Johnston City voted to remain unemployed rather than make an agreement to spend their pay from the reopened mine at the company store. Another mine carrying a debt on two missed pays was closed because the mine crew was unwilling to make further concessions to the operator until 10-year-old wage claims were paid. In addition to granting concessions to marginal operators, the minei's on various occasions attempted to take over bankiupt mines and to operate them cooperatively. Failure greeted each of these ventures. The equipment available for cooperative mining was usually inade- q uate ; the miners encountered other difficulties when they attempted to market their output; and at times the plan was disrupted by quarrels among the cooperators. When royalties and jobbers' fees had been paid, the miners frequently found that they had been working for less than half of full union wages. After struggling along for a season or so, the miners let their leases pass to private operators. Sharing the Work at the Mines The miners' attempts either to eliminate coal-loading machinery or to reopen bankrupt mines failed to check in any real measure the growth of unemployment in the southern Illinois coal field. The local problem was thus soon reduced to one of amelioi-ating the hard- ships of unemployment. Except for some meager unemployment benefits, the miners' eft'orts in this direction consisted mainly of the adoption of the policy of sharing work at the mines when a reduction of ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 93 crew became necessaiy. Displacement of labor by loading machines has been cushioned at every mechanized mine in southern Illinois by the use of "divided time." The policy was accepted by the miners to be the lesser of two evils, and it has long been written into the union contract. In spite of obvious advantages, the policy did not increase actual employment and hence did not help to solve the general problem of unemployment in the coal field. Frequently, divided time has entailed considerable hardship for the miners. When the mines on divided time were not working regularly, the policy reduced the earnings of the greater part of the workuig crew to a level below subsistence standards, and on occasion it actually increased the total relief load. Such a situation occurring in the sununer of 1938 helped to raise the WPA and relief rolls to a record peak for the three counties. (See fig. 20, p. 133.) Divided time, moreover, took care of only a very small proportion of the displaced miners. It did not, for example, help miners laid ofi" after a mine was abandoned. Although some of the younger workers from an abandoned mine belonging to a company with other mines working were sometimes rehired, company -wide share-the-w^ork plans were never an established practice; and workers not actually needed at other mines were not reemployed. Divided time is now largely a thing of the past. At one time the mechanized mines in southern Illinois had hundreds of surplus men dividing time with the rest of the crew. Many of them were elimi- nated after the 1932 strike. Divided time was subsequently extended as new machines were installed, but by 1941 it had almost "worked itself out" through deaths and resignations. In June 1940 the surplus men dividing time in the 3 counties had been reduced to only 66 workers.^ The "Gopher Holes" Nearly all of the coal mined in southern Illinois is produced at shipping mines,* large-scale operations which load coal for railway shipment to Chicago, St. Louis, and tluoughout the Midwest. Along- side the larger operations there has always existed a small makeshift coal-mining industry catering to the truck and wagon trade of near-by farmers and townspeople. ^Vlien the larger coal industry began to fail, one of the paradoxical results was a rapid expansion of the smaller submarsfinal industrv. » See footnote 10, p. 32. * In 1926 the shipping mines produced 98 percent of the coal output of the three counties; and in 1938, after the expansion of local mining, the shipping mines still produced 97 percent of the total output. 94 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS The gopher holes, which make up this smaller industry, are extremely poor producers. The coal seam they work consists mainly of leavings which were too thm and poor to attract the operators who first started large-scale mining in southern Illinois two generations ago. The seam averages only 3 to 5 feet in thickness where the gopher holes operate, so that mining and underground haulage is difficult. Because of the meager capital of the operators, none can afford to sink a slope more than 50 or 75 feet deep ; hence the mines are all located in the poor-grade coal near the outcrop.^ The primi- tive equipment of the mines usually consists of a couple of discarded pit cars from a larger mine, a few hundred feet of cable, a salvaged automobile motor for hoisting the coal, and a tipple made of scrap lumber. Most of the gopher holes have no undercutting machines, and practically all loading is done by hand. Many do not even have storage space at the tipple and cannot load or hoist unless someone is waiting at the tipple to buy a load of coal. Before 1929 the function of the gopher holes was merely to fill small local orders which the shipping mines did not care to handle; during this period gopher holes employed in their best years only 120 to 180 miners as against a peak of 36,200 in the shipping mines. After 1928, however, the development of hard roads in southern Illinois expanded the possible market of the local mines to include a radius of 100 miles, and they began in a small way to compete with the shipping mmes.^ Handling a low-grade coal, the small mines had to deliver coal in their new market at a price far below that of the larger mines. Although a part of this difference was made up through cheap trucking costs, coal from the local mines sold for half the price of deep-vein coal at the tipple, and sometimes less. This difference had to be absorbed through lower and lower wages at the local mines. The difficulties of the local mines were further increased by bitter competition among themselves. In spite of these conditions the number of gopher holes began to increase after 1929. As unemployment grew more and more critical, the wages and working conditions in the gopher holes became less unattractive to the miners. Makeshift tipples began to appear in every hollow along the outcrop. Unemployed miners and their sons ^ The entire gopher-hole industry is strung out east and west along the southern fringe of the No. 5 seam, which outcrops in tiie center of Williamson County and the south of Saline County. There are no gopher holes in Franklin County, where the overburden runs from 300 to 600 feet. * The local mines in Williamson and Saline Counties now sell most of the coal used in southern Illinois as far as the Ohio River and in southeastern Missouri in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau. They seldom truck as far as St. Louis, how- ever, because they cannot compete with the local mines in St. Clair County, lU., just across the Mississippi from St. Louis. ^•m Security Administration (Hothstein) . "An old engine, a piece of cable, and a stick of wood or two — that's all you need." A Gopher Hole Near Marion, 111. ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 95 would come out from town, lease a few acres of coal, and begin digging the slope themselves. In a few weeks they would start hoisting 5 or 10 tons of coal a day, which they would sell to the trucks for whatever it would bring. Sometimes a farmer in need of ready cash would start diggmg on his own land, and eventually hire a half dozen neigh- bors and relatives to help load out the coal. A few local enterprisers went into business on a more elaborate scale with undercutting machines, Diesel hoists, screening equipment, and a mining crew of as many as 40 men. In 1929 there were only 25 local mines, employing 151 men, in Saline and Williamson Counties. By 1932 the number of mines had increased to 75, and employment jumped to 444 miners, who loaded out 154,000 tons of coal for the year. In 1939 there were 106 local mines in the 2 counties, employing a total of 741 men. Tonnage in 1939 had increased to 547,000 tons, about equal to the output of one moderate-sized shipping mine in the coal field (appendix table 9) . In a few instances the rapid increase in the number of local mines clearly benefited the unemployed miners in southern Illinois. Several of the larger mines employ 25 to 40 men each, and maintain a wage scale considerably above relief standards, though somewhat below the union scale at the shipping mines. A few farmers have also raised their annual incomes by sinking small mines on their own land, thus supplementing summertime work on the farms with wmtertime work in the mines. By and large, however, the gopher holes have not had any apprecia- ble effect upon the unemployment problem of the coal field. For every new job created at the gopher holes, 20 jobs were being elimi- nated from the shipping mines. Moreover, a large number of gopher- hole miners scarcely make a living at their new occupation. Because the mines sell only to the domestic trade within a region where winter weather is mild, the work season includes no more than 5 fall and winter months each year, and the average time worked a year is about 120 days. Daily wages in some of the more primitive mines run as low as $1 a day or less, and seldom go higher than $4 a day. Many of the miners are not self-supporting dinring the work season, let alone during the 7 idle months of the year. AHEMPTS TO BRING IN INDUSTRY Residents of the southern Illinois coal field have long been aware of the precariousness of the area's economic base. Not very long after the first mines were sunk, local businessmen came to realize that the coal industry had its shortcomings. The panic of 1907 fell hard in southern Illinois, and even in the good years when the industry was growing steadily long periods of smnmertime imemployment were 96 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS common. Wliile local newspaper editors were computing in 1910 that the coal industry in the thi'ee counties would last another 7,369 years, they had already realized that coal alone would never make a stable community. Typical newspaper comments were: The mines are not the stable, every- day employers of labor which a town must have in order to grow. Diversified industries are sadly needed as the community at present is very much in the position of having all its eggs in one basket. It was agreed that new industries would have to be attracted; if they would not come of their own accord the community woidd have to offer inducements. After some years of fruitless waiting, the second of the alternatives appeared to be the only hope. What the Coal Field Had To OfFer Investors looking foi- a place to build a factory had no compelling reason for choosing the southern Illinois coal field. True enough, the district did have certain advantages. As one local newspaper put it: Much has been said relative to [this community's] excellent railroad or shipping facilities, its geographical location, its abundance of suitable factory land, its wonderful fuel advantages, and its water and electric possibilities. But these advantages were not unique. Good railroad connections, for example, could be found almost anywhere east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio Rivers, and ab\nidant "factory land" is in itself hardly an attraction for manufact\u-ers. Cheap fuel was obviously a talking point, but was a real advantage only if everything else were equal." Local publicity also made much of the central geographical location of the coal field. Actually, however, a glance at the map will show that its location is not particularly favored. Herrin is closer to Memphis than to Chicago, and closer to Atlanta than to Des Moines. It is at the edge and not in the center of the great midwestern market. A manufacturer looking for central location would have no reason to select southern Illmois in preference to St. Louis, Indianapolis, or any one of a dozen other established industrial centers lying north of the coal field. As for water "possibilities," the statement quoted made a virtue of a handicap. One of the difficulties in attracting industries to the coal field has been the lack of a dependable water supply. Periodi- cally, severe droughts strike southern Illinois, closing the mines and even hindering the operation of the railroads. The "possibilities" of ^ Fuel expenditures form a very small part of manufacturing cost, amounting to only "2.8 percent of the gross value of products manufactured." Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, Manufactures: 1929, Vol. I, (J. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C, 1933, p. 158. ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 97 storing water for the dry season were present, although it was not until 1939 that they were realized. The United States Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the WPA has recently completed the first of a series of storage reservoirs in southern Illinois which will now assure an abundant year-round water supply. Cheap wages are a familiar claim of areas which advertise to bring in outside industry. "Docile" and "contented" labor — as the euphe- mism of the copyivriters puts it — is a substantial attraction for pro- spective investors, and the regions which lay claim to an open-shop tradition have not been modest about saying so. Southern Illinois promoters could never make such a claim persuasively; they have always had great difficulty convmcing investors that low wages might be expected anywhere within the coal field. Even though investors were frequently assured that no attempt would be made to organize any new industry, the possibility of future collective bargaining still existed as long as the miners' union con- tinued to set the example. Almost anywhere outside of the closed- shop coal field the chances of eventually having to come to terms with employees were less. Most investors thus preferred to go else- where. The substantial industries which have been established in southern Illinois are aU located in such towns as Chester, Metropolis, Centralia, and Mount Vernon, at a discreet distance from the coal towns. It was believed in the coal field that the advantages and disad- vantages could be brought into closer balance if local subsidies to new industry were thrown into the scale. Subsidies, however, wei-e difficult to raise. Early episodes involving gifts to um-eliable manu- facturers had burned many fingers; and few people were anxious to repeat the experience, particularly when the mines were booming and prosperity seemed assured. When the long coal depression had begun, the idea of subsidies was revived, but although there was plenty of desperate enthusiasm at that time the scheme never seemed to work. "Land a Factory" The campaign to bring new industries to the coal field was crystal- lized in two extended drives, each involving mobilization of public support to raise money for subsidies. The first of these drives, begin- ning in 1912 and lasting until the beginning of the wartime coal boom, was precipitated by a lull in the local real-estate business following a prewar slump in the coal industry.* The "plan" involved in this 8 A real- estate-promotion firm with "important offices" in Birmingham, Ala., and Huntington, W. Va., played an important part in these prewar schemes, conducting sales in Benton, Christopher, West Frankfort, Harrisburg, and El- dorado. This firm was described in local newspapers as "a large operator in the location of factories and the sale of real estate in connection therein." 98 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS drive, which was engineered by local real-estate promoters, aimed to raise a subsidy fund painlessly through the sale of lots in new subdivi- sions. One town made contacts with a St. Louis stove manufacturer who wished to move to southern Illinois "on account of the cheap fuel facilities." In order to provide other inducements, a local real-estate dealer subdivided 150 lots in a section of tOA^m called "Factory Heights" and advertised that all money from the sale of lots above the actual cost of the land would be used to build a factory and railroad switches for the stove works. The purchase of the lots thus became a civic duty. It was also made clear that the lots would soon be worth "more than is now asked." At first these ventures went off successfully. Within a few days 270 lots were sold at $200 each. The town had raised enough money for the stove factory and for an automobile factory as well. "There is scarcely a man or woman," said a local newspaper, "who is not proud to have these skillful manipulators of mother earth among us to attract the commercial industries this way," In due time both the stove and automobile factories were installed and operating with a crew of about 100 men. But difficulties began to develop almost immediately. A pump factory which had signed an agreement to move to the coal town suddenly refused to carry out its agreement. The stove works ran for 2 years, then shut down. After changing hands many times the machinery was removed and the building was eventually given over to swallows and bats. The automobile factory closed down after turning out one automobile, and the factory building was given in quick succession to a watch factory and a skating rink, and then burnt down. High hopes turned to disillusionment. When the town was offered a shoe factory in 1918 for a $100,000 bonus, it declined, saying, "This town is not handing out any hundred-thousand-dollar packages." In another town, three real-estate dealers formed a "development company" and set out in 1913 to raise $100,000 for bonus money to bring in a glove, a piano, and a farm implement factory. Through the sale of city lots a total of $57,000 was pledged in a few months. Results were not soon apparent, however, and the drive began to lag. When the glove factory was eventually landed, the development company was unable to pay the bonus promised. Local citizens took over the development company and through straight contributions they were able to pay off the debt to the glove factory and erect a building for the piano factory as well. At this point the piano manu- facturer reneged, leaving the town with a vacant building on its hands. Eventually the glove factory closed down also. After this experience, the local newspaper remarked bitterly: AHEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 99 The episodes of [a promoter], of factory fame . . . have served to knock [this town's] sounding board out of tune. . . . Enthusiasm and the cold stern reality of raising several thousand dollars are considered to be two entirely different things. For more than a decade the idea of subsidizing local factories was dropped. The failure of the prewar drives for new industry had been discouraging to those who had paid out money for subsidies without getting any result. Meanwhile, the wartime coal boom had arrived, and prosperity based on coal alone seemed assured. Along about 1925, however, the first effects of the decline of the coal industry began to be felt, and the coal towns once more realized that new industries would be needed to absorb the workers who were rapidly being displaced from the mines. It was a sign of the times that women's literar}^ societies began to present programs like this: Creosoting Plant, by Mrs Brick Plant, by Mrs Ice Cream Plant, by Mrs. Music In vain the State Chamber of Commerce warned that "a concern that asks a bonus to locate a plant in your city is not worthy of coming." After 10 years of quiet the slogan, "Land a Factory," was in despera- tion again raised throughout the coal field. In 1926 one ol the coal towns began to negotiate for a factory with a manufacturer of pillowcases and sheets. The company's expansion plan, which involved the sale of $25,000 in stock to local people, was investigated by the to^^^^'s booster club and pronounced soimd. The company set up local offices and issued publicity emphasizing the fact that 30 girls would be employed and that money contributed would "be an investment rather than a subsidy." Trustees to protect the community's interest were appointed. But the sale of stock turned out to be difficult, and soon the campaign was forgotten. A Tieighboring coal towm was more successful. Through the coop- eration of all civic organizations, the town was able to erect a $35,000 brick building to house its "new textile industry." Miners and busi- ness people alike contributed time and money for the building. The manufacturer who agreed to occupy the building was also given gentle- manly guarantees by local unions that his workers would not be organized. "We knew that times were hard and if we tried to organize, he wouldn't have come at all." Late in December 1926 the plant was installed ^vith 56 machines "busily sewing and cutting various sizes of undenvear." Meanwhile, the towns around the edge of the coal field began to land factories at an impressive rate. In 1928 an open-shop town just outside the coal field paid $50,000 for a glove factory. A towm to the north of the coal field had raised $125,000 for a shoe factory; to the 100 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS south it was reported that a rayon factory had been landed, l^ocal newspapers mformed the people m the coal toA\Tis that 35 factories had located in southern Illinois between November 1927 and April 1929. Speaking before a coal-to^v^l audience, a field representative of the State Chamber of Commerce predicted that "southern Illinois would become the center of the manufacturing world within the space of a few years." He urged the enthusiastic local Chamber of Com- merce to "pull for new industries" on the basis of its "excellent trans- portation" and its "super power system." The grovv^mg pressure of unemploynieiil and the success of the campaigns lor factories in near-by towns brought the coal field's second drive for outside industry to a climax in 1929. "The industrial fever," said a newspaper, as drives were launched tlu-oughout the coal field, "has taken hold of the people in this section of the State." The record of the campaign waged by one of the tOAvns shows how desper- ately new industry was pursued. "Sink or Swim" The town began to bai-gain in February 1929 with an Ohio overall manufacturer who promised employment for 150 to 200 people, pro- vided the town raised $85,000 for the plant. After a railroad offered a free site for the factory, a local improvement association set out in March to raise the money required. The drive started oft' well enough. Carpenters offered to donate labor on the building, and other workers pledged a substantial part of a year's wages. The project was endorsed by 13 unions, 3 lodges, and 3 banks. The newspaper carried a full list of contributors, together with frequent warnings and exhortations: This overall factor}- drive is a fight for our ver}' existence. Some years ago the people of [this town] set about to build up a live city and succeeded as long as the coal mining industry was thriving. Work in the mines is not so good now. What of the future? What of the daj^ when this countrj^'s last mine has hoisted its last ton of coal, far distant as that day may be? As the drive progressed, it was rumored that a near-by to"wn had made the overall manufactm'er a better ofter. The association responded by urging local citizens to hurry with their pledges. Shall this be another "Tale of Two Cities," one checked by a disloyal few and sliding back into obscurity, the other welcoming opportunities and building to greater heights? Shall [we] fail? It's now or never, sink or swim. All through the summer the drive continued. When the manu- facturer telegraphed, "Must have contract completed June 15," the association redoubled its eft'orts. There was open criticism of a ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 101 "disloyal few, including a few businessmen or concerns" who did not support the drive wholeheartedly. June 15 passed, and the manu- facturer impatiently granted more time. Early in the fall of 1929 it was announced that money was still coming in. Optimism continued as architects began to prepare the blueprints for the factory building. The same type of campaign was pursued throughout the coal field. Late in 1929 a local newspaper summarized the status of drives going on simultaneously in five coal towns: [One town] is making a bid for a factory and held a meeting this week to consider a proposition tendered them. . . . The proposition is a pants factor}^ which will employ- 150 persons. [Another town] is about to close up their overall factory proposition. . . . [A third town] is open-minded and willing to "talk turkey" on most any sort of an industry the community could handle. [A fourth town] is dickering with a stove factory [to occupy the vacant building erected in the 1913 drive]. The citizens of [a fifth town] have taken kindly to the overall factory and the general committee is working hard to sell the required amount of stock to secure the factor3^ . . . These industries are a much needed thing hi order to take care of the rapid accumulation of surplus labor. This summary appeared on October 23, 1929, the week of the stock- market crash. It was the last optimistic note ; within a few weeks all hope of bringing factories to the coal towns was gone. The drive in the one town to raise $85,000 for an overall factory reached the halfway mark late in 1929. On November 15 it was reported that bids for the factory building would be asked "in a few days." But the bids were never opened and the campaign quickly died. In the town which sought to raise $40,000 for another overall manufacturer, the quota was eventually reported filled. On November 20, however, it was discovered that another $2,000 was needed for moving expenses. The last $2,000 could not be raised, and this campaign was also soon forgotten. The less advanced drives were simply dropped. As the depression came on, residents of the coal towns learned that industries were as hard to keep as they were to get. The most sub- stantial result of the second campaign for industry was the undei-wear factory wliich opened in the coal field in 1926. This plant continued to operate until the first years of the depression. Then one morning in 1931 people passing the factory noticed that the macliines were all gone. The manufacturer, remembering that the residents of the town had put $35,000 into the factory building, had departed quietly during the night. Another coal town lost a grocery chain's large central warehouse, which moved unexpectedly to a town beyond the coal field in order to take advantage of the offer of a free new building and "escape the influence of the trade unions." 102 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS After the fiasco of the 1929 land-a-factoiy adventures coal-town people reconsidered the wisdom of schemes to entice reluctant manu- facturers by means of either subsidies or acquiescence in substandai'd wages.*^ For a period of 10 years, they also lost all their enthusiasm for campaigning; and it was not until late in 1939 that efforts to land outside industry could be formally organized again. The new organi- zation, called "Southern Illinois, Inc.," approaches the problems of the community soberly. It offers no subsidies; it seeks to bring only "sound industries that belong in southern Illinois"; it cautions the people to expect no miracles, for "to assume that success is assured is foolish," and results will only come "if Southern Illinois, Inc., is per- mitted to carry on a permanent, dogged, persistent, and determined campaign." The following list of the industries, aside from coal mining, agricul- ture, and the sei'vices, which existed in the three counties in 1935 illustrates how completely the campaigns for industry have failed. ^° Meat packing, wholesale 3 plants Nonalcoholic beverages 3 plants Flour and grain mill products 1 plant Coke-oven products 1 plant Saddlery, harness, and whips 1 plant Concrete products 1 plant Clay products 1 plant Wood preserving 1 plant Explosives 1 plant The average employment of all these plants, plus a number of bakeries, printing plants, ice and ice-cream factories, was 396 persons. Not one of the factories once campaigned for so ardently appears within the list. BACK TO THE FARM » Southern Illinois is one of the few areas in the United States in which important coal deposits occur below a prairie-land surface. * In 1936 a significant development was reported in a coal town outside the three counties which were included in this survey. This town had landed a gar- ment factory employing a large number of women. But "trouble started when a woman organizer is said to have been led to the outskirts of the town and told not to return." Whereupon, "unrest at the plant . . . ensued to the point that manufacturers finally told . . . businessmen that the situation would have to be handled or the company would establish elsewhere." A near-by Missouri town promised the garment manufacturer a new building if he would move all of his plants there. '" Bureau of the Census, Industrial Market Data Handbook of the United States, Domestic Commerce Series No. 107, U. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C, 1939. '' Data for this section were oVjtained from the Census of Agriculture for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1935, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D. C. I ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION • 103 Unlike the declining coal fields in the cramped Appalachian valleys, southern Illinois thus appeared to offer the possibility of resettlmg displaced coal miners on the land. But this "solution" also encoun- tered serious difficulties. Although a return to subsistence farming helped to cushion the shock of wholesale mine unemployment, the land offered no real solution to the problems of the coal field. Farmins in fhe Three Counties Before 1930 In 1900 Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties were dependent almost solely upon farming. Under their early agricultural economy the three counties had not prospered. Much of the soil of the south- em Illinois prairies was extremely poor. In 1900 the production of com per acre in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties was less than half that of Com Belt counties 150 miles to the north. Tax assessors in the three counties put the average value of farm land plus improvements at $3 per acre. Coal promoters who began arriving m southern Illinois around 1902 were impressed with the poor quality of the farm land, and before the existence of coal became generally known, they were able to buy up top and bottom for as little as $10 an acre.'^ Further, the land had been divided into relatively smaU plots. In- stead of the 160-acre units which prevailed in the rich farm district to the north, the farms in the three coimties were principally divided into plots of 80 acres or less. With agi'iculture in the thi-ee counties based upon such small units of poor soil, the size of the farm popula- tion in 1900 was close to the maximum which could be supported on the land. Before the large-scale development of coal began, the dis- trict was well on its way to becoming what would be called today a "rm-al problem area." In 1900 the population of the 3 counties was 69,156 persons, most of whom were directly or indirectly dependent upon 9,130 farm enter- prises. With the sudden increase of mine employment during the next decade, population rose rapidly and reached 101,245 in 1910. During this period the mmes not only attracted workers from the districts beyond the coal field, but from the unprofitable farms near by as well; local farmers welcomed this chance to escape from poor land. Some of the farm land was absorbed by the growing coal towns, and the consolidation of the great blocks of coal lands had further encouraged the movement oft' the farms. By 1910 the num- ber of farms operated in the 3 counties had decreased by 1,179, the number of hogs had decreased from 95,917 to 52,018, and 34,529 acres of farm land had been taken out of cultivation. 12 There is a legend that one of the promoters secured title to a block of farm land — together with the coal — from a widow in exchange for a silk dress. 104 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS The wartime coal boom beginning in 1915 accelerated these tend- encies. By 1920 the population of the 3 counties had risen to 156,738. Despite high wartime food prices and a tremendous in- crease in the value of farm products in the three counties, the high mine wages continued to make inroads into farm activity. During the decade ending in 1920 another 873 farms disappeared and another 37,255 acres of farm land were taken out of cultivation. The beginning of the coal depression in the 1920's failed to stop the farm-to-mine trend. Even as employment in the mines began to fall, the land became no more attractive. By 1930 the number of farms had decreased to 6,746 and dm-mg the decade of the 1920's a total of 57,333 acres of farm land in the 3 counties were tmned back to scrub-oak forest. The Depression After 1930, however, the movement off the land was summarily halted. For the fu-st time in 30 years the miners of Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties turned back to the land to take their last stand against privation. The size of farm population increased rapidly. In 1930 the farm population of the 3 counties had been 31,136; by 1935 it had mcreased to 34,949. The 1935 Census of Agriculture reported, in addition, that 3,834 persons who had not been on farms in 1930 were living on farms in the 3 comities in 1935. These newcomers to farms formed 11.0 percent of the 1935 popula- tion in the three counties, as against 6.0 percent for Illinois and 6.3^ percent for the United States. Said a local newspaper in 1932: Many who were on farms before the fat years of the last decade are willing to return to a surer but perhaps not such a fancy living. . . . We think this is the wise thing to do. Every man and his family, barring sickness, can get by on the farm. But common sense was not altogether on the side of the back-to- the-land movement. The newspaper which thought that the unem- ployed would have a "surer living" on the land also made this discovery: There are ten prospective renters to one farm in [this] vicinity . . . and there are no farms for rent. Actually, land was by no means plentiful Some of the farm land had been rumed by mineral salts in the water pumped from the mines. Some had been ruined by the strip mines, which leave behind a waste- land where not even weeds will grow. The good farm land which occurs in several parts of the three counties was of course already occupied. It was not available to the unemployed, who had no money to buy it; and it could have absorbed additional workers only if the existing small farms were further subdivided. n Security Admiiiit.v;«>.""JS' mm mm 15-24 m0^ ■■yyMm Percent goin or loss + 10 + 5 25-34 35-44 45-64 65 ond Age in 1939 over -5 -10 -15 ■20 *I930 doto for Bush ond Carrier Mills are not available. 12 To ascertain the proportion of the 1930 coal-town population groups which would survive to the 1939 census, it is necessary to apply survival rates to the 1930 population. From United States life tables it is possible to obtain the pro- portion of persons at any one age who are expected to be alive at any specified later age. Thus, out of 1,000 white males born, 905 are alive at age 10-14, and 885 at age 19-24, according to 1930 mortality experience in the United States. The ratio of these numbers is .98. This is the "survival ratio" of white males aged 10-14 over a period of 9 years. Similar ratios were calculated for the other age-sex groups. These ratios then permit an estimate of the number of persons surviving to 1939 from tlie 1930 population. The estimated survivors, in turn, may be com- pared with the number of persons enumerated in the WPA survey of the labor market in four cities (see footnote 2, p. 26) to determine the influence of mobility, Thus, if 3,000 persons aged 20-24 were expected to survive, and only 2,400 per- sons were actually enumerated, the population loss through migration for the age group would be estimated at 20 percent. MIGRATION •119 After 1930 migration clearly offered special possibilities to coal- field youth. On the one hand, their economic status in the coal field was less favored than that of any other age group of able- bodied workers. Most of the young workers reached maturity after the expansion of mine employment had stopped, and they had no prospect of finding jobs in the mines until the great surplus of experienced jobless miners had been eliminated. ^^ At the same time, they were in a better position to risk the hazards of migration; they had in many cases no family responsibilities, and they could be more easily trained to fit the job requirements of distant employers. In addition, the youth alone had access to the Army, the Navy, and the CCC, each of which stimulates migration. The older workers, on the other hand, held whatever mining jobs were available, and hence were as a group less severely stricken by unemployment. Those older workers who were unemployed stood little chance of successful mi- gration because of their age and their training in a semiobsolete occupation. Accordingly, youth migrated most readily. Every fifth person be- tween the ages of 6 and 25 years in 1930 (15 to 34 m 1939) had left the coal towns without being replaced by incoming population in the same age group.'* The persons who were 26 to 35 years old in 1930 migrated somewhat less readily, and in the next older group, migra- tion took less of a toll still. The number of those who were 56 and over in 1930 (65 and over in 1939) actually increased as a result of migration during the 9-year period (fig. 19), Birth-Rate Chanses It is impossible to derive migration estimates for children whose ranks were filled by births after the 1930 Census. It is known, how- ever, that the absolute number of persons under 15 years of age de- clined 29 percent during the 9-year period. There is little doubt that a considerable part of this decrease resulted from emigration. But emigration was not the only cause. Through aging and emigration, the number of women of child- bearing age (20 to 44 years) declined somewhat after 1930,'^ reducing '3 See pp. 34, 41. " The emigration of the younger persons during the 9-year period was partic- ularly heavy in Johnston City, West Frankfort, and Zeigler. Zeigler lost through migration 51 percent of its male population aged 20-24 in 1939, and 41 percent of its females in the same age group. In the group aged 25-29 years in 1939, .lohns- ton City lost 50 percent of its males and 38 percent of its females. West Frank- fort lost through emigration 32 percent of both males and females aged 20-29 in 1939. '5 There were 7,473 females aged 20-44 in the 5 larger coal towns in 1930. By 1939 the number had declined to 6,766, a drop of 9 percent. 120 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS the number of persons born within the coal to^^^ls. More important, the reproduction rate among the women who remained fell off notice- ably between 1930 and 1939. In 1930 the ratio of children under 5 years of age to each 1,000 women aged 20-44 in the 5 larger coal towns was 443, exactly that required to hold the population size stationary if local death rates were equal to the average United States rates. By 1939, however, the reproduction ratio had fallen to 385 children under 5 years of age per 1,000 women of childbearing age. Should reproduction persist at the decreased rate, the first full generation maturing after the decline began would suffer a natural decrease of 13 percent.^*' PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE MIGRATION The various local frictions which hinder migration from southern Illinois would ordinarily tend to become stronger, rather than more relaxed, as time passes. Emigration in the late 1920's was probably made easier by the fact that one considerable part of the coal-town population was made up of newcomers who had been settled only a few years when unemployment first became serious in 1927. By 1939, however, even this last wave of settlers had lived for at least 20 years in the coal field, and the earlier wave had been settled for upwards of 30 years. Now that the coal towTis are no longer new towns, mobility is not so easy. The aging of the unemployed workers also decreases the chances of migration ; if displaced hand loaders were occupationally handicapped 10 years ago, their handicap has been multiplied now that they are 10 years older. Likewise, year after year of continued depression would have reduced whatever reserve resources the unemployed might — by some miracle of good manage- ment — have kept intact. Above all, it is probable that those unemployed who had the greatest likelihood of successful migration would have been the first to leave the coal field, in a static depressed situation migration would naturally be expected to decline over a period of time. If relatives in Chicago, or a friend in Detroit, or a former employer in Moline were interested in helping a family leave southern Illinois, they would probably have done so within the past 12 years, or not at all. Similarly, surplus workers whose skills would be in demand elsewhere would be expected to migrate shortly after their predicament became clear, or not at all. Only two groups would appear to be an exception to this tendency: those who may in the future be thrown out of work for the first time, and unemployed youth coming of working age. As for the rest of the distressed population, an unemployed coal miner's comment well ^^ See Population Statistics, 1. National Data, National Resources Committee, Washington, D. C, 1937, p. 50, for data on reproduction ratios calculated to maintain a stationary population without migration. I MIGRATION • 121 describes their plight: "Everybody that was able to get out left a long time ago." Putting together two facts — first, that emigration thi-oughout more than a decade of intense distress has not appreciably reduced the total population of the coal towns, even though the earl3^ years of this period coincided with the last years of Nation-wdde "prosperity"; and second, that emigration hereafter is likely to be more difficult than in the past^ — we may infer that expected migration will hardly solve the problems of the southern Illinois coal field, in the near future at least. This judgment must of course be qualified to afiow for a possible em- ployment boom beyond the coal field. A Nation-wide labor shortage would assuredly draw off many of the youth and the surplus middle- aged workers, and might indeed end unemplo^'ment in southern Illinois.^" But pending such a development, the coal field's surplus workers are in large part likely to stay where they are. Over a long stretch of time, the readjustment of coal-field population to economic opportunity is somewhat more probable. It is true that at present bii-ths outnumber deaths in Franklin, Saline, and William- son Counties and this relationship may be expected to continue for some time to come. Since 1930, however, the birth rate has fallen sharply, and in several generations the resulting population decline will have become appreciable. The continued emigration of youth will make substantial ini'oads in population size over a period of time, and will at the same time further reduce the number of births. In the long run the problem might largely solve itself. But as J. M. Keynes has said, "In the long run we shall all be dead." '^ Since this was written, there has been an increase in the emigration of young southern Illinois workers to defense centers. Meantime, however, the War Department has announced plans to construct a huge ordnance plant near Herrin. It is said that the plant will emjjloy 6,000 workers by 1943. If the British experi- ence means anj-thing, the opening of these jobs wiU bring a large number of former residents back to the coal field, where they will run considerable risk of being stranded again when the emergency has passed. Chapter VIII RELIEF Di 'EPRESSED AREAS represent a tremendous loss to the national economy. In terms of wasted man power, of depressed living stand- ards, of bleak and hopeless lives, the incalculable costs mount year after year. There are also not insignificant costs in terms of public expenditines. The depression of the southern Illinois coal field has led to an extraordinary expenditure for public assistance. For the past 4 years an average of well over one-third of the entire population in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties has been on the rolls of the various public-welfare programs, and twice the proportion rose to one-half. Between 1933 and the middle of 1939 the cost of relief had run to a sum equal to more than half the assessed valuation of the prop- erty in the coal field — mines, raikoads, famis, and town real estate combined. At the beginning of the depression the local coal-field communities attempted to meet their relief needs on a purel}^ local basis. But before very many months had passed, relief costs had exhausted aU the available resources, both public and private, within the com- munities; and still the people were hungry. Some time later the State of Illinois took over partial responsibility for meetmg the coal field's relief needs; but it too was prepared to carry no more than a small part of the full burden, at least not without slighting the needy in other sections of the State. An adequate recognition of the urgency and extent of the relief problem in the coal counties came only with the beguming of Fetleral aid. Today, with the Federal Government stiU furnishing the greater part of the funds for relief in the stranded area, the problem is of concern not only to the residents of the coal field itself, but to the country at large. TRADITIONS IN LOCAL RELIEF Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties have been familiar with both chronic and recurrent poverty from tlie earliest development of 123 1 24 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS the coal mines. In a commiinity dominated so completely by a single fluctuating and hazardous industry, the position of the working popu- lation was never secure. Strilves and suspensions at the mines have been recurrent, and the shadow of destitution during the long slumps in the coal market were an inescapable part of every miner's experience. Mine accidents took a heavy toll in dead and injured each year, leav- ing widows and crippled workers without means of support. Even in the best days of the coal boom, the regular quotas of the aged, widows, and the blind without families to support them was a continuing problem. For nearly 30 years the responsibility for giving help to the unfortu- nate was distributed in the community according to a long-standhig tradition. The local unions, for example, took the misfortunes of the working miners as their particular province. When a miner was killed, other miners gave money to help his family, Ivnowmg well that their own family might be the next to be stricken. Or if a miner was sick or injm-ed, the miion locals helped him until he recovered. For many years the heavy cost of mine accidents fell entirely upon the locals, and even after the union forced an accident compensation law tlu'ough the Illmois Legislature, the miners were still called upon from time to time to help other unfortunate miners. The job of providing relief during strikes was largely a responsibility of the locals, some- times borne in part by contributions from the district and international union. The locals were also expected to contribute heavilj^ to the sentimental charities organized on occasion by the local booster clubs; and they were the mainstay of the drives to raise money for such special emergencies as relief of victims of the tornado which swept across the coal field in 1925. The great absentee coal operators naturally took little interest in these special difficulties of the coal towns. Then attitude toward the unemployment of miners had been clearly stated in 1914 when an operator, in answer to a request from the Governor of Illinois that he do something to "relieve the suffering" of the unemployed, announced: "We are selling no coal and therefore to operate the mines would be a dead loss. We can do nothing until . . . people begin to buy coal." In later years a few of the local operators made some effort to help a dozen or so workers who were out of jobs, and a few would sometimes donate coal to the needy. But for all practical purposes, the operators contributed nothing except their taxes. The small businessmen in the community played an important but frequently forgotten role in relieving the strains of the predepression era. Connected closely with the mmers through family and personal ties and at the same time dependent upon the miners' good will for their trade, the little merchants were obligated to carry the mmers through recurrent shutdowns and strikes. When the mines reopened RELIEF • 125 these debts were repaid — unless the miners in debt lost their jobs, in which case the merchants, of course, lost heavily. Other businessmen confined their charity to passing out Christmas baskets to "deserving" families, to donating coal, and to assisting in other standard civic-club activities. Pauper-Relief Standards Theoretically, townships and counties carried the responsibility for the rest of the community's relief needs. The basic temporary relief throughout Illinois was township pauper relief, administered by an elected official in each township. The philosophy behind township relief was that only the "worthy" deserved charity, and that even so, help should never be given until a family was utterly destitute. As elsewhere in the United States, the able-bodied unemployed were considered to be outside its scope. Towoiship relief was administered in such a way as to attach the maximum of shame and degradation to the recipients,^ so that families hesitated to "go on the to^\Ti" until they had sunk below the point of caring about local attitudes. Expenditures for towTi relief thus stayed at a bare minim imi. The county governments carried on several relief activities. A county pauper fund, administered according to the same low standards that governed to^^'nship relief, was used to supplement the funds avail- able to the township supervisors. About the time of the World War the three counties set up what appears to have been, all things con- sidered, a remarkably advanced system of aid to the blind, providing $30 a month to recipients. A mothers' "pension" system, introduced at about the same time, was supposed to take care of widows with children, but the funds provided were so limited and the standards so low that the system was not of great benefit. Some idea of how the system operated may be gathered from the following 1927 report of the Williamson probation officer: There has been a big demand for help from the [Mothers' Pension] Fund. The larger number of these requests have been from mothers who are absolutely up against it. . . . During the past quarter there have been 20 applicants for the pension; of this number it has been necessary to add 6 to the list. ... Of the number refused, 5 have been grandmothers . . . The law states that the pension is for the natural mother. Three have been refused because of their characters. . . . The additional 6 were refused help as they had sufficient income. Conditions as a whole show the pensioners are trying to overcome whatever handicaps they have been placed under. While the attitude of a few is not the best, as a group they are appreciative. The probation officer regrets that there have been as many additions necessary as have been made. In spite of its high-sounding name, the mothers' pension was only another form of pauper relief. ' The law required that the names of all recipients should be published every 3 months. 126 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Fmally. the counties were responsible for maintaining the poor farms. These primitive in'^titutions were designed mainly for the care of the aged and disabled without famihes, although it is on record that at one time the Saline County poor farm had inmates as Yomig as 14, while in Williamson County all applicants for pauper relief were once sent to the poor farm. Whether under the care of contractors or of coimty employees, poor farms were an admitted disgrace to the community — but a disgrace that no one seemed par- ticularly anxious to remove. Indeed, whenever county officials became alarmed over increasing deficits, their first thought was to cut down on the food allowed the mmates at the poor farm. The county supervisors' records abound with such reports as these: We visited said poor farm July 1 and found the building in very bad shape, doors broke, plastering failing off, stair way post broken out, brick missing in walls. Patients were in very good shape except one very old gentleman . . . whose bed was not as it should be — he being paralyzed, the flies tormenting him ahnost to death. In 1 coimty the supervisors discovered on an annual visit that 13 inmates were sleeping in 1 room; whereupon it was recommended that "inmates that are sick and broken out with sores be removed and separated from the others whose condition is better." No real improvements were made, however. Years later the supervisors again became alarmed, declaring that "the condition of the buildings on the Coimty Farm ... is such that proper care cannot be given and is a discredit to the citizens of this County." But as late as 1930 a State inspector reported finding: ... a good jail and a home for the dependent aged that is a disgrace to the county. There is no plumbing in the buildings and no bathing facilities. Heating and water systems are both inadequate ... no fire extinguishers bedding and mattresses worn out .... Inmates are given barely enough food to exist on. In addition, the food is of poor quality and poorly prepared. . . . When one of the aged residents dies he is buried on the farm with no marker for his grave. This might be expected in an insti- tution where so little respect is shown for the living. Predepression standards of poor relief in the coal field were not particularly high. Predepression Relief Expenditures It is not possible to discover how much money was actually spent for relief by the local unions m the predepression years, although it is clear that the total must have been considerable. Duruig the 1927 strike alone the locals spent at least 850,000 for "bean orders," and ap- parently their regular relief expenditures over a period of time were sizable. It is like^\ise difficult to learn much in detail about the extent of private charity. It appears, however, to have been insig- nificant except for the charity represented by bad debts on grocers' RELIEF • 1 27 ledgers. Pauper relief, akl to the blind, and mothei-s' pensions in the townships and counties, on the other hand, have left sufficient record to permit reasonably reliable estimates of their extent and significance in the last years of the 1920's (appendix table 28). Aid to the blind, which was administered according to relatively high standards ^ in the coal field, makes a useful basis for judging the full program of public assistance provided by the thi-ee counties. Ordinarily, aid to the blind should be one of the least costly parts of a well-rounded program of public assistance, for the simple reason that the incidence of blindness is low compared with the incidence of economic difficulties. Between 1925 and 1929, however, aid to the blind made up an obviously disproportionate part of the total assistance expenditures of the southern Illinois townships and coun- ties; over the entire 5-year period payments to blind pensioners amounted to 36 percent of all public-assistance costs. The blind received roughly double the relief granted to mothers dm*ing the period, and about three-fourths of the total cost of both the poor farms and outdoor pauper relief. Of coui-se, the first part of this period overlapped the last years of the coal boom, when the need for pauper relief was not extraorduiary . But in the last part of the 5-year period unemployment had become increasingly severe in the coal field. Durmg these years the dis- proportion between aid to the blind and the other forms of relief actually increased. In 1 929, when the great coal depression insouthem Illinois had reached an advanced stage, exactly half of the public- assistance expenditures went for aid to the blind, while the other half was divided among mothers' aid, outdoor pauper relief, and the poor farms. The unemployed, in short, were not provided for in the philosophy that governed pauper relief ; and as their numbers increased, they were expected to look elsewhere for assistance. Actually, the township and county officials were clearly unable to provide unemployment relief, aside from all considerations of their attitude toward assistance. Even to carry on under the traditional system became a more and more difficidt task after 1927. By 1930 the counties were petitioning the State to relieve them of mothers' pensions and aid to the blind; when their request was rejected, they began to pay recipients on these programs in more or less worthless county warrants. In the face of the deepening crisis at the coal mmes, the local governments were utterly helpless. During the entire 5-year period, 1925-1929, the towTiships and counties had been hard pressed to raise $229,000 for pauper relief. Had they been required to carry the cost of relief during the depression, they would 2 The word "relatively" bears emphasis. The WUliamson supervisors in 1929 referred to the payment to blind pensioners — $1 a day — as a "paltry sum"; and one could scarcely quarrel with this judgment. 128 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS have had to raise more than 100 times this sum for the period 1933-1937. The total amount spent for pauper aid from 1925 through 1929 would have lasted exactly 8 days at the peak of the relief load in the coal field during the summer of 1938. THE DARK DAYS The history of relief in the coal field after 1929 follows, on an inten- sified scale, the well-known pattern that prevailed in nearly every community in the United States, except that every difficulty was multiplied manyfold . For a period of about 4 years at the beginning of the depression (1929 to 1933), the unemployed in southern Illinois had practically no real assistance from any quarter. The townships and counties were paralyzed financially, and could extend only the most meager assistance or none at all. In 1931 the township tax levies for the poor were either used up immediately (as in most of the Saline townships where tax anticipation warrants were still salable) or else yielded no return worth mentioning. The State of Illinois was not prepared — on the basis of either philosophy or funds — to take upon itself responsibilities that had been the special province of the smaller governing units for nearly 100 years. The union locals at the aban- doned mines had exhausted their treasuries within a few months after the layoff, and were unable to give further aid to their members. Still the people were being reduced to dire want, and something had to be done. Early in the crisis the coal towns attempted to meet the needs of the unemployed with community chest drives. One town in Salme County started a drive to raise $8,000 late in 1930, announcing that the greater part of the money collected would be used for direct relief to the "deserving" needy. The money for this purpose was to be raised by contributions of 1 day's pay from businessmen and the active mine locals. Another Saline coal town had a more ingenious plan: [We] will raise a community fund by donations and by public events, such as a charity basketball game between high school and alumni players, and by finding employment for all that can be placed in various industries. In another town a community fund was started with money donated by the union locals. In still another, the drive was led by the Church Benevolent Association, which collected money, clothes, and coal for distribution and started a woodyard in which relief workers were given the value of all wood sold. The Associated Charities m another town opened a commissary in a vacant store for distributing clothes and groceries to the unemployed. These organizations were hopelessly snowed under in a very short time. The drive to collect 1 day's pay brought in about one-third RELIEF • 129 of the quota in both 1930 and 1931, netting about $2,500 each year for the care of 300 to 400 destitute famihes. The Associated Charities in a second towTi had almost no money at all; late in 1930 it had $26 to spread among 42 families, and it was eventually reduced to paying 20 cents a week to families in extraordinary need. After the failure of its 1931 drive another town announced hopelessly: The funds cannot be stretched to the necessary point. . . . After close calculation the board decided the minimum it would take to provide for the needy. . . . To date the board has one-fourth that amount. . . . The board is at a loss to know what to do. Early in 1931 the State of Illinois stepped into the relief picture in an unusual way. The Governor of Illinois had conceived the idea of collecting imemployment-relief money by soliciting a day's pay each month from aU the employees on the State pay roU. In the course of a year a total of $183,000 was raised in this manner for distribution throughout the entire State of Illinois. Out of this sum Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties were allotted $25,000 to be distributed to the needy thi'ough the various community fimds in the coal towns, and through the American Legion, the Knights of Columbus, the Elks, and other organizations specified by the State employees. But these reinforcements from outside the coal field were scarcely sufficient to aUow the commimity funds to hold their owTi; for as the depression deepened, contributions from the mine locals and other groups within the coal towns dwindled rapidly. The relief given out by the community funds usually stopped at the city limits of the larger coal towns. In the smaller mine camps and company towns a periodic dole of Red Cross flom- was practi- cally the only rehef available, and these communities quickly found themselves in extremely desperate circumstances. The American Society of Friends, after making a survey of these districts in 1931, agreed to set up kitchens at the semii-ural schools in order to provide undernourished miners' children with a least one good meal a day. Twelve Quaker school kitchens were opened in the outlying mine towns m Williamson County and in a few months the program was extended to Franklin and Saline Coimties. Theoretically, the rest of the needs in the semirural mming communities was supposed to be carried by township pauper relief, although eveiyone knew that there was no pauper-relief money. In the early spring of 1932 relief committees described their pre- dicament in these terms: Franldin County — Practically all local public and private resources are exhausted. . . . The contributions of State employees are nearly at an end. The investigation indicates that help must be provided from outside the County in order to provide a minimum of subsistence. . . . 1 30 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Saline County — There are 13 townships in this County and distress is reported from each one of them. Local resources in each township are practically ex- hausted. . . . Local agencies are bankrupt. Williamson County — There is the possibility in three [out of 12] townships of raising a httle further money from township taxes. Voluntary funds in the County are completely exhausted. . . . The American Friends Service Committee is very anxious to withdraw. . . . The American Red Cross states that it cannot continue supplying funds. . . . ^ The Illinois General Assembly eventually recognized that the $200,000 a year provided by the Governor's semiofficial unemployment fimd was not adequate for the problem at hand. On February 6, 1932, the General Assembly set up the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission and appropriated 20 million dollars for relief." Of the 10 million dollars made available to the lERC at once, 96 percent was allocated to Cook County. Six weeks later, after frantic telegrams from the southern Illinois coal field, the lERC allocated funds for 2 months' needs to Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties— to the amount of $31,800. With this grant the lERC continued to insist "strongly" that the counties and townships should realize the "necessity" for using local funds "both public and private" instead of coming to the State for money. But the time had come when this advice no longer had much meaning to the coal field. By the end of 1932 the townships were able to carry only 10 percent of the relief cost, while private charity paid for 13 percent; the lERC carried the rest.^ During the following year the local contribution declined to almost zero. 3 First Interim Report, Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, Chicago, April 15, 1932, pp. 14-15, 29-30, 33. * See Glick, Frank Z., The Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1940. Glick gives an excellent account (p. 26) of the stormy sessions of the Assembly during the weeks when the bill to create the lERC was under debate. At one point in the House the bill failed to receive the two-thirds majority necessary to make the measure immediately effective. Whereupon the Speaker of the House "broke his own policy of not speaking to a measure," and said: "There is grave danger now. The Federal Government has already issued the orders necessary to curb disorder if it arises. . . . The armories are under guard now." Later in the day the two-thirds majority was mustered. Several downstate members changed their votes, with such statements as: "There isn't going to be any blood on my hands tonight. I'm going to vote for this bill and sleep with a clear conscience. This is war. This is hell." "If I am facing political death, let me die doing the right thing." * First Annual Report, Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, Chicago, 1933, p. 128. In other downstate counties local contribution carried 61 percent of the cost of unemployment relief in this period. RELIEF • 1 31 Even with State help — and with Federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation help shortly afterward — the local authorities were hard- pressed to keep the relief system intact. After the first lERC grant in April 1932, the Franklin County committees were stUl able to pay families only $2 a week (in commodities), and in the town of Benton relief families got $1.38. Standards in Williamson County were apparently no better. In Saline, the county committee was able to give the largest families $1.48 a week, and in May 1932 the expendi- ture was cut to 76 cents. In December 1932 the three counties were paying families on relief as follows: Franklin County, $1.57 a week; Saline County, $1.73 a week; and Williamson County, $1.67 a week.^ By December 1933 the average weekly relief for families had risen to only $2.74. Not until the summer of 1934, with the beginning of the Emergency Work Relief Program under the FERA, did the weekly relief income of families rise as high as $5 per week in the coal field. How the unemployed survived the dark days between the layoff and the beginning of adequate relief in 1934 is something of a mystery. The hardships of every American community dming this period are a familiar story; in the coal field — where the depression started earlier and ran a more virulent course — these hardships were multiplied many- fold.^ The Red Cross flour distribution and the Quakers' school-lunch program, meager as they were, came to have tremendous importance as a last bulwark against hunger. At a parochial school in 1 town, undernourishment was so extreme that when a kitchen was opened to provide 1 solid meal a day, 150 children gained an average of nearly 2 pounds each within 1 month. The lERC warned in 1933 that the in- adequate relief prevailing throughout most of little Egypt "is bringing on an increase in respiratory diseases and nervous conditions." The Commission testified further that the eventual cost of medical care for the undernourished "will no doubt be many, many times greater than the cost of sufficient food." ^ In a survey of relief needs in Saline County in 1933 it was discovered that at least 50 homeless men had been sleeping in the open fields for months. In Franklm County deaths from exposure and starvation were reported.* « Ihid., p. 55. This was the period of the famous 1932 coal strike. The strikers' relief needs placed a particularly heavy strain upon the inadequately financed relief system in the coal field. ^ Franklin County reported a higher rate of unemployment in the 1930 Census than any other county in the United States. Williamson and Saline Counties were not far behind. 8 First Annual Report, Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, p. 62. « Walker, Wilma, "Distress in a Southern Illinois County," The Social Service Review, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 1931, pp. 558-581. The author of this article concluded: "One shudders ... at the thought of [the coming] winter and no food in a community where their own resources are absolutely drained." Yet, 2 more years were to pass before adequate outside aid was provided. 1 32 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS In the face of this predicament families adopted a variety of desper- ate measures either to keep off rehef (the stigma attached to "paupers" wns still strong as late as 1934) or to supplement the relief they re- ceived. The coal-town newspapers for the period reveal the com- munity's constant preoccupation with the job of securing food — "not delicacies," it was explained, "but hardy food such as flour and beans." Defunct-mine locals busied themselves with setting up commissaries and soup kitchens, stocked by small contributions from the active locals or with partly spoiled food collected about town. Gardening, which had been somewhat neglected during the coal boom, became one of the most important pursuits in the communities where idle land was available; and indeed, home-grown vegetables kept many a family from going hungry. Several comnmnities, reduced eventu- ally to foraging for food, sent expeditions to the farm districts north of the coal field to beg something to eat. These years of inadequate relief resulted not only in immediate suffering, but also in the destruction of the last reserves of a large part of the working population. Miners who still had credit at the neigh- borhood stores continued to run up bills as long as possible — with the result that scores of Httle businessmen were wrecked by accumulated bad debts, and credit ceased to exist. Even after the collapse of the banks and building and loan associations, most of the families had a few possessions which could be sacrificed in the emergency. Some had houses to sell, money in the postal savmgs, automobiles, radios, or a few odd pieces of furniture. Piece by piece this property disap- peared. When their possessions were gone, the families started tight- ening their belts and foregoing the things they had always thought of as necessities. "Doubling up" began, on houses, on parts of houses, on electric lights, on water. Or the lights were disconnected and the old kerosene lamps brought out, water was shut oft' and leaky wells put back into service. More often than not this retreat led at last to the relief rolls, but only after the families had been pauperized. The communities' relief needs after 1933 accordingly increased out of proportion to the further increases in unemployment. Mean- while, the coal field gradually settled down to the realization that the siege of miemployment would not be lifted for j^ears to come. With this realization, the old emergency-relief payments, designed to fill a family's stomachs with beans and bread for a month or so, could no longer be justified. The time had come for changes which both the local community and the State itself were helpless to initiate. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE AFTER 1933 The story of relief in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties after 1933, traced in figures 20, 21, and 22, is in brief a story of pro- gressively increasing need and increasing case load. RELIEF • 133 " Sc . o o c ;£ •Si -Q K) E o - 5> 5> S> 3i Source Appendix toble 29 wpa 3656 The money put mto circulation by the pubhc-assistance agencies came to play an mcreasingly important role in holding the economic life of the coal community together. As late as 1933 dwindling mine pay rolls were still virtually the only prunary source of wealth within the coal field. By 1938, however, the public-assistance programs had not only taken under care far more workers than were employed at the mines, but were also paying into the community a sum nearly equal to the annual mine pay roll itself. During 7 separate months in the RELIEF * 137 summers of 1937 and 1938, public-assistance payments actually exceeded mine pay roUs. The coal field had indeed become, by 1938, a community with two industries instead of one; but the second industry was relief. Types of Dependency and Assistance in the Coal Fields The reUef population in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties has been made up of three principal types of dependents. To begin with, there are the so-called "nondepression" relief recipients. The growth of the southern Illmois relief roUs after the close of the CWA led to the discovery of widespread chronic dependency for which no public assistance had ever before been provided. During the early months of 1934 Wilhamson County reported 659 cases (exclusive of widows and the blind) on relief for reasons not directly related to the depression — that is, for such reasons as old age, chronic illness, mental or physical handicaps. In the 3 comities combined there were 1,471 such cases. ^^ Although these nondepression needs, once recognized, were great enough to have swamped the old pauper-relief system,'^ they of course accounted for only a small number of the persons receiving relief. In Franklin County 13 percent of the 1934 relief load (exclusive of widows and the blind) was dependent for "reasons other than unemployment"; and the Saline and Williamson rolls showed that 10 percent were nondepression cases. When old-age assistance under the Federal Social Security Act ^^ was initiated in Illinois in 1936, it took under care the majority of aU persons 65 and over — one of the principal nondepression dependent groups living in the coal field. In terms of the total public-assistance program, however, old-age assistance still occupied a distinctly minor place in Franklin, Salme, and Williamson Counties. (See fig. 20, p. 133.) Two different types of jobless rehef dependents are indicated in figure 20. Each summer, when the coal mines ordinarily slow down operation for the seasonal slump, the number of persons receiving 12 Monthly Bulletin on Relief Statistics, Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, Chicago, Vol. 1, Nos. 6 and 9, June and September, 1934. In Williamson Countj^ where the lERC conducted special research on the relief rolls at this period, only 1 case out of about each 25 opened was "knowTi to a relief agency" before 1930. But in two up-State counties wdth the same propor- tion of "nondepression" cases in the total load, every eleventh case had been "known to a relief agency" before 1930. These figures are further evidence of the backwardness of public assistance in the coal field before 1930. '* The pauper funds provided by the townships and counties between 1925 and 1929 could have carried no more than one-sixth of the "nondepression" needy who turned up after adequate relief became available in the coal field. i< Aid to the blind and aid to dependent children (mothers' pensions) in the three counties are not administered under the Federal Social Security Act, but are still carried bv the counties (1939). 1 38 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS public assistance tends to rise sharply until the beginning of winter activity reduces the rolls once more. In the summer of 1934, for example, about 7,000 persons were added to the rolls between June and August but had left the rolls by November. Although partly obscm'ed by the beginning of new assistance programs, the same tend- ency was noticeable in 1935 and 1936. It became particularly striking in 1937 and 1938, when 11,000 to 14,000 newly dependent persons remained on the roUs only for the duration of the summer slump. Recently the responsibility for meeting these strictly seasonal needs was shifted in part from the regular direct- and work-relief systems to the Illinois unemployment-compensation program. Miners who put in reasonably full time during the fall, winter, and spring, but who were unemployed in the summer, became eligible for benefit payments under this program on July 1, 1939, and were therefore ineligible for work relief. About 1,500 workers in the 3 counties, practically all of them miners, were transferred from the WPA rolls to unemployment compensation during the first month of the new program, ^^ and the number of persons dependent on WPA was accordingly reduced by about 5,000. In future summers unemployment compensation will substantially flatten the seasonal peak in the coal field's relief load. But relief needs arising out of seasonal unemployment at the mmes were never a very large part of the total welfare problem, as figure 20 shows. In March 1937, the busiest month in the southern Illinois coal industiy for nearly a decade, 47,000 persons were still dependent upon public assistance in the 3 counties. The peak of mine activity during the 1939 season left 66,000 persons dependent on the welfare programs. Except for a minority of persons in families without an employable member, this stubbornly persistent relief load is made up of the able-bodied long unemployed, from both mine and service indus- tries, and their dependents. The fundamental public-assistance prob- lem in the three counties is thus not so much to provide for emergency, temporary unemployment nor for the long-time welfare needs of the helpless, as to create a substitute industry to employ workers cast off by a rapidly changmg industry. The basic and by far the most impor- tant type of public assistance in the stranded area is accordingly work rehef. " Seasonal unemployment was particularly serious in the summer of 1939. Out of 9,500 men who had worked in the coal mines during the winter months, about 9,000 filed claims for unemployment benefits in the first month of the new program, according to the estimates of local unemployment compensation officials. During the first benefit-year of Illinois unemployment compensation, workers registered at the Harrisburg, Herrin, and West Frankfort offices were compen- sated for 67,705 weeks of unemployment, and apparently their payments would have amounted to between $500,000 and $750,000. See Illinois State Depart- ment of Labor, Division of Placement and Unemployment Compensation, Illinois Employment Security Review, Springfield, Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1940. BRRKbhhbb ^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^mmmmmm^^^ aas ^^ecurlty Adminiatration (Rothstcin). "Just WPA going on now." Main Street, Cambria, III. RELIEF • 139 Work Relief The inadequacy of the dole was not a theoretical question in south- em Illinois. Three years of grocery-order relief, of 30up kitchens and hand-me-down clothing at the beginning of the depression had reduced a large part of the unemployed to such poverty that active purchasing power among the relief population had virtually disappeared. As a result, scores of merchants became superfluous during the era of rehef in kind and were driven to the wall. Extended idleness among active workers on the dole had taken its toll in demoralization as well as in poverty. In the meantime, the program of public improvement in the community had been halted and the existing social equipment had fallen into disrepair for lack of necessary workers. The only immediate solution for these critical problems was a broad drive to substitute public jobs for idleness, a wage income for grocery orders. The first broad program of work relief ^® came with the initiation of the Federal-sponsored Civil Works Administration in November 1933. Within a few weeks the CWA had put more than 6,500 unemployed pei-sons to work on public projects in the 3 counties, and CWA pay checks — averaguig about $15 a week in the coal field — gave many of the unemployed the first real money they had seen in years. When the CWA was liquidated in April 1934, the job of providing work relief was turned back to the State relief commission, operating under the Federal Emergency Work Relief Program. By the middle of the summer of 1934 about one-third of the coal-field relief families with employable members were assigned to work relief, and by winter the proportion had risen to two-thirds. Unlike the CWA, the new work- relief program based its monthly wage on a rehef budget, with certain adjustments to allow for the purchase of food on the open market, for transportation, etc. On this basis, the State program continued to operate until stabilized work-reUef machinery was established by the WPA m October 1935. The gieater share of the coal field's employable needy were assigned to the WPA by January 1936, and the progi-am rapidly became one of the principal sources of income and employment within the stranded commimity. During the first 4 years of operation WPA provided jobs for 7,000 to 15,000 unemployed workers and supported a total popula- tion of 23,000 to 55,000 persons. The WPA pay roll has varied from 4 million doUars to 6 million dollars a year. Operating on such a scale, the program solved — m part at least — the gi-aver relief problems inherited from the early years of the depression. The poverty and " The able-bodied unemployed had long been required to "work out" their township orders on the public roads but this system could scarcely be called work relief. "There is the question," said a coal-town newspaper in 1932, "of how much work a man could be expected to do for 76 cents worth of groceries a week." 1 40 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS distress among the relief population was appreciably relieved. With free buying power restored to the unemployed, local business revived; and the store space left vacant during the era of the dole gradually began to fill up. Idleness in good part disappeared. Fmally, the commimity was enabled to construct and to repair needed public facilities. The list of the WPA's physical accomplishments in the three coun- ties is an impressive record in itself. It shows, for example, that WPA workers had improved 1,311 miles of rural roads and 459 miles of coal-town streets up to June 1939 (not counting projects begun but not yet completed). For thousands of rural inhabitants of the community, the road program meant accessibility to town and school over all-weather roads for the first time since the countryside was settled a hundred years ago ; for town residents it opened up scores of miles of needed streets which had never before been usable in winter weather. In Williamson County WPA workers helped to build three huge storage dams, enabling the community to develop its first public recreation site and to make its first real attack upon the perennial problem of disastrous summertime water shortages. The list of completed projects includes among other items such work as the con- struction of 3 playgrounds, a swimming pool, 2 conmiunity buildings, 5 parks, 2 athletic fields, and 5 schools; the improvement of 2 libraries, 2 gymnasiums, 4 pai'ks, and 46 school buildings; the complete renovation of 2 courthouses; the construction and repair of 112 miles of ditches for draining malarial marshes, 6 miles of sewers, and 15 miles of water mains. As a first step toward combating the high incidence of typhoid fever in the coal field, the WPA launched an extensive program of sanitary engineering. The professional and service activities of the WPA have also been of great value to the stranded community. The women on the sewing and canning projects, for example, have produced a large quantity of clothing and food for distribution to relief families. The WPA school- lunch projects have more than ordinary importance in helping under- nourished children, and the existence of the home-nursing program to aid the sick and disabled has meant the prevention of needless suffer- ing among hundreds of unfortunate families. White-collar WPA workers have carried tlirough a complete accounting of delinquent taxes in the three counties and thus collected the first facts about one of the coal field's most serious problems. The WPA recreation centers established in nearly all the coal towns have provided the only avail- able diversion for thousands of persons from both employed and un- employed families. All these projects, plus those conducted by the National Youth Administration, have utilized otherwise idle labor to bring solid bene- fits to the people of the community. Some, like the sewing projects RELIEF • 141 and the home-nursing program, have helped to alleviate immediate distress. Projects like Crab Orchard Dam and the NYA student-aid program have provided a basis for future attempts to eliminate chronic unemployment in the stranded area. But most of all, the WPA has improved the community — through roads, schools, parks, recreation, drainage systems, sewage systems, water systems — and made the southern Illinois coal field a more modem, healthful, and pleasant place to Hve in. Chapter IX CONCLUSIONS F RANKLIN, SALINE, and Williamson Counties are a small part of the total problem of depressed areas in the United States. The introduction of the report pointed out that the southern Illinois coal field is only 1 among a large number of separate depressed areas existing before the national defense program was initiated; and that while the 3 southern Illinois counties contain 140,000 people, all the depressed areas combined have a population of about 13 million. However important the story of southern Illinois may be, it is less significant in itself than as an instance of the larger problem. RECENT PUBLIC POLICY The experience of the southern Illinois coal field suggests that attempts to solve the problems of aU the depressed areas on a purely local basis are foredoomed. The interplay of Nation-wide forces created the depressed areas, and neither subsistence farming, handi- craft industry, locally initiated "land-a-factory" drives, nor ingenious "make-your-owTi-job" schemes can basically alter their situation. One can scarcely avoid the conclusion that a national approach offers the only hope for a solution. In Great Britain this conclusion is accepted, but in the United States it is not. American Policy The United States has never attempted a broad and deliberate approach to the highly specialized problems of the depressed areas. In the distressed agricultui'al areas, it is true, a great deal of valuable reconstruction work has been done through the encouragement of scientific farm practices, through the soil-conservation and rural- electrification programs; in the Tennessee Valley these programs blanket a large and important region. At times an effort has even been made to remove farm families from hopelessly poor soil; the 143 144 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Farm Security Administration, for example, has recently moved several hundred stranded families from submarginal land in the Cookson Hills of eastern Oklahoma. These programs are only the beginnings of an approach to the total problem of distressed farm communities. As for the non agricultural depressed areas, their very existence as a special problem has received very little official recog- nition. With a few isolated exceptions,^ they have been covered by the same measures — both emergency and long-term — devised to deal with the altogether different unemployment problems of less disrupted areas. Officially, no great distinction is made between the unem- ployed coal miner in Herrin and the unemployed automobile worker in Detroit. The Work Programs In terms of immediate problems, it is true, no distinction is called for. The work programs, by far the most important of the over-all relief measures, have properly placed first emphasis upon the relief of distress and the performance of socially useful work; upon the prevention of suffering, and at the same time, the preservation of the morale and skills of the unemployed. This emphasis obviously applies no less reasonably to depressed areas than to the rest of the Nation. The first two jobs of the work programs in depressed areas have necessarily been to feed and clothe millions of destitute people and to prevent deterioration of work habits. This fact must always be kept foremost in mind. Beyond these two immediate purposes, the work programs have on record other substantial benefits to the depressed areas. Through the creation of purchasing power, they have rescued the communities' trade and service industries. They have made possible long-needed local improvements which many a bankrupt depressed area would otherwise never have enjoyed. They have also completed a number of projects designed to aid in rebuilding a community's economic base. The program to salvage Key West by turning it into a winter resort is perhaps the most famous of these, and there have been scores of projects designed to provide a depressed community with power, better transportation, and the like, in the expectation that new supporting industries would then be attracted. The Crab ' The principal exception was a small-scale experiment in "government com- munities" administered under the FERA, the Division of Subsistence Home- steads of the Department ot the Interior, and the Resettlement Administration. In 1935 there were about 7,000 persons living in 41 of the communities. Origi- nally the experiment aimed at enticement of factories into nonagricultural derelict areas, but eventually it narrowed down to a program emphasizing adequate housing and part-time farming for industrial workers. Incidentally, it was planned to build one of these communities at West Frank- fort. 111., but the plans never materialized. CONCLUSIONS • 145 Orchard Lake project in the southern IlHnois coal field was planned with a like purpose. But with all these accomplishments, there are still serious difficulties involved in the application of the general administrative rules of the work programs to the peculiar problems of the depressed areas. The work programs operate, for example, within the concept of modified local responsibility. A community in need of a Federal work project is presumed to be solvent, at least to the extent of contributing, as sponsor, a fair share toward the total project cost. In a depressed community this theory breaks down. By 1940 score upon score of depressed and bankrupt American communities were finding increas- ing difficulty in making the required sponsors' contributions for urgently needed work-program projects. The principle of "legal residence" grows out of the same concept. The work programs delegate to each local community the selection of persons eligible for employment. Almost miiversally, the local community requires a person to prove that he is a "resident" of the community before he is certified for employment. This procedure tends to freeze "surplus" workers within the depressed areas.^ Unem- ployed workers who might readily be absorbed into a more active labor market have no way of reaching it, since then- right to work-program employment and all other public assistance stops automatically if they leave home. And those who do take the chance are promptly sent home again, "where they belong," if their migration is not successful. The work programs also operate within the limitations of a short- time, emergency perspective — necessarily so, in view of their short- term appropriations.^ This perspective makes it difficult for the work programs to pursue a broadly planned approach to the problems of the depressed areas. Careful consideration cannot always be given to such significant long-time needs as retraining the unem- ployed from obsolete trades or assisting migration from communities which can never be revived. Projects are confined largely to building roads, schools, and other social equipment which, though needed, can never in themselves relieve the basic economic plight of the distressed communities. Even when there are more basic projects — 2 It is sometimes said that public assistance itself freezes a "surplus" population. This is a somewhat loose way of expressing two entirely different ideas: (1) that legal residence requirements, associated with public assistance but not necessarily essential to it, tend to prevent mobility; and (2) that if public assistance is stopped, need}' families will often be driven in desperation to set out upon the road in search of food and shelter. 2 One manifestation of this emergency point of view is the so-called "l8-months rule," which requires that WPA workers be terminated (with certain exceptions) after 18 months of continuous employment on the program. Whatever effects this ruling may have generally, it obviously works the greatest hardship upon the unemployed in depressed areas. 1 46 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS such as those of the Key West reconstruction program— the approach is sometimes piecemeal and indirect, leaving the desu-ed results to be hoped for rather than assured. British Policy * More than a decade ago the government of Great Britain first recognized the special nature of the problem of the depressed areas; and between 1928 and the beginning of the war in 1939 it administered special measures for their relief. Although the analogy between British and American depressed areas must not be pressed too far, ^ the history of the British programs does provide certain experience applicable to America. Their failures are particularly revealing. Transference The British measures have provided for two separate attacks on unemployment in the depressed areas.^ In 1928 the government ini- tiated the first of these, called "industrial transference," a program for encouraging and assisting migration from the depressed areas to the places where unemployment was less severe. This approach was based on the belief that concentrated unemployment is a "worse evil" than the same amount of unemployment distributed evenly through- out the country.'^ In addition, it was believed that an "unsatisfied * See Dennison, S. R., The Location of Industry and the Depressed Areas, London: Oxford University Press, 1939; Goodrich, Carter and Others, Migration and Economic Opportunity, Philadelphia, 1936, pp. 565 flf; Greene, Lee S., "State Pohcy in the British Depressed Areas," Social Forces, Vol. 18, No. 3, March 1940, pp. 558-581 ; annual reports of the Commissioner for the Special Areas in England and Wales, London, 1935-1938; annual reports of the Commissioner for the Special Areas in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1935-1938; Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Royal Commission on the Geographical Distribution of the Industrial Population, London, 1938, pp. 237 S. 5 There is no close British analogy for either the extremely isolated American depressed areas or for our depressed agricultural areas. But the British experi- ence in depressed coal-mining regions, for example, is obviously pertinent. ^ We leave out of account the interesting checkered career of public works in the British depressed areas. From 1925 to 1928 the British Government made grants to the stricken communities for the purpose of public works within the areas. Some question was raised, however, about the propriety of building up the social amenities of communities whose future was uncertain. In 1929 emphasis was accordingly shifted to schemes for employing depressed-area workers to build public works in pro.sperous areas. In 1931 the public works program was largely abandoned. With the passage of the Special Areas Act in 1934, public works schemes were again initiated in the depressed areas, with particular stress laid upon housing and those public works related to sanitation and public health. See Greene, op. cit., p. 342. ^ Sir William Beveridge expressed this point of view as follows: "From a national point of view a condition of 40 percent of unemployment in one district and 4 percent in another calls for redress rather than argument." Quoted in Goodrich, op. cit., p. 590. CONCLUSIONS • 147 demand" for labor actually existed in the more active areas, and that adequate labor mobility would not occur automatically.* Even in relatively good times the transference program encountered great difficulties. Immobilizing forces were not easy to overcome, even with payment of moving expenses and the offer of jobs in the new location. Parents were reluctant to see their children go away. Persons with property refused to leave it. Homesickness was a major obstacle to successful transference. As for the jobs provided in the transference scheme, one can scarcely conclude that they were generally satisfactoiy when nearly half the youth, and more than one-third of all the transferred workers, eventually came home again to the depressed areas. After 1931, as general unemployment spread through the more prosperous sections of England, there was a new problem: the "receiving areas" raised such strenuous objection to transference that the tempo of the program was slowed down (though by no means halted) for several years.^ But over the comse of a decade some headway was made. Between 1927 and 1938 some one hundred thousand workers were permanently transferred to localities outside the depressed areas, so that the program did produce a minor reshufflmg of the population. Inducements for Investors The second method of attack on depressed-area unemployment was encouragemt^nt of private industrial expansion within the areas themselves. In 1934 Parhament approved the Special Areas Develop- ment and Improvement Act, empowering two Special Areas Commis- sioners to initiate steps for reviving selected depressed communities in South Wales (coal), the Tyneside (coal), Durham (coal), Cumberland (coal and shipbuilding), and Southwest Scotland (shipbuilding and heavy industry ).^° The Commissioners were to publicize the industrial ^ In 1928 this argument ran as follows: "The existence of local unemployment does not make it unnecessan- or uneconomic to bring in labour from other areas. It is quite normal to find simultaneously in the same area unemployment and an unsatisfied demand for labour ... In districts where the level of unemploy- ment is low, those who remain unemployed ma}- be of less than the average employ- ment value ..." Report, Industrial Transference Board, 1928, p. 19. Quoted by Dennison, op. cit., p. 171. 8 "There are cases where the local authorities and everybody else regard it [transference] as a menace. For example, when Luton had its great influx of labour it began to put up danger notices and to advertise that it did not want people coming in at that pace because it did not know what was going to happen. There are prosperous areas, selfish areas, which have set their faces against the introduc- tion of labour even though they could verj' well have supported additional labour. It is not always an easy thing to bring them in." Minntes of Evidence Taken Before the Royal Commission on the Geographical Distribution of the Industrial Population, p. 262. '° Numerous derelict areas were omitted out of consideration for administrative difficulties. 148 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS opportunities of the areas and to interest prospective investors by means of "appeal and persuasion." They were to set up "trading estates," i. e., groups of factory buildings for lease to manufacturers, and to improve the industrial facihties of the areas by makmg light, heat, and power available for industry. In 1936 provision v,as made for supplying capital loans to investors; and in 1937 the act was amended to permit the Commissioners to offer also small subsidies in the form of tax exemptions, rent payments, and the like. Almost total failure greeted the Commissioners' initial attempts to carry out the purposes of the act through "appeal and persuasion." Shortly after the 1934 act was approved, one of the Commissioners circularized 5,829 firms asking whether they were prepared to consider establishing plants in the special areas. Three-fourths did not reply; 1,313 gave "an unqualified negative answer," and only 12 stated that they were prepared "to consider" the question. The Commissioners soon concluded that "there is httle prospect of the special areas being assisted by the spontaneous action of industrialists now located outside," and they urged the provision of such real induce- ments as were made available m 1936 and 1937.^^ A new set of problems arose when the Commissioners were finally empowered to offer concrete inducements to new industry. Not that inducements failed to bring forth many wilhng investors; indeed, "the demand" for them, it was observed, "far exceeds the supply." One difficulty was that the sum of money made available for induce- ments was small, ^^ and the number of new jobs thus created could not diminish unemployment appreciably. But small-scale as the program was, it nevertheless aroused immediate opposition from competing unsubsidized manufacturers in both the prosperous and the depressed areas. This opposition forced the Special Areas Commissioners to restrict the offer of inducements to "noncompeting" industries only, and in turn prevented the expansion of the program beyond laboratory- experiment proportions. The Commissioners were struggling with this dilemma when the war began in September 1939. THE HEART OF THE PROBLEM Whatever small benefits the two British depressed-area measures may have achieved, they had hardly scratched the surface of the total problem by the beginning of the war. Both the transference and inducement programs, it must be remembered, operated mainly in a period of general depression. It is easy to imagine that subsidized " Dennison, op. cit., p. 165. 12 Between 1937 and 1939 total commitments for tax exemptions, rent pay- ments, and the like amounted to about $750,000. Capital sunis loaned amounted to 7y2 million dollars in the Government venture, plus 10 million dollars through the private Nuffield Trust. CONCLUSIONS • 149 new industry could revive the depressed areas, or that their unem- ployment could be dissolved by finding jobs for the stranded workers in another area. But when industry is contracting everywhere, and when every community, even the most prosperous, has a labor surplus, these schemes are little more than an elaborate system for robbing Peter to pay Paul. The general problem of the depressed areas is finally insoluble in the midst of a Nation-wide depression. In better times the seriousness of the depressed-area problem will, of course, diminish, but there is httle chance that it will automatically dissolve. Characteristically, the depressed areas were no more able to attract new industry during the years before the depression set in than afterward. A new era of industrial expansion will likewise pass many of them by.^^ Spontaneous migration has also turned out to be an imreliable solvent for pockets of surplus labor, even in good times. The southern Illinois coal field was accumulating a " redundant population" all through the last half of the 1920's, a period when the conditions for spontaneous emigration were presumably ideal. In the future, stranded workers will probably experience increasing difiiculty in finding job opportunities elsewhere; for a decade of intense depres- sion has put new handicaps in the way of successful emigration from the depressed areas. The Depressed Areas in the National Defense Prosram When more active times arrive, therefore, careful consideration is due the special plans devised to aid the depressed area's victims, either thi'ough encouragement of industrial expansion in the depressed areas or by "guided migration" of surplus workers toward the active areas. The conditions necessary for the operation of both plans wi]l probably come into existence in the evolution of the national defense program; and it is to be expected that each plan will then have its own enthusiastic advocates. It should be recognized, however, that neither plan can be put into action without involving hidden dangers. The Two Special Plans: What They Involve Theoretically, the more desirable plan would be encouragement of industrial expansion inside the depressed areas. If the proposed industries were to be pei-manent, or if they should offer a reasonable chance of post-emergency conversion into permanent industries on a sound economic basis, this sort of program could indeed be recom- mended without reservation. It is not Hkely, however, that any great •3 Some of the depressed areas have traditionally been disadvantaged by com- petition with low-wage, nonunion areas. In any future period of industrial ex- pansion, this disadvantage will have been diminished by the operation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act. 1 50 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS part of the new defense industries will be either permanent or conver- tible. If not, the policy of locating them inside the depressed areas, despite obvious immediate advantages, would eventually bring new difficulties. Such a policy would bring "home" again a large niunber of workers who had already left the areas. It would also hold withm the areas workers who might otherwise have willingly moved to jobs elsewhere. The temporary boom would thus end with the problems of the depressed areas multiplied. Guided migration, the alternative plan, also appears to offer limited possibilities for betterment of the depressed areas — or rather, of the people now hving in the depressed areas — particularly those hving in areas where industrial expansion is clearly out of the question. The predicament of the southern Illinois labor force suggests that such a plan would involve a minimum of four steps: a training program for both inexperienced youth and "obsolete" older workers; a system for allocating jobs in the prosperous areas to applicants from the de- pressed areas; provision of travel money to enable entire families to move to the new jobs; and a waiver of legal-settlement regulations to prevent the forced return of famihes to the depressed areas if they should need relief at their new residence. There are two main objections to this type of program. One of them, originating within the depressed areas themselves, stresses the aftereffects of large-scale migration from a community: the younger workers are drained away; social patterns are disturbed; established property values decline; local businessmen lose trade; the taxing power of the community deteriorates; excess labor supplies, held in reserve for seasonal work, are lost. It seems obvious, however, that such objections would be of little w^eight if set against the successful resettle- ment of othei-wise surplus workers. The second and more serious objection is that a guided-migration program endangers labor standards in the receiving areas. It is pointed out, for example, that the scheme for "guiding" farm workers from the depressed areas of eastern Oklahoma into the Southwest contributed a substantial part toward the difficulties that developed among California and Arizona migratory workers m the late 1930's.^* Unless carefully administered, such a scheme could always be abused by employers who would be tempted to recruit workers indiscrimi- nately as a source of cheap labor. The only answer to this objection is that a guided migration must presuppose the existence of actual, bona fide shortages, and that the plan must be held in abeyance when no labor shortages exist. " See Brown, Malcolm and Cassmore, Orin, Migratory Cotton Pickers in Arizona, Division of Research, Works Progress Administration, Washington, D. C, 1939, pp. 68-75. CONCLUSIONS • 1 51 Long-Time Problems Whatever temporary effects the national defense program might have upon the depressed areas — with or without the administration of the two special plans — defense activity will not likely result in the permanent solution of the depressed-area problem. Moreover, the depressed areas will likely be the last to benefit from defense activity. ^^ Thus, questions relating to public assistance, local improvement of depressed areas, and migration are certain to recur. Public Assistance Until the depressed areas are permanently dissolved — that is, presumably for a long time yet to come— their population will continue to require extraordinary amounts of public assistance. One may judge from the predicament of the unemployed in southern Illinois what consequences would follow if this need were neglected. Since the problem is basically one of a great and long-accumulating surplus of highly employable workers, the responsibility for meeting their need falls principally upon the Work Projects Administration. But the areas place extra responsibilities upon all the other public-assistance programs as well. A double-edged assistance problem is rapidly coming to maturity in the depressed areas. On the one hand, exceptional need persists, or is at best only temporarily relieved. But the ability of the depressed communities to keep up their end of relief costs is progres- sively weakened. If a general deterioration of depressed-area assist- ance is to be avoided, those States which have not already done so should make provision for assuming an increasing share of public- assistance costs which cannot be met by bankrupt local communities. And where the State itself is unable to assist the people of its depressed areas, increased Federal responsibility should be anticipated. Local I mprnvements There is a common feelmg that the construction of roads, schools, recreational and social faciHties, and similar local unprovements in the depressed areas is somehow wasteful. "Why build up a doomed community?" it is asked. "The unprovements will be worthless when 15 Among the defense contracts signed by the Government between June 1940 and January 1941 only VA percent directly involved the depressed areas. Their "average share," in terms of population, would have been seven times greater. Moreover, the contracts they had received were concentrated in a very few counties. Three counties held 46 percent of all the depressed-area defense contracts; 15 other counties held an additional 41 percent; and 40 other counties held the rest. About 4.50 of the depressed counties had no primary defense contracts whatever. 1 52 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS the people move away." And true enough, there are within the depressed areas many hopelessly derelict communities where extensive local improvement would simply be time and money wasted. By and large, however, this point of view dangerously oversimplifies the predicament of the depressed areas. It is quite incorrect to assume that a large emigration from the depressed areas is necessarily in prospect; slow population losses and depopulation are two entirely different things. The southern Illinois coal field and many another American depressed area are going to be well populated for generations to come. It thus appears to be some- what unreasonable to expect that the depressed -area population should forego the use of needed local improvements for an indefinitely long time. Regional Conservation and Development In some American depressed areas economic development has been held in check by past failure to develop some potential advantages. In some — ^notably in the agricultural and lumbering areas — economic collapse has inevitably followed in the wake of wasteful exploitation of resources. It goes without saying that where such conditions exist, public policy should aid in recovering and developing the missing factors. The reforestation and soil-conservation programs, the projects for convertmg depressed areas into recreation centers, and the great power developments like the Tennessee Valley Authority have had such a purpose. Their proved achievement shows the possibilities of this type of approach to the problems of similar areas. There is merit, for example, in the suggestion that a "little TVA" be developed in southern lUmois, based upon low-cost power derived from coal. Obviously, however, such schemes should not be expected to produce substantial, permanent results overnight. Spontaneous Migration "Unguided" migration is continually draining a small part of the population away from the depressed areas. It is, of course, true, as this report has pointed out at some length, that durmg the 1930's people were not leaving the depressed areas fast enough to keep pace with local economic disintegration , nor even to cancel the local excess of births over deaths in most of the areas. But except for a few areas, people did move cut in sufficient numbers at least to offset the influx of newcomers. And in Great Britain at the height of the transference program, spontaneous migration was quietly removing two workers from the depressed areas for every worker removed by the elaborate transference machinery. CONCLUSIONS • 153 Without this small spontaneous movement, the depressed-area problem in America at the end of the 1930's would have been some- what more grave than it actually was. In the southern Illinois coal field, for example, one would have expected to find half the workers unemployed in 1939, supposing no emigration between 1930 and 1939, instead of the 41 percent actually reported. There seems to be little doubt, further, that this spontaneous movement is successfully terminated in the great majority of cases; indeed, spontaneous mi- gration usually will not go forward (except in special situations) without good chances for successful termination — hence its slow pace. It follows that barriers and frictions which unnecessarily retard the slow, free migration of workers from the depressed areas are likely to operate against the public interest. Such inunobOizLng forces are many and diverse, and they range from border blockades and the more harsh legal-settlement laws to the failure of bankrupt local com- munities to provide their youth with an average level of training. To eliminate the existing barriers wherever possible and, more important stni, to prevent the establishment of new ones woidd appear to be about as fruitful an attack on the depressed-area problems as the most alert and complex "guided-migration" scheme. This does not mean that spontaneous migration from the depressed areas is always good in itself. The greatest mischief is done when people are forced to migrate "spontaneously" without good chances for successful resettlement, even though their home communities may be utterly derelict. Migrations growing out of inadequate public assistance, irresponsible labor recruiting, and the like are a serious national problem. The mass hardships of one such recent migi-ation have already fired the public's indignation. Similar incidents are always latent in neglected depressed-area situations. Appendixes 155 Appendix A TABLES Table 1. — Number of Shipping Coal Mines Opened, Abandoned, and in Operation Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1939 Year Mines opened Mines abandoned Mines in operation Year Mines opened Mines abandoned Mines in operation 1900 2 5 5 7 10 5 11 12 10 4 2 5 3 5 3 1 3 6 16 4 2 2 1 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 4 2 5 2 3 4 3 14 17 20 26 32 37 46 5G 64 66 66 69 69 70 71 67 70 74 87 87 1920 1921 1922 9 10 5 5 5 2 2 2 2 1 2 2 1 2 4 5 6 3 2 4 3 3 13 17 11 1 14 6 9 2 5 3 5 5 5 5 5 3 4 93 99 101 1901 1902 1903 1923 _.- 103 95 1904 1924 1905 - . 1925 80 71 1906 1926 1907 1927 1928 72 1908 60 1909 1929 55 1910 - . 1930 48 1911 1931 1932 48 1912 44 1913 1933 43 1914 1934 42 1915 - . 1935 1936 42 1916 43 1917 .„ 1937 ' 38 1918 1938 36 1919 1939 35 Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Report of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1900-1939. Table 2. — Men Employed at Shipping Coal Mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1940 • Year Men employed Total Franklin Saline Williamson 1900 1,548 2,206 2,635 3,292 3,789 5,119 6,685 8,968 11, 621 13,428 413 696 1,342 1,918 2,732 182 203 249 424 321 396 984 2,069 3,427 4,066 1,366 1901- .- 2,003 1902 2,386 1903 2,868 1904 3,468 1905 4,310 1906 5,005 1907 - 5,557 1908. 6,276 1909 6,638 See footnote at end of table. 157 1 58 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 2. — Men Employed at Shipping Coal Mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1940 — Continued Men employed Year Total Franklin Saline Williamson 1910 -- --- 14, 391 16, 136 17, 592 19. 875 20,441 20,470 21. 876 24,497 27,990 28,240 28,878 31, 781 33, 126 36, 199 34,641 29, 957 29,500 30, 178 26,405 22,724 19, 661 19,044 16,205 14, 459 14, 365 13, 092 13, 309 12. 465 11,843 11,057 10.200 2,630 3,736 4, 472 5,314 6,452 7,798 8,606 10,511 11,618 11,855 12, 261 14,264 14,840 16,231 15, 816 15,007 14, 543 15,234 14,259 12,287 10, 670 10,064 9,441 7,900 8,407 6,907 7.697 6,795 6,611 6,504 6.700 4,081 3,868 4,659 5,408 4,832 4,129 4,768 4,745 6,468 6,253 5,876 6,049 5,861 7,114 6,816 5,373 5,802 6,148 4,869 4,594 4,246 4,392 3,947 3,854 3,733 3,870 3,915 3,985 3,577 3,195 2,450 7,680 1911 . .- 8,532 1912 - - - 8,461 1913 9,153 1914 . 9,157 1915 8,543 1916 - 8,502 1917 9,241 1918 . 9,904 1919 . . 10, 132 1920 - - 10, 741 1921 11,468 1922 12, 425 1923 12,854 1924 12,009 1925 9,577 1926 9,155 1927 8,796 1928 -- 7,277 1929 5,843 1930 4,745 4,588 1932 2,817 2,705 1934 -- 2,225 1935 ... 2,315 1,697 1937 1,685 1,655 1939 1,358 19401 ... 1,0.S) 1 Figures for 1940 are preliminary. Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Heport of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1900-1939. TABLES • 1 59 Table 3. — Production, Capacity/ and Average Number of Days Worked at Shipping Coal Mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1940 Year Production (thousand tons) Capacity (thousand tons) Days worked Year Production (thousand tons) Capacity (thousand tons) Days worked 1900 1,262 1,740 2,219 3,047 3,326 4,264 4,886 7,807 9,459 11,110 10, 985 10, 757 15, 161 17,416 18,126 18, 337 21, 428 25,448 29,266 25, 930 25, 389 1,460 2,166 2,938 3,779 4,213 5,200 7,034 9,557 12, 170 15, 404 16, 896 18, 269 20, 826 22, 793 24,289 27, 541 28,876 29,842 32,288 34, 112 38, 757 242 225 211 226 221 230 194 229 218 202 182 165 204 214 209 186 208 239 254 213 183 1921 27,754 22,673 27,276 26, 693 26, 315 28,625 18, 518 22,859 24,163 19,687 14, 679 11, 273 11,076 11,840 13, 140 15, 744 15, 951 12, 774 14, 210 14, 833 40,276 45,620 47, 334 48,981 44, 259 41,560 44,160 38,457 35, 674 32, 535 31,726 29,165 27,348 25, 704 26, 219 25, 308 25, 815 25,829 26,968 (2) 193 1901 1922 139 1902 1923 . „ 161 1903 1924 153 1904 1925 166 1905 . 1926 193 1906 1927 117 1907 . .- 1928 166 1908 1929 190 1909 1930 169 1910 1931 129 1911 1932 108 1912 1933— 113 1913 1934 129 1914 - 1935 140 1915 1936 174 1916 1937 173 1917 1938 138 1918 1939 148 1919 1940 (') 1920 - 1 Capacity is computed as the average daily output of all mines operating during a given year multiplied by 2S0. The hypothetical full workine year is considered to be 280 days. 2 Not available. Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Report of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1900-1939. Table 4. — Average Hourly Earnings of Hand Loaders in Bituminous Coal Mining in Principal Producing States, Selected Years, 1919-1933 Average hourly earnings of hand loaders Year Illinois Indiana Kentucky Ohio Pennsyl- vania West Virginia 1919 -. $0. 889 1.127 1.003 .976 .791 .800 .558 $0. 875 1.094 1.034 1.040 .865 .869 .677 $0. 686 .704 .646 .579 .547 .489 .317 $0. 761 .893 .791 .752 .545 .440 .293 $0. 753 .672 .682 .651 .542 .485 .296 $0,778 1922 .841 1924 .764 1926 - .710 1929 .591 1931 .486 19.33 .326 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics: Hours and Earnings in Anthracite and Bituminous Coal Muiimj, 1919-1920, Bulletin No. 279, 1921; Hours and Earnings in Bituminous Coal Mininq, 1922, W2J,. and 19S^, Bulletin No. 4.54, 1927, Hours and Earnings in Bituminous Coal Mining in 1929, Bulletin No. 516, 1930; and Wages and Hours of Labor in Bituminous Coal Mining, Bulletin No. 001, 1934, U. S. Department of Labor. \Vashington, D. C. 160 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 5. — Bituminous Coal Production in the United States by Principal Producing States, 1910-19391 [Amounts in millions of tons] Bituminous coal production Yew Ks' ™-*^ Indiana Ohio Pennsyl- vania West Virginia Ken- tucky AU other States 1910 417 406 450 478 423 443 503 552 579 466 569 416 422 565 484 520 573 518 501 535 468 382 310 334 359 46 54 00 62 58 59 66 86 89 61 89 70 58 79 68 67 69 47 56 61 54 44 33 37 41 18 14 15 17 17 17 20 27 31 21 29 20 19 26 21 21 23 18 16 18 16 14 13 14 15 16 18 18 15 17 34 31 35 36 19 22 35 41 46 36 46 32 27 41 30 28 28 16 16 24 23 20 14 20 21 21 24 25 19 20 151 145 162 174 148 158 170 172 179 151 171 116 113 172 131 137 153 133 131 144 124 98 75 79 90 91 110 111 78 92 62 60 67 71 72 77 86 86 90 79 90 73 80 108 102 122 144 145 133 139 121 101 86 94 98 99 118 119 93 108 15 14 16 20 20 21 25 28 32 30 36 32 42 45 45 55 63 69 62 60 51 40 35 36 39 41 48 47 39 43 91 1911 88 1912 95 1913 98 1914 89 1915 89 1916 101 1917 . 112 1918 112 1919 88 1920 108 1921 73 1922 . 83 1923 . 94 1924 87 1925 90 1926 93 1927 90 1928 87 1929 89 1930 79 1931 65 1932 35 1933 54 1934 55 1935 372 45 439 51 59 1936 70 1937 446 349 393 52 42 46 74 1938 64 1939 ' 67 1 Figures for 1939 at Source: Bureau of D. C, 1937-1940. e prelimins Mines, M iry. nerals Ye irbook, am lual, U. 8. Departmc nt of the 1 Jiterior, Washington, TABLES • 161 Table 6. — Production at Shipping Cool Mines by Method oF Loadins, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1927-1939 [Amounts in thousands of tons] Production at shipping coal mines Year Total Underground mines Loaded by hand Pit-car loader Mobile loader mines 1927 18, 518 22,859 24, 163 19, 687 14, 579 11, 273 11,076 11, 840 13,140 15,744 15, 951 12, 774 14, 210 17, 556 19, 444 15, 058 9,871 5,165 3,455 3,591 4,529 3,903 4,161 2,832 1,655 747 117 1,662 6,082 6,348 5,779 4,215 2,832 3,458 4,302 4,492 4,224 2,755 365 240 1.101 2,273 3,035 3,417 3,308 4,301 3,466 4,139 6,040 7,614 7,068 11, 678 605 652 750 433 218 295 352 387 796 1,051 1,281 1,296 1,420 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 . 1933 1934 1935 . 1936 .-- 1937 1938 1939 Percent distribution 1927 --- 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 95 85 63 51 35 31 32 39 30 26 18 13 5 1 7 25 32 40 37 26 29 33 29 26 22 3 1 5 9 15 23 29 39 29 31 38 48 55 82 3 1928 3 1929 3 1930 2 1931 .. 2 1932 3 1933 . - . - 3 1934 . 3 1935 6 1936 7 1937 - 8 1938 10 1939 10 Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Report of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1927-1939. } 162 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Tahle 7. — Men Employed, Capacity, Output per Man-Day, and Percent of Output Loaded by Machinery at the 21 Mechanized Shipping Coal Mines ' in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1926-1938 Men em- ployed Capacity (thousand tons) Output per man-day (tons) Percent of total output loaded by- Year All ma- chines Pit-car loaders MobUe loaders 1926 15, 334 15, 799 15, 339 13,937 12, 744 12, 803 11, 860 10, 179 9,861 9,554 9,905 9,830 9,691 21, 610 23,437 22, 657 22,014 21, 522 21, 146 19, 884 18, 014 17,050 18, 215 19,403 20, 772 21,117 5.5 5.7 5.7 6.1 6.4 6.3 7.6 7.3 7.0 7.7 7.9 8.5 8.5 2 10 40 59 75 77 82 70 75 83 88 91 5 29 40 46 40 35 33 36 36 32 26 1927 2 1928 6 1929 _ 11 1930 19 1931 . - 29 1932 - . - 37 1933 . _.. . 47 1934 - 37 1935 - . - 39 1936 - 47 1937 56 1938 65 * Less than 0.5 percent. 1 The following mines which installed mechanical loading equipment after 1926 and which operated during 1938 are included: Franklin County— Bell and Zoller Coal and Mining Co. No. 1; Bell and Zoller Coal and Mining Co. No. 2; Chicago, Wilmington, and Franklin Coal Co. No. 1; Chicago. Wilmington, and Frank- lin Coal Co. New Orient; Franklin County Coal Corp. No. 5; Franklin County Coal Corp. No. 7; Old Ben Coal Corp. No. 8; Old Ben Coal Corp. No. 11; Old Ben Coal Corp. No. 14; Old Ben Coal Corp. No. 15; Peabody Coal Co. No. 18; and Valier Coal Co. No. 1; Saline County— Peabody Coal Co. No. 43, Peabody Coal Co. No. 47, Rex Coal Co. No. 2, Wasson Coal Co. A, and Wasson Coal Co. No. 1; Williamson County- Consolidated Coal Co. New Monarch, Franco Mining Co., Freemen Coal Mining Co., and Seymour Coal Mining Co. Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Report of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1926-1938. Table 8. — Bituminous Coal Produced per Man-Day in the United States and in Under- ground and Strip Mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1939 [Tons] Bituminous coal produced per man-day Year United States Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties All mines Underground mines Strip mines 1900 3.0 2.9 3.1 3.0 3.2 3.2 3.4 3.3 3.3 (') 3.5 3.5 3.7 3.6 3.7 3.9 3.9 3.8 3.8 3.8 3.5 3.7 4.3 4.2 4.0 3.7 3.9 4.1 4.0 4.2 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.3 4.5 5.0 4.9 4.7 4.4 4.5 3.5 3.7 4.3 4.2 4.0 3.7 3.9 4.1 4.0 4.2 4.4 4.3 4.5 4.3 4.5 h.Q 4.9 4.6 4.4 4.5 1901 . -. 1902 . 1903 1904, - ._ . -- 1905 - ... 1906 , 1907 _^ 1908 1909 - 1910 1911 1912 1913. . 7.5 1914..- 10.5 1915 1916 - . 15.0 13.6 1917 15.7 1918 _. 1919 12.6 See footnote at end of table. ^^_______ TABLES « 163 fob/e 8. — Bituminous Coal Produced per Man-Day in the United States and in Under- ground and Strip Mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1939 — Con. [Tons] Year Bituminous coal produced per man-day United States 1920- 1921. 1922. 1923. 1924- 1925- 192^- 1927- 1928- 1929- 1930- 1931- 1932- ]933. 1934- 1935- 1936- 1937. 1938- 1939. H) 4.0 4.2 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.5 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.9 5.1 5.3 5.2 4.8 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.9 Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties All mines 5.0 4.7 5.1 4.9 5.3 5.4 5.3 5.5 5.6 6.0 6.2 6.2 7.3 6.9 6.2 7.8 8.5 9.4 Underground mines Strip mines 5.0 14.8 4.7 4.9 5.0 9.6 4.9 12.4 5.3 4.7 5.3 12.3 5.3 10.4 5.4 19.2 5.4 24.3 5.9 24.7 6.1 27.9 6.2 11.8 7.3 11.1 6.8 14.6 6.1 15.8 6.6 17.1 7.5 23.2 8.3 12.3 8.2 23.1 S.9 22.7 1 Not available. Source: Bureau of Mines, Minerals Yearbook, 1936, 1939, and 1940, U. S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C: and Elinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coal Report of Illinois, annual, Spring- field, 1901-1939. Table 9. — Production and Men Employed at Local Coal Mines in Saline and Williamson Counties/ 1900-1939 Year Production (thousand tons) Men em- ployed Year Production (thousand tons) Men em- ployed 1900...- 1901 19 14 19 19 16 16 30 34 69 33 57 44 40 46 56 67 50 67 67 87 114 67 61 70 93 49 101 102 76 139 109 115 79 84 110 151 134 125 148 138 1920 1921 1922 81 71 73 53 75 48 56 57 73 63 89 92 154 167 225 269 392 474 412 547 185 160 1902 139 1903 1923 107 1904 1924 1925 124 1905 109 1906 - - . .. 1926 1927 137 1907 165 1908 1928.- 177 1909 1929 151 1910 1930 236 1911 1931 307 1912 1932 444 1913 1933 506 1914 - 1934 630 1915 1935 . 697 1916 1936 785 1917 1937 729 1918 19.38 733 1919 1939 741 ' Franklin County has no local mines. Source: Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals, Coai Report of Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1900-1939, 164 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 10. — Population, Labor Force, Employed Workers, Unemployed Workers, and Workers on Work Programs, by Sex, 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Item Total Bush John- ston City Carrier Mills Herrin West Frank- fort Zeieler Eldo- rado 38, 193 643 5,351 2,231 9,608 12, 725 3,017 4,618 19, 294 18, 899 15, 707 325 318 218 2,743 2,608 2,127 1,143 1,088 867 4,759 4,849 4,088 6,483 6,242 5,226 1,555 1,462 1,227 2,286 2,332 1,954 12, 246 3,461 41 187 31 34 1,682 445 40 675 192 39 3,133 955 43 4,095 1,131 41 1,004 223 41 1,470 484 Percent of population in labor force 42 Male 63 18 9,209 68 10 44 61 17 857 59 18 477 66 20 2,522 63 18 3,257 65 15 775 64 21 1,277 Less than 30 hours' work in census 3,465 5,700 44 22 6,498 21 23 10 174 266 578 13 13 1,270 174 298 5 20 390 1,016 1,505 1 25 1,566 1,173 2,070 14 22 1,969 366 408 1 30 452 449 30 hours' work or more in census 818 10 Percent of labor force em- ployed less than 30 hours in 23 Unemployed workers ' 677 4, 857 1,641 41 148 26 80 1,012 258 60 284 106 45 1,140 426 38 1,506 463 38 330 122 37 437 Female Percent of labor force unem- ployed 240 35 40 47 3,369 79 84 119 60 58 850 42 55 229 36 45 928 37 41 661 33 55 243 30 50 programs 339 2,679 690 52 109 10 68 706 144 67 180 49 59 711 217 59 529 132 34 199 44 54 245 Female - - - 94 Percent of unemployed work- ers on work programs ' 50 Male - 55 42 74 38 70 56 63 46 62 51 35 29 60 36 56 39 ' Persons employed in private industry, persons on work programs, persons seeking work, and persons only temporarily out of the labor market during the "census week," a specified week immediately before enumeration. 2 Workers who had no jobs in private industry during the census week. 3 Includes WPA, NY A, CCC, and other Federal emergency programs. TABLES • 165 Table 77. — Usual Occupation oF Employed and Unemployed Workers in 7 Southern Illinois Cool Towns Usual occupation Total. Without usual occupation With work experience ' Without work experience ^ With usual occupation Farmers and farm workers Forestry workers Coal mine workers Operators, managers, and officials Foremen and inspectors Surface workers Face workers Hand loaders Other face workers Hoisting and haulage workers Manufacturing and mechanical workers Brickmasons, carpenters, electricians, painters, and plasterers Operatives (except in buildinsj trades) Other manufacturing and mechanical workers.. Transportation and communication workers Chauffeurs and truck and tractor drivers Railroad workers Road and street laborers Other transportation and eommunication work- ers Tradesworkers Bankers, brokers, money lenders, and insur- ance agents Retail dealers Salespersons Other tradesworkers PubUc and professional service workers Domestic and personal service workers Restaurant workers Servants Other domestic and personal service workers — Clerical workers .-_ Total labor force 1 15, 705 3,401 2,730 671 12,304 175 19 4,920 64 256 473 2,912 1,290 1,622 1,215 1,716 595 266 855 952 445 234 79 194 1,763 76 572 792 323 1,027 1,041 258 349 434 691 Employed workers Unemployed workers 9,209 657 657 8,552 51 7 3,228 57 212 398 1,601 451 1,150 960 1,039 316 102 621 563 230 176 148 1, 515 72 529 647 267 876 726 185 180 361 547 Percent of labor force 6,496 2, 74} 2, 073 671 3,752 124 12 1,692 7 44 75 1,311 839 472 255 677 279 164 234 389 215 58 70 46 248 4 43 145 56 151 315 73 169 73 144 81 76 100 30 71 63 34 11 17 16 45 65 29 21 39 47 62 27 41 48 25 1 Excludes 2 workers whose usual occupations were not ascertainable. ' Includes both private and emergency-work-program employment. 166 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 12. — Industry of Usual Occupation of Unempioyed Workers, by Sex, 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Industry of usual occupation Unemployed workers Number Total Male Female Total ' 6,486 2,744 2,073 671 Without usual occupation With work experience 2 Without work experience 2_ With usual occupation Agriculture and forestry Coal mining Manufacturing and mechanical Transportation and communication. Trade Public and professional service Domestic and personal service 3,742 162 1,780 612 356 300 233 299 1,693 1,326 367 3,155 160 1,779 490 348 218 103 57 1,638 1,051 747 304 1 122 8 82 130 242 Percent distribution Total Male Female 100 * Less than 0.5 percent. 1 Excludes 12 workers whose industries of usual occupation were not ascertainable. 2 Includes both private and emergency-work-prograra employment. Table 13. — Industry of Usual Occupation of Employed and Unemployed Workers, by Age Group, 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Labor force Industry of usual occu- pation Total. Without usual occupa- tion With work experi- ence 2 Without work ex- perience ^ With usual occupation.. Agriculture and for- estry Coal mining Manufacturing and mechanical Transportation and communication.. Trade Public and profes- sional service. ... Domestic and per- sonal service Total 1 15, 682 3,400 2,729 671 12, 282 225 5,567 895 2,010 1,254 976 Un- der 25 years of age 25-54 years of age 3,848 2,063 1,509 554 1.785 56 260 170 459 316 273 55 years of age and over ,393 1,097 1,004 93 8,296 111 3,964 920 612 1,308 801 580 Total 2,441 240 216 24 2,201 58 1,343 113 243 137 123 Employed workers 9,199 1,606 Un- der 25 years of age 25-54 years of age 657 657 8,542 63 3,789 539 1,710 1,021 677 393 393 1,213 8 227 124 73 376 217 188 55 years of age and over 6,211 234 234 5,977 37 2,811 392 1,117 682 404 Total 1,382 1 , :'552 74 217 Unemployed workers Un- der 25 years of age 6.483 2,743 2,072 671 3.740 162 1,778 356 300 233 299 2,242 1,670 1,116 554 572 48 33 25-54 years 01 age 55 years of age and over 3,182 770 93 2,319 74 1,153 220 191 119 176 210 186 24 40 592 1 Excludes 25 workers whose ages or industries of usual occupation were not ascertainable. ' Includes both private and emerge ncy-work-program employment. TABLES • 167 Table 14. — Labor Force and Unemployed Workers in 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns, by Age Group Age group Total Bush Johns- ton City Carrier Mills West Herrin Frank- fort ^-■^'- fit Labor force- Under 25 years 25-54 years 55 years and over. Unemployed workers. Under 25 years... 25-54 years 55 years and over. Percent of labor force unem- ployed Under 25 years . . . 25-54 years 55 years and over. 1 15, 696 3.857 9,396 2,443 ! 6, 494 2,249 3,184 1,061 66 130 22 174 867 I 4,085 568 1.214 342 1,267 245 513 109 424 625 218 60 138 1% 56 45 966 2,464 655 1,.566 576 785 205 5,223 1,226 1,953 1,290 3,128 805 921 359 38 253 783 190 452 133 219 100 37 469 1,164 320 677 232 341 104 35 I Excludes 11 workers whose ages were not ascertainable. ' Excludes 4 unemployed workers whose ages were not ascertainable. Table 75. — Employment Status of Families in 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Employment status of families Total Bush John- ston City 181 1,652 17 164 148 1,504 43 687 32 607 11 80 121 817 23 157 98 660 Carrier Mills West Frank- fort ^^^^^"i ^it All families Without workers With workers Some workers with private employment No workers on work pro- grams Some workers on work programs No workers with private em- ployment No workers on work pro- grams Some workers on work pro- grams All families Without workers With workers Some workers with private employment No workers on work pro- grams Some workers on work programs No workers with private em- ployment No workers on work pro- grams Some workers on work pro- grams 12,477 1, 102 11,375 7,373 6,910 463 4,002 1,368 2,634 93 621 .384 343 41 237 63 174 281 2,950 1,983 1,862 121 967 236 731 357 3,768 2,603 2,480 123 1,165 657 508 Percent distribution 48 934 640 616 24 294 92 202 1,592 158 1,434 1.033 970 63 401 140 261 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 9 91 9 91 9 91 13 87 9 91 9 91 5 95 10 90 59 24 42 54 61 63 65 65 55 18 37 48 57 60 63 61 4 6 5 6 4 3 2 4 32 67 49 33 30 28 30 25 11 13 9 9 7 16 9 9 i 21 54 40 24 23 12 21 16 168 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 16. — Duration of Unemployment Since Lost Full-Time Job oF Workers in 7 Southern Illinois Cool Towns Months since last full-time job Total 12 months or less- . 13-24 months 25-36 months 37-48 months 49-60 months 61-120 months 121 months or over Total 12 months or less 13-24 months --- 25-36 months -- 37-48 months 49-60 months 61-120 months 121 months or over Average 2 months since last full-time job Workers unemployed Total 1 4, 386 1,268 605 289 308 198 1,275 443 Bush 100 John- ston City 260 101 66 86 36 208 62 Carrier Mills Herrin 255 163 57 62 51 272 119 West Frank- fort 426 181 91 88 48 431 136 Zeigler Percent Distribution 100 Eldo- rado 466 166 73 44 23 25 82 53 ■ This figure excludes 1,981 unemijloyed workers who had never liad a full-time job, 1 whose employ- ment status was unknown, and 130 whose duration of unemployment was not ascertainable. 2 Median TABLES • 169 Table 17. — Duration of Unemployment of Workers in 7 Soutliern Industry of Lost Full-Time Job linois Coal Towns, by Workers unemployed 121 months or over 443 Aver- age ' Industry of last full-time job Total 12 months or less 13-24 months 25-36 months 37-48 months 49-60 months 61-120 months 1,275 months since last full- time job Total 2 4, 384 1,267 605 289 307 198 38 Agriculture 184 17 1,850 728 361 479 56 165 554 52 2 336 251 112 185 27 59 243 31 6 153 159 55 91 7 15 88 13 2 112 49 27 39 3 10 34 28 1 140 33 35 32 3 8 27 19 1 79 28 20 14 2 6 29 38 4 818 147 84 80 11 36 57 3 1 212 61 28 38 3 21 76 33 t 68 Coal min ing Manufacturing and me- 21 Transportation and corn- 31 Trade - - - 20 14 Professional service Domestic and personal 29 17 Percent distribution Total - - 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Agriculture - _ . 4 42 17 8 11 1 4 13 4 26 20 9 15 2 5 19 5 2^ 26 9 15 1 3 15 4 1 39 17 9 13 1 4 12 9 * 46 11 11 10 1 3 9 10 1 40 14 10 7 1 3 14 3 64 11 7 6 1 3 5 1 47 14 6 9 1 5 17 Forestry- Manufacturing and me- chanical - - Transportation and corn- Trade - Professional service Domestic and personal Percent distribution Total 100 29 14 7 7 4 29 10 100 t 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 28 t 18 34 31 38 48 38 44 17 t 8 22 15 19 13 10 16 7 t 6 7 7 8 5 6 6 15 t 8 5 10 7 5 5 5 10 t 4 4 6 3 4 4 5 21 t 44 20 23 17 20 23 10 2 t 12 8 8 8 5 14 14 Coal mining Manufacturing and me- Transportation and corn- Trade Professional service Domestic and personal 1 * Less than 0.5 percent. t Too small for calculation. 2 This flsure excludes 1,981 unemployed workers who had never had a full-time job, 1 whose employment status was'^ unknown, 2 for whom the industry of last full-time job was not specified, and 130 whose unem- ployment duration was not ascertainable. 1 70 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 18. — Unemployed Workers Who Had Never Held a Full-Time Job, 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns, by Age Group Age group Unemployed workers who never had a full-time job _ _ . Under 25 years _ _ _ 25-54 years 55 years and over- Unemployed workers who never had a full-time job as a percent of the labor force 2. Under 25 years 25-54 years 55 years and over- Unemployed workers who never had a full-time job as a percent of the unem- ployed 2 Under 25 years..- 25-54 years 55 years and over- Total 1 1,980 1,457 438 85 Bush John- ston City 286 82 10 Carrier MDls 67 59 13 18 5 16 Herrin 409 143 26 West Frank- fort 434 96 16 Zeigler Eldo- rado 130 50 20 > Excludes 1 unemployed worker whose age was not ascertainable. 2 See appendix table 14 for data on labor force and number of workers unemployed. Table 79. — Status of Families Without Private Employment in 7 Southern Illinois Coal Towns Status of families without private employment Total Without workers With workers Some workers employed within 1 year_. All workers unemployed 1 year or more All workers inexperienced ' Status of workers not ascertainable Number Percent 5,104 100 1,102 22 4,002 78 868 17 2,607 51 457 9 70 1 ' Workers who never held a full-time private job. TABLES • 171 Table 20.— Assessed Valuation of Real Property i in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, Selected Years, 1913-1932 [Amounts in thousands 1 Type of real property Assessed valuation of real |)roperiy 1913 1918 1922 1927 1932 jVH real property > $14,114 $15, 694 $31, 520 $55,534 $35, 415 Land and mineral rights 9,799 3,341 6,458 4,315 10, 070 3,302 6,768 5,624 19,628 8,820 10,808 11,892 31,228 16, 495 14, 733 24,306 19, 876 10,109 9,767 15, 539 Coal lands and mineral rights. Other lands . Lots Percent distribution All real property > 100 100 100 100 100 Land and mineral rights . .. . 70 24 46 30 64 21 43 36 62 28 34 38 56 30 26 44 56 28 Coal lands and mineral rights Other lands 28 Lots _ , ' Railroad real property is excluded. Source: Original tax records in the county courthouses at Benton, Harrisburg, and Marion, 111.; the annual reports of the Dlinois State Tax Commission, 1920-1934; and the annual reports of the Illinois State Board of Equalization, 1900-1918. Note.— Relation of assessed to full value; 1909-1918, 33H percent; 1919-1926, 50 percent; and 1927 to date, 100 percent. Table 21. — Number of Deeds for Town Real Property Recorded in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties and the Average Value of Deeds in Williamson County/ 1900-1938 Year Number of deeds recorded Average value of deeds (Williamson County 1) Year Number of deeds recorded Average value of deeds (Williamson County I) 1900 1901 1902 261 339 1,092 1,815 2,106 2,941 2,893 2,568 2,102 2,455 2,015 1,808 2,255 3,885 4,127 3,052 3,256 4,348 6,015 6.099 $534 280 314 400 409 531 680 660 638 706 750 760 699 789 751 735 743 832 968 1,147 1920 1921 1922 1923 5,960 7,860 5,235 4,506 3,603 2,720 2,082 2,553 1,685 1,617 1,713 1,774 1,417 1,482 1,308 1,328 859 580 (») $1, 356 1,122 1,203 1903 1,274 1904 1924 1,295 1905 1925 1, 191 1906 1926 1,456 1907- 1927 1928 1,422 1908 1,500 1909_ - 1929 1930 766 1910 556 1911 1931 628 1912 1932 484 1913 1933- 387 1914 1934 ---- (>) 1916 1935 447 1916 1936 447 1917 1937 543 1918 1938 508 1919 1 Value of deeds in Franklin and Saline Counties is not available. 2 Not available. Source: Original deed records in the county courthouses at Benton. Harrisburg. and Marion, IlL 172 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 22. — Taxes Collected and Current Taxes Extended in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1908-1937 [Amounts in thousands] Taxes collected Taxes extended Year Total Frank- lin Saline William- son Total Frank- lin Saline William- son 1908 -. $490 585 594 668 744 1,028 1,029 1,070 1,327 1,393 1,494 2,244 2,450 2,898 3,242 3,480 3,632 3,792 3,577 3,545 3,487 3,145 2,809 2,295 2,041 1,759 1,763 1,856 1,994 2,036 $79 138 142 169 172 260 255 269 386 401 1432 1846 1926 1 1, 205 1,268 1,379 1.214 1,455 1,381 1,311 1,280 1,164 1,037 858 700 704 634 680 705 737 i$135 1 156 1 157 182 202 274 1316 ■332 1385 1391 432 505 569 567 1691 I 718 '818 1764 1768 822 806 794 749 621 564 525 573 580 638 672 $276 291 295 317 370 494 458 469 556 601 630 893 955 1,126 1,283 1,383 1,600 1,573 1,428 1,412 1,401 1,187 1,023 816 777 530 556 596 651 627 $611 654 649 734 868 1.123 1,131 1, 152 1,384 1,434 1,508 2,202 2,452 2,924 3.012 3,287 3,592 4,038 3,744 3,822 3,771 3.800 3,481 3,091 2,720 2,352 2,259 2,383 (2) (2) $147 1153 180 205 220 300 299 1329 433 430 438 859 939 1,170 1.144 1,439 1 1, 322 1,693 1,577 1,570 1,479 1,522 1,336 1,238 1,001 968 889 958 m $183 205 1171 208 277 317 369 348 386 396 432 437 545 661 616 469 738 822 746 864 853 861 803 728 671 580 568 579 (2) n $281 1909 296 1910 298 1911 321 1912 . 371 1913 506 1914 463 1915 - .. . 475 1916 565 1917. 608 1918 638 1919 906 1920 968 1921 1922 1923 1,093 1,252 1,379 1924 :. 1,532 1925 1,523 1926 1,421 1927 1928 - -- 1,388 1,439 1929 1,417 1930 1,342 1931 1,125 1932 1,048 1933 804 1934 802 1935. 846 1936 :_. W 1937 W 1 Estimated. 2 Not available. Source: Original tax records in the county courthouses at Benton. Harrisburg. and Marion. 111.; and unpublished data from the Illinois Government Finance Study, WPA Project No. 3121. sponsored by the Illinois Tax Commi.^ion. TABLES • 173 Table 23. — Activity of Building and Loan Associations in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1936 Year 1900.. 1901.. 1902_. 1903, - 1904.. 1905.. 1906-. 1907.. 1908. . 1909- - 1910.. 1911. 1912. 1913.. 1914 . 1915- 1916- . 1917- . 1918- . 1919. 1920- 1921- 1922.. 1923- 1924. 1925. 1926- 1927- 1928- 1929- 1930- 1931- 1932. 1933- 1934 1935- 1936. Number of Loans outstanding New loans Interest, pre- associa- Assets made during mium, and tions year fines charged 4 $169. 824 $123, 800 $58, 700 $20, 879 4 135, 164 154,500 73, 021 25,979 4 225, 587 210, 850 100, 450 36, 112 4 258, 619 243, 540 79, 450 31, 733 5 368, 527 352, 000 128, 250 ' 38,899 6 468, 477 445, 203 153, 205 53,993 6 .503, 745 470, 350 127, 6,50 51,408 7 596, 227 569, 000 314,4.50 70, 70S 8 663, 983 619, 000 151.800 62,653 8 703, 832 656, 350 139, 750 66,055 9 730, 570 663, 700 170, 400 74, 876 13 819, 408 741, 050 216, 900 81,926 13 889, 739 795, 200 211,7.50 90,2,54 13 991.287 897. 100 292, 500 109, 013 13 1,286,822 1, 187, 300 480, 550 124,286 14 1, 642, 541 1, 528, 550 558, 700 137, 528 15 1,954,276 1, 781, 800 486, 200 155, 715 16 2, 276, 450 2, 113, 100 604, 873 197, 561 20 2, 741, 878 2, 570, 470 920, 270 245, 188 21 3. 503. 741 3, 288. 900 1. 290, 650 32.5, 623 23 4, 417, 856 4, 100, 370 1, 616, 850 406,406 28 5, 984, 232 5, 643, 950 2, 508, 103 555, 729 31 8, 662, 156 8, 174, 850 3, 408, 108 769, 503 32 11, 180, 872 10, 216, 190 3, 409, 840 978, 339 35 14, 079. 573 13,18.3,600 4, 272, 435 1, 323. 922 34 15, 208, 247 13, 620, 130 2, 348, 180 1, 386, 080 34 15, 373, 868 12, 750. 591 1, 624, 750 1,413,747 34 14, 764, 484 11,260,760 806, 510 1, 22,5, 212 34 14, 296, 866 9, 894, 750 .584, 050 1,004,912 34 13,514.911 8, 425, 435 433, 278 898, 074 35 12, 546, 294 6, 778, 973 394, 430 784,931 34 11, 328, 167 5, 211, 562 110,890 553,405 27 7, 759, %3 0) (') (') 26 6, 777, 285 (') {') (■) 24 6, 117, 357 (•) (') 0) 14 4, 461, 672 (>) (•) ^'l 7 1. 390. 072 (0 0) (0 1 Not available. Source: Illinois Auditor of Public Accounts, Annual Report of Mutual Building, Loan and Homotead Associations, Springfield, 1901-1937. 174 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 24. — Number of Banks and Amount on Deposit in State and National Banks, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1938 Year Total Num- ber of banks Amount on deposit Franklin County Num- ber of banks Amount on deposit Saline County Num- ber of banks Amount on deposit Williamson County Num- ber of banks Amount on deposit 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 (') $623, 403 694, 848 1, 063, 427 (') 1, 720, 827 3, 430, 882 3, 721, 876 3, 479, 619 2, 898, 374 3, 694, 870 4, 399, 258 5, 192, 961 6, 348, 861 7, 185, 404 6, 628, 093 6, 686, 742 7, 135, 992 10, 648, 946 15, 560, 408 17, 152, 128 23, 491, 709 26, 433, 193 24, 665, 624 28, 488, 893 27, 758, 907 29, 079, 134 32, 156, 935 27, 791, 280 28, 651, 570 25, 693. 027 12, 124, 418 7,101,226 5, 814, 395 5, 754, 030 6, 177, 623 7, 245, 231 8, 528, 430 10, 256, 615 10, 027, 902 (0 $113, 432 144, 281 201, 659 0) 333, 697 784, 360 733, 064 626, 554 553. 617 724, 852 1, 005, 420 1, 129,651 1, 486, 817 1, 690, 776 1, 602, 870 1, 655, 387 1,795,738 2,901,236 4, 770, 378 5, 671, 076 7,511,887 8, 528, 422 7, 637, 453 9, 394, 344 9,109,411 10, 840, 617 12, 474, 673 9, 883, 083 10, 586, 529 8, 498. 835 3, 373, 803 774, 419 1,011, .500 899, 098 1, .389, 813 1, 634, 579 2, 013, 925 2, 079, 548 2, 254. 588 0) $214, 438 289, 285 299, 185 0) 328, 729 852, 656 1, 005, 303 797, 541 670, 239 800, 558 960, 374 1,217,929 1, 430, 282 1, 544, 364 1, 504, 136 1, 364, 409 1, 509, 140 1, 956, 729 3, 028, 466 3, 180, 994 5, 390, 073 5, 953, 001 5, 831, 475 6, 756, 431 6, 401, 3,54 6, 539, 679 6, 891, 815 6, 394, 534 6, 451, 247 6, 385, 516 5, 252, 650 4, 709, 718 4, 258, 030 4, 402, 015 4, 140, 871 4, 964, 009 5, 587, 894 6, 634, 370 5, 694, 257 (0 $195, 533 261, 282 562, 583 (') 1, 058, 401 1, 793, 866 1, 983, 509 2, 055, 524 1, 674, 518 2, 169, 460 12 2,433,464 12 2,845,381 12 3,431,762 12 3,9,50,264 11 3, ,521,087 3, 666, 946 3,831,114 5, 790, 981 7, 761, 564 8, 300, 058 10, 589, 749 11,951,770 11,196,696 12, 338, 118 12, 248, 142 11,698,838 12, 790, 447 11, 513, 663 11, 613, 794 10, 808, 676 3, 497, 965 1,617,089 544, 865 452, 917 646, 939 646, 643 926,611 1, 542, 697 2, 079, 057 1 Not available. Source: Illinois Auditor of Public Accounts, Statement of Condition of State Banks in Illinois, annual, Springfield, 1900-1938; and U. S. Comptroller of tlie Currency, Individual Statements of Condition of National Banks at the Close of Business, December 31 , 1900[-19SS\, supplements to the annual reports of the Comptroller of the Currency, Washington, D. C. TABLES • 175 Table 25.— Number of Depositors and Amount on Deposit in United States Postal Savings Offices in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties 1914-1938 Year 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925. 1926. 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932. 1933 1934. 1935. 1936 1937 1938 Total Depos- itors Ml 500 738 820 (') 844 550 516 380 309 335 401 415 615 754 2,028 4,936 7,150 7,760 7,467 7,636 7,947 7,985 7,400 Amount $48, 738 94, 958 169, 367 283,047 (') 430, 962 275, 242 293, 875 249,553 196, 093 251, 510 309,216 336, 976 519, 491 672, 551 793, 381 1, 771, 566 3,484,198 4, 344, 848 4, 640, 474 4, 392, 844 4, 274, 727 4, 308, 850 4, 191, 191 4. 116. 2! 6 Franklin County- Depos- itors 166 273 489 515 (') 554 365 369 259 217 242 294 313 478 573 666 1,412 2,841 3,682 3.736 3,604 3,688 3,881 3,943 3. 564 Amount $31,584 58, 018 121,423 196, 881 (■) 300, 682 197, 129 220,529 183, 981 147, 608 186, 743 235, 659 272, 249 422, 353 .t32, 283 636, 943 1, 265, 425 2, 089, 292 2, 336, 541 2, 364, 638 2, 168, 762 2, 066, 670 2, C54, 456 2, 022. 660 1,929.715 Saline County Depos- itors (■) 37 42 41 124 515 882 924 853 783 765 801 $3,451 6,888 11,648 16, 636 (') 30, 598 20,357 19,997 11,091 5,976 5,880 6,410 6,089 23, 685 31,255 31, 140 92, 224 373, 316 550, 583 677, 233 598,511 565, 751 552,446 520, 576 .542, 895 Waiiamson County Depos- itors 101 175 178 242 (') 227 144 117 97 77 82 99 93 100 139 141 492 1,580 2,586 2,935 2,939 3,095 3,283 3,277 3.035 Amount $13, 703 30, 052 36,296 69,530 (') 99,682 57,756 53,349 54,481 42,509 58.887 67, 147 58,638 73,453 109, 013 125, 298 413.917 1,021,. =190 1, 457, 724 1, 598. 603 1, 625, 571 1,642,306 1,701,948 1,647.955 1,643.606 ■ Not available. Source: Letter From the Postmaster General Transmitting the Report of Operations of the Postal Sacingt System, for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 19U\-19S8], annual report to the House of Representatives, Wash- ington. D. C. Table 26. — State of Birth of Family Heads Residing in Carrier Mills, Jofinston City, Herrin, and Eldorado State of birth Family heads 1 State of birth Family heads Number Percent Nimiber Percent Total 8,951 1 100 Kentucky 750 231 215 409 1,370 8 3 223 1 3 5,580 62 Tennessee 2 Illinois Other States - 5 Indiana 173 2 , Foreign countries 15 1 76 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table 27. — Population of School Ase in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1918-1938 1918. 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924. 1925 1926 1927 1928 Population of school age (6-21 years) 46, 842 47,233 48, 314 52,276 54, 404 57, 959 57, 347 55, 908 55, 666 52, 934 53, 184 Year 1929. 1930. 1931 1932. 1933. 1934, 1935. 1936. 1937. 1938 Population of school age (6-21 years) 51,168 49, 813 45,112 45, 144 43, 855 45, 696 42, 996 39,632 41,728 41,098 Source: State of Illinois Superintendent of Public Instruction, Statistical Report, annual, Springfield, 1918-1938. Jab\e 28. — Expenditures for Public Assistance by Type of Aid, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1925-1929 [Amounts in thousands] Expenditures for public assistance Year Total Aid to the blind Mothers' pension Pauper relief 1925 $95 87 87 109 125 $27 27 26 39 62 $16 15 15 23 23 $52 1926 45 1927 46 1928 - --- 47 1929 - - - 40 Source: Original pauper records in the country courthouses at Benton, Harrisburg, and Marion, 111. Table 29. — Estimated ' Annual Coal-Mine Pay Roll and Public-Assistance Expenditures in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1925-1938 [Amounts in thousands] Year Estimated ' coal-mine pay roll Public- assistance expendi- tures Year Estimated ' coal-mine pay roll Public- assistance expendi- tures 1925 $36, 992 40, 221 25, 034 29,433 24, 540 19, 366 1.5,367 $95 87 87 109 125 121 89 1932 . $8, 384 8,667 9,482 9,871 11,020 11,535 8,692 $447 1926 1933 1,181 1927 1934 3,509 1928 1935 3,842 1929 1936 5,184 1930 1937 5,454 1931 1938.. 8,174 1 Estimated on the basis of man-days worked each year multiplied by the United Mine Workers of America wage scale each year. Source: Original pauper records in the county courthouses at Benton, Harrisburg, and Marion, 111.; Montlily Bulletin on Relief Statistics, Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, Chicago; Division of Statistics, Illinois Work Projects Administration, Chicago; Fifth Illinois District, National Youth Administration, Herrin; Old Age .Assistance Division, Illinois Department of Public Welfare, Springfield. Appendix B LIST OF TABLES Table ['age 1. Number of shipping coal mines opened, abandoned, and in operation in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1939 157 2. Men employed at shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Wil- liamson Counties, 1900-1940 157 3. Production, capacity, and average nmnber of days worked at shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1940. 159 4. Average hourh- earnings of hand loaders in bituminous coal mining in principal producing States, selected years, 1919-1933 159 5. Bituminous coal production in the United States by principal pro- ducing States, 1910-1939 160 6. Production at shipping coal mines by method of loading, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1927-1939 161 7. Men employed, capacity, output per man-day, and percent of output loaded by machinery at the 21 mechanized shipping coal mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1926-1938 162 8. Bituminous coal produced per man-day in the United States and in underground and strip mines in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1939 162 9. Production and men employed at local coal mines in Saline and Williamson Counties, 1900^1939 163 10. Population, labor force, employed workers, and unemployed workers, and workers on work programs, by sex, 7 southern Illinois coal towns 164 11. Usual occupation of employed and unemployed workers in 7 southern Illinois coal towns 165 12. Industry of usual occupation of unemployed workers, by sex, 7 south- ern Illinois coal towns 166 13. Industry of usual occupation of employed and unemployed workers, by age group, 7 southern Illinois coal towns 166 14. Labor force and unemployed workers in 7 southern Illinois coal towns, by age group 167 15. Employment status of families in 7 southern Illinois coal towns 167 16. Duration of unemployment since last full-time job of workers in 7 southern Illinois coal towns 168 17. Duration of unemployment of workers in 7 southern Illinois coal towns, by industry of last full-time job 169 177 178 • SEVEN STRANDED COAL TOWNS Table Page 18. Unemployed workers who had never held a full-time job, 7 southern Illinois coal towns, by age group 170 19. Status of families without private employment in 7 southern Illinois coal towns 170 20. Assessed valuation of real property in Franklin, Saline, and William- son Counties, selected years, 1913-1932 171 21. Number of deeds for town real property recorded in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties and the average value of deeds in William- son County, 1900-1938 171 22. Taxes collected and current taxes extended in Franklin, Saline, and Wilhamson Counties, 1908-1937 172 23. Activitj' of building and loan associations in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1936 173 24. Number of banks and amount on deposit in State and national banks, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1900-1938 174 25. Number of depositors and amount on deposit in United States Postal Savings offices in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1914- 1938 175 26. State of birth of family heads residing in Carrier Mills, Johnston City, Herrin, and Eldorado 175 27. Population of school age in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1918-1938 176 28. Expenditures for public assistance by type of aid, Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1925-1929 176 29. Estimated annual coal-mine pay roll and public-assistance expendi- tures in Franklin, Saline, and Williamson Counties, 1925-1938- _ 176 ind ex 179 INDEX [Excludes appendix tables, which are listed in appendix B.] Page Abandoned mines (see also Mechanization of loading) _______ 24, 59-62 Attempts to reopen: Cooperatives _______________________ 92 Wage concessions _____________________ 91-92 Effects of __________________________ 62, 64 Agriculture. See Back-to-the-farm movement; Farming. Aid to the blind ______________________ 125, 127, 137n Aid to dependent children.