Didja notice that all the daily papers in North Carolina in reporting the catastrophe at the Carolina Coal mine (in Chatham) dealt principally in technicalities as to the cause of the terrible affair? Each one appeared to have a desire to theorize on the manner in which the explosion occurred. They lost sight of the real point of news value in the occurrence and preferred to try the cause for the fearful explosion. No one knows the cause of that fearful calamity, not even the miners themselves. It is known by experts that it was the result of either an accumulation of coal dust or of gas, but the end of the world will come without an explanation, and the fact that superintendent and officials risked their lives and placed their property at hazard for the welfare of the unfortunates is sufficient to impress one with the fat that no neglect contributed to the affair.
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We spent some considerable time at the Carolina coal mine at Coal Glen in Chatham county last week and learned more about coal mining than we ever hoped to know. Some facts we consider valuable. There are many details through which a coal miner operated that requires the utmost intelligence and careful consideration. The operate under orders from a gas expert, and this man is presumed to be able to detect the least presence of gas in the mine at any point. He orders “shooting” to cease in certain pockets and if the order is disobeyed, a miner is debarred from further mining anywhere. Then again, we are informed that miners have a secret understanding among themselves in most places, that when a dangerous condition exists and it is disregarded by operators, gas men or the owners, a chalk mark is placed in their rooms and the miner refuses to enter the mine until he finds the chalk mark has been removed; or in other words he fails to report for duty until his warning has been taken away.
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At the wreck at the mine at Coal Glen in Chatham county, one with any observation whatsoever could witness the most abject suffering. There was every phase of human agony that could be contemplated. Old men who had more than one son in the bowls of the earth, gray-haired mothers, sisters, sons, daughter and wives and in-laws. Big men stood with tear-streaked faces; women with drawn features that denoted long hours of anxiety. Then, too, there was a bride of two weeks who had been secretly married and her young husband 1,200 feet under earth, who had been slaving away to gain a pittance in reserve so that he could proclaim to the world that he had taken a wife—the unfortunate girl also had two brothers dead beside her husband. With the more than 50 victims of that tragedy there are left many hundreds of dependents—from the babe at the breast to helpless girls and women and small boys—and those unborn who are yet to know their sorrow, that only years of constant assistance can place back to an independent position.
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Our good friend C.F. Hart of Pittsboro, Rt. 3, who has had every experience that a man could have in a coal mine, having plied his trade in England as well as many of the States, ad who has lived in other foreign countries, was engaged in conversation last Thursday relative to the cause of the explosion that occurred at the Carolina mine at Coal Glen in Chatham county. Mr. Hart states that no one can possibly know the cause of the explosion. He enlightened us with the fact that all: ”shooting” is done by what is known to miners as monobel. This is an explosive similar to dynamite but it is supposed to be so compounded that it is impossible for any spark or fire to result from a “shot.” It is to be considered, however, that this material is mixed and manufactured in huge quantities by machinery and it is next to impossible for a think of this character to be entirely perfect.
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Again we note a singular circumstance that all the daily papers report the tragedy at Coal Glen as being near Sanford. Well, this is true; it is located about 12 miles from Sanford and about 11 miles from Pittsboro. It is situated in Chatham county. However, our good friend Oscar Coffin, in an editorial in the Raleigh Times, does strictly specify that the sad occurrence was in Chatham county. Perhaps the fact that O.J. is a product of Moore county privileged him with information that other reporters neglected to seek.
From the editorial page of the Chatham Record, Pittsboro, N.C., Thursday, June 4, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn85042115/1925-06-04/ed-1/seq-4/
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