anthracite even beyond the Reading's allotted tonnage, then lining these loaded cars on side tracks, thus limiting the availability of empty cars for hauling the other mine operators' output. The result was haphazard disruption of production and sales for these operators. Once again, in 1875, Franklin Gowen was called before an investigative committee, for issues raised by his role and actions in another miners' strike (the "Long Strike"—see below), and more substantially for his high-handed maneuverings in the coal trade. Even the legality of the 1871 charter of the Laurel Run Improvement Company and the Reading Railroad's transformation of that shell into the powerful Coal & Iron Co. were assailed. The investigating legislators' final report was fully in Gowen's favor. Also as in other instances, Gowen's orations were broadcast in pamphlet form and in newspaper advertisements. "Long Strike" and Mollie Maguires The "Gowen Compromise" of 1870 did not end strife over wages and other conditions in the coal region. Neither did the imposition of wages through the anthracite combination's exerting control over coal prices at market. Neither, to be certain, were mining disputes the beginning or end of labor upheavals in America in the 1870s. As noted above, in the 1871 legislative investigation of coal field agitations and the Reading, Gowen portrayed the WBA as having at its core a murderous, secret association. In his 1875 testimony before another investigative committee, he characterized this same core of the union as "Communists." In September 1873, the failure of Jay Cooke & Co. precipitated first the Panic of 1873 and in its wake the worst U.S. financial depression up to that time, which resonated with the concurrent transatlantic Long Depression. Initially, northeastern U.S. anthracite markets were not badly affected, largely due to controls put in place by Gowen's coal pool. In 1874, in addition to shoring up this coal pool's internal checks to make sure all members played by the rules, Gowen also organized Schuylkill County's independent coal operators into the Schuylkill Coal Exchange. By autumn 1874 it was common knowledge that these operators (including the Coal & Iron Co.) were intent upon precipitating a ruinous miners' strike by which to destroy the WBA (by this time renamed the Miners and Laborers Benevolent Association, or M&LBA). Such a strike was indeed brought about by severe slashes in wages offered to miners (20% cut) and mine laborers (10% cut). Known as the "Long