Centralia 1947 Mine Explosion
Throughout the annals of the American industrialized age, countless tragedies have occurred within the workplace and these incidents have forced the public at large to consider the weighty issue of applying moral precepts to the realm of public administration. While the tomes of American jurisprudence are littered with examples of corporate enterprises and bureaucratic entities failing to uphold their basic responsibilities, perhaps no case has demonstrated the capacity to generate both outrage and activism as readily as The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped. Authored by John Bartlow Martin, this seminal case study examines the unique confluence of internal and external circumstances which eventually resulted in the 1947 explosion of Centralia Mine No. 5, a catastrophe which claimed the lives of 111 coal miners. By carefully retracing the series of events preceding the actual explosion, including a history of the Centralia mine beginning with its opening in 1907, a cursory primer on the industry of coal mining, and a blow-by-blow recounting of the evasions, denials, and betrayals committed by the various bureaucracies charged with preventing such disasters, Martin guides the reader through the machinations of both private companies and public policymakers.
The most intriguing aspect of Martin's case study are found in his recreation of the measures taken by Driscoll O. Scanlan, the Illinois state mine inspector who thoroughly inspected the Centralia mining operation while doggedly pursuing his professional appraisal of the mine's flimsy safety record, which he believed made "Centralia No. 5 the worst in the district" (Martin, 1948). While Martine assiduously recreates the vast array of actors in what proved to be a farcical demonstration of public administration, with Scanlan's tireless efforts to alert proper authorities to the dangers...
In 2006, production workers, earned $21.40 an hour in oil and gas extraction, $22.08 an hour in coal mining, $22.39 an hour in metal ore mining, and $18.74 an hour in nonmetallic minerals mining, compared to the private industry average of $16.76 an hour Figure 1 and Figure 2 below show the 'Average Earnings of Non-Supervisory Workers in 2006 and Median Hourly Mining of the Largest Occupations in Mining, May
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" President Truman did not deal with the UMWA because he had a love for labor, either. He feared that a prolonged strike would hurt a nation recovering from World War II, and so, he signed the fund into action with the union president. The UMWA was crucial in settling the strike and getting benefits for the miners and at the heart of the organization was its president, John L. Lewis. Lewis
In other words, the finances of a deficit country were constrained because they did not have enough gold to go around, while a country with a surplus did not face those issues. In addition, usually the weight of modification falls on these weaker countries, which is another flaw in the gold standard. Because the weaker countries could not react quickly enough to economic problems, they had less capital to
Another historian notes, "Economically, baby boomers experienced unprecedented national affluence throughout their childhood. During the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. economy expanded greatly, raising the living standards of most American families" (Clydesdale 606). Religion played less of a role in society by the 1990s, as church attendance and membership began to decline in the 60s. Historian Clydesdale continues, "When the cultural challenges of the 1960's disestablished this religious ethos,
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