Of course, there have been errors and excesses on both sides. The men in the mines are not angels by any means, and neither are the men for whose profit they work. But there has been no profit on either side for the last year and it looks as if there would be none for a long time to come. The men of both sides are pretty good fellows away from the mines and the subject of mining; on the matter of mining, they show the obstinacy of men who look at a proposition from but one point of view, who see no justification of the position of those who oppose them and who seem to have lost absolutely the sense of proportion. If the efforts made by William B. Wilson, former Congressman from Pennsylvania and former secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, to have a federal investigation of the situation early in the struggle, had been successful, the whole matter might have been settled long since. But his resolution calling for a congressional investigation was buried at the last session of Congress and was never resurrected. Wilson charged that a condition of peonage existed in the mines and that men were held there by force and compelled to work against their will. The coal operators denied this vehemently, at the same time fighting bitterly a federal inquiry. Evidence I was able to gather on a trip of investigation to the mines convinced me that a form of peonage does, or did, exist; that the miners were oppressed; that the rights guaranteed under the constitution were denied them; that the protection of the law of the state was withheld from them and the law openly defied and ignored by the coal operators. These things were done, apparently, not because the operators were cruel, but--the old story of dividends--because they thought it necessary that a balance be shown on the right side of the ledger, and because competitive conditions in the coal fields were such that more of this balance had to be produced from the men themselves than from the bleak hills in which they toil. The investigation is bound to come. Wilson is a cabinet member in the new administration, and could of his own volition carry it on under the broad terms of the act creating the new federal Department of Labor. But there is another agency which may look into the situation. When fellow members of the lower house balked Congressman Wilson's proposal, he interested Senator Borah of Idaho and the latter promised to introduce into the Senate, at the coming special session, a resolution calling for a full and complete investigation, by a committee of the Senate, of the whole situation in the West Virginia coal mines, including the question of peonage, the use of mine guards and other means of oppression. This would be a Senate resolution, it would not have to be concurred in by the House of Representatives, and it is understood that Secretary Wilson has votes enough pledged to pass it.