The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-11-24
THE COAL TRUST HURTS UTAH.

a
w ing any great industrial establishments for Salt Lake
is foregone conclusion Coal plays principal part any
industry The item Of coal shows most heavily in the expense
of great plant and when the promoters of enter
prise casting about for location fuel of the main
things considered And when the question of fuel with
relation to Salt Lake there possible defense that booster
for this city He forced admit that the price of
fuel almost prohbitv and that concern can consider
locating here so long that condition obtains
Much may dislike to admit it, Salt Lake is not be
coming the great business city ought to become As the
distributing center Of this great neOuntan country, the
es Importance ought to be growing by leaps and bounds
The suburbs of the city should be filled with manufacturing
plants of various kinds As the center of region rich in its
mineral resources with coal easy OF with the
material very DOORS ought to have of the
greatest industrial plants in the world in the Salt Lake district
There entirely too many empty houses in Salt Lake
Too many families have left this city because there
of employment for the husband and father The build
ing operations present time keeping busy
but that building cannot continue until there is means
of attracting hOmebuders to this city. Men must have
employment and city become commercially great
til there factories and workshops There hun
dred OF cities IN the United States with material OF
kind much farther from their doors than is the in Utah
that much prosperous and that getting in
dustries from every side
The average manufacturer get close his
material possible and coal is the basis of all power
be gets close possible plentiful supply of fuel The
secret of Psburgs emnence the greatest manufacturing
city this continent is the fact that is its fuel
ply and that that fuel is sold at reasonable figure This lure
brought hundreds Of factories of many kinds The great steel
mills have made Pittsburg mionares famous located
there because of the coal supply 1t not because of the
proximity of ore which the basic material from which
manufactured for is brought hundreds of miles
from the Lake Superior region So far that is concerned
the steel manufacturers would have done better to have
tablshed their great mills in Michigan and Wisconsin
But they did not do that they established their mills in
Pburg because was near base supply the great
commodity they needed-coa When Andrew Carnegie built
his great railroad to haul from the Lake Superior district
to his Psburg mills he could as eheapy have established
mills his But he preferred to remain close to his
base of fuel supply And the years since have demonstrated
the wisdom of Mr.. Carnegie's action,
1t is haul of less than 125 miles to Salt Lake from the
great coal deposits in Carbon county Utah The great coal
beds there exceed anywhere in the nation, and
the Pennsylvania mines do begin compare with them
Coal of the kind that is being sold Salt Lake for 1928
be bought in Ptsburg for from $3.50 to So ton
and there is the proportion Of slack that the Salt Lake
citizen gets when he buys nut coal.
Had there been coal trust Pennsylvania that had
as able to handle prices as there Utah. Pttsburg would
not great city she now and this despite the fact that
the average sburg householder heat and light his h0me
prepare his meals keep his instantaneous hot water heater
ing day and night during the coolest weather of winter for
not than s. month Ot course all TINS IS due TO natu
raj gas which pped into the city from West Virginia and
which plays its little part keeping down the price of coal
Dissolution of this coal trust will do for Salt Lake
Utah than anything else that could be done. The trust
not only ob the poor of his earnings but it keeps from
the city and state those great enterprises which would boom
business and which would give employment to thousands of
people already here and thousands OF others who would be at
tracted 1t will be of little for the Salt Lake Commercial
club the Salt Lake Real Estate association expend their
energy trying to get manufacturing plants to locate here
so long the price of fuel at figure they cannot pay and
the time compete with manufacturers at other points
who get their fuel at a reasonable rate.
Now the time put end to this theving trust that
is robbng people of $4,000 cold cash this winter The
question is being discussed all the state Every member
of the legislature when he Salt Lake for the coming
session. will pronounced ideas the subject If the
present is inadequate to deal with the condition.
law will be passed. there Is little question. But the present
law ought tested 1t should be learned whether it is
effective and whether the trust be dissolved If then
get more law