St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-10-21
MAY MEAN CHEAPER FUEL
81. PAUL MEN FORMING A COMPANY
TO COMBAT THE TRUST.
INDIANANS ARE INTERESTED.

Proposition Under Consideration
to Bring Coke Into the North
western Field for Fuel-The
Local Company Almost Ready
to File Its Articles and Begin
Operations.
A Joint stock company has been or
ganized among prominent business and
professional men of st. Paul, the bust
ness of which will be to put upon the st.
Paul market anthracite coal, purchased
at mines not connected with the coal
trust. Articles of incorporation are pre-
pairing and will be filed soon with the
secretary of state. Investigation has
developed the fact that there are good
many mines which defined all advances
of the trust to become connected with it.
Careful calculation has convinced the
organizers of the company that they can
procure coal from these mines and lay it
down in st. Paul at a figure far below
that demanded by the trust.
The Ii. {. Frick Coke company, of
PIttsburg. has made bid for the pat
ronage of the company. holding out that
coke is better than anthracite coal, and
that it is the only available fuel with
which to break the coal trust. Not long
ago Jordan Giles, of Evansville, Ind,
who is interested in coal mines in Indi-
ana, came TO st. Paul 10 induce the
company to purchase the coal of his
mines, which he represented to be the
best coal IN America for the making OF
coke. He also urged that coke is the
only fuel which can be made TO stand
in the way of anthracite coal. He
claimed that it is better than anthracite.
and can be laid down at a much cheaper
figure. He went home and returned to
st. Paul yesterday in company with eX-
Congressman James f. Clay, of Hender
son, Ky, who. by the way, is a grand
nephew OF the immortal Henry Clay.
and with DR.. p. q. Kelsey, a railroad
magnate living at Evansville. The three
occupy Parlors d. and G at the Ryan.
Yesterday afternoon they held a long
meeting with members of the company,
in which they presented the
MERITS OF INDIANA COAL,
holding that they can make it into coke
at the mines and lay it down in st. Paul
at a much cheaper figure than the Frick
company could lay the article down
here. The three men will be here sew
eral days, and just what they may &C
compllsh cannot be foretold. They feel
confident that they can convince the
company that its interests lie in the
direction of giving them a contract for
their coke. The Prick company will
have representatives here again to pre-
sent the merits of their coke, and show
how cheaply it can be brought here from
Pittsburg.
One member of the coal committee
yesterday afternoon gave it as his opin-
ion that the coke industry was the only
safeguard against the coal combine. He
was satisfied that coke is better than
anthracite coal, and certain that it is
much cheaper fuel. Another member
of the committee said that coke cannot
fill the place of anthracite coal. He said
that it produces such an intense heat
that no stove now in use would stand it
very long. All the stoves in the city
would have to be reconstructed. or
replaced with new ones, if coke were
introduced. However, coke. he thought,
could be used by being mixed with hard
coal.
The new company. it is limited, is
organized with the intention of pur-
chasing anthracite coal from mines not
in the trust. so the coke question may
not cut a figure in the problem to be
solved.