When historians and social scientists appraise federal interventions in Progressive Era industries for their political and economic significance, the United States Coal Commission of 1922 typically receives poor marks. Perhaps Ohio State University Professor of Economics Matthew B. Hammond's response to the commission's final report in 1924 best sums up the majority opinion of scholars: “palpably inadequate for the curing of the malady.”1 Hammond's viewpoint resonated with the judgments of coal operators and unionists of the period who similarly criticized the commission for its ineffectiveness. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) International President John L. Lewis, for one, termed the report a “maze of well-worn generalities,” and recommended that it be “duly filed and the dust of ages allowed to collect thereon.”2 Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find an early twentieth-century federal inquiry more thoroughly discounted by contemporary political actors, industrialists, and laborers. Even historians who study the coal industry and draw upon the commission's extensive research assign the investigation little, if any, significance. Representative of this outlook is one assessment of the commission as “largely an exercise in wasted effort” because of its labyrinthine research findings and ill-defined recommendations for the industry.3 By nearly all accounts, the United States Coal Commission of 1922 was a forgettable affair.