The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1906-08-14
WARREN FOSTER TALKS
OF NEXT FIFTY YEARS
He Believes Electricity Will
Make Rapid Strides in
This Time.

| Editor Tribune:-The average reader
| does not seem TO appreciate the fact
that we are now on the verge Of great
| commercial changes But we are, just
| the same. The coming fifty years holds
in store for us, as many, if not more,
wonderful Improvements than did the
last hall century. These Forthcoming
changes viii be not so much in the di-
rection of new discoveries as toward
practical application OF agencies al
ready discovered.
Let us take n backward look for flf-
ty years; let us contemplate the present
tendencies for a moment, and then let
US lift as best we may the veil of the
future, What do we seel
The following prediction may seem
startling to many, but to me it seems
to be well within the lines of possibili-
ties:-I predict that in the year of
1880 and possibly many years before,
there will not remain in Salt Lake City
a single coal dealer; that the coal yards
will be a thing of the past; that coal
trains will be seen no more; that the
ordinary coal heating stove will have
passed into history, and the fuel cook
stoves will be no more.
Smoke Will Disappear.
The smoke question will have been
settled, and settled right, while the
ffue will stand only as relics of darker
days. Do you ask upon what grounds
I make such prediction9 Let me an
swer. Because it is both desirable and
possible. Being desirable, men will
strive TO accomplish it, and being pos
sible, men will accomplish it. Its de-
STABILITY needs no discussion; its pos
sibllity needs but little. We all know
that electricity can be generated from
coal We also know that electricity can
be transported for long distances OH
a copper wire, We know that after
being so transported this electrical en-
ergy may be utilized for light, heat and
power. We see these things every day.
Our streets and residences are lighted
with it, our street cars and other ma
chinery are run by it, rooms are being
heated by 1t and meals are being cooked
by it. That it does all these things
needs no Affirmation, Do you think of
anything that coal can do that cannot
be better done by electrical cnergy7 If
not, let me ask, what is the use Of trans
porting the crude coal for hundreds of
miles when all of its essential qualities
can be transmitted over a wire with
the speed of thought9
Electricity the Solution.
Instead of loading the coal onto cars,
hauling it hundred miles, unloading it
into wagons, emptyIng it into coal bins,
it in the house in hod, put
ting it into the stove with shovel and
subjecting ones self to all the tor
ments of smoke, SCOT, ashes and dirt,
why not feed the coal to furnace at
the very mouth of the mine, convert it
into electrical energy, send it over the
wire to the doors, and into the houses
of tho consumer, who has only to press
a button and electricity does the rest1
Is this an impractical suggestion7 You
know better. The only things about
the coal that you cannot SO send are the
ashes, the cinders, the SCOT and the
smoke. Don't you feel that you could
get along without any of them2 Then
why coal dealers, or coal yards, or coal
cars, or coal smoke, or coal cinders, or
SCOT, or coal faminesl Why3 The echo
only answers, why7 1t is only another
method for concentrating ores before
we ship them. Will it be accomplished
Yes, it will be an old story in 1850.
WARREN FOSTER