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U. S. ACTION IN COAL STRIKE WASHINGTON, D. C, April 21. President Roosevelt indicated today that the federal government may intervene in the deadlocked soft-coal negotiations in New York which have kept 320,000 union miners idle and left the nation faced with a possible coal shortage. The President said at his press conference that he understood there was a statute empowering the government to call a meeting in an effort to bring about a settlement. That, he added, would be the next step in the move to arbitrate the differences between the Appalachian soft-coal operators and the United Mine Workers of America. The President has been kept closely advised of the attempt by department of labor mediators to bring the soft-coal operators and miners together on a renewal of their wage-hour contract which expired on March 31. Reports of an approaching desperate shortage of soft coal, which would work a particular hardship on cities and industry, have come to the Chief Executives attention.
