Commons, in _Survey_, March 6, 1909, 1:1051.]
--the "mighty storm mountain of capital and labor."
I quote from this same economist a comprehensive paragraph descriptive of
its riches: "Through hills which line these [confluent] rivers run
enormous veins of bituminous coal. Located near the surface, the coal is
easily mined, and elevated above the rivers, much of it comes down to
Pittsburgh by gravity. There are twenty-nine billion tons of it, good for
steam, gas or coke. Then there are vast stores of oil [seven million five
hundred thousand gallons annually] natural gas [of which two hundred and
fifty million feet are consumed daily], sand, shale, clay and stone, with
which to give Pittsburgh and the tributary country the lead of the world
in iron and steel, glass, electrical machinery, street-cars, tin plate,
air-brakes and firebrick." [Footnote: J. R. Commons, "Wage Earners of
Pittsburg," in _Survey_, March 6, 1909, 21:1051-64.]
And to all this natural bounty the national government has added that of
the tariff and of millions spent in river improvements, while Europe has
contributed raw labor already fed to the strength of oxen and often
already developed to highest skill.
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