Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-20
XX|ashington
w LETTER
BY ri WALKER
CHEAP ALCOHOL PROMISED
Star stan Correspondent.
Star Bureau.
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg,
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20.

lStS, rnOIOrpOaL DuRSi luIHieIS ana
others who use gas engines, in the
announcement that President Wilson
has promised to help get rid of the
iokers In the denatured alcohol law,
so that cheap Industrial alcohol may
| become a reality in this country.
For most purposes for which gaso-
line is used. alcohol would be bet
ter. For power fuel, light and a
multitude Of purposes, alcohol is
away ahead of gasoline 1t is
! cleaner. carbonizes less in engines,
vaporizes more quickly, Is not as
dangerous in case of fire or ex-
| plosion. and. in fact, has the better
of gasoline in everything except
price 1t costs more. That's the
only reason it isn't generally used.
There isn't any good reason,
| though. why alcohol should cost
more. In fact. there is every reason.
but one why it should be very much
| cheaper than gasoline. That one
reason is Standard oil.
Uncle John d. Rockefeller's little
| oil trust has a monopoly of most Of
the gasoline because gasoline has to
be got from crude oil, and the Stand
|
well controls the production of crude
| Oil
Gasoline sells here now for from
| II cents a gallon up. In Europe it Is
| SO and 40 cents.
Alcohol can be made from almost
neutrality-suspicious.. apples, pumpkins.
cornstalks. beets. table waste. Like
hash, YOU make it out of anything
you happen to have. And anybody
can make alcohol. A tin can and a
piece of pipe over a gas jet or fire,
/ an outfit that need cost not more
| than a few cents, Will extract the
alcohol from any sort of vegetable
matter
Price Kept High.
Industrial alcohol has been made,
in fact, is being made, for from eight
to ten cents a gallon in Germany 1t
can be made here as cheap or
cheaper. And ten-cent alcohol, in
stead of seventeen to thirty-eent gaso-
line. means al big saving to almost
everybody.
But cheap alcohol would, of course.
cut the profits of gasoline, and so
Standard Oil has blocked the way to
cheap alcohol.
There was a very heavy internal
revenue tax on the manufacture of
all alcohol until a few years ago.
! Then the success of industrial alcohol
in Germany and other countries be-
came known. and Congress passed a
! law permitting the manufacture Of
alcohol for industrial purposes free of
tax. providing that it was de
natured"-that is, mixed with creo-
sote and other unpalatable things so
that it couldn't afterwards be made
| fit to drink. The passage of the law
was loudly and widely heralded as
the advent of cheap power and of the
| smashing of the Standard Oil
monopoly and high prices.
The denatured alcohol law provided
that farmers might put stills in their
back yards and make alcohol out of
their refuse and leftover crops. This
was to be run into a locked barrel,
and once in so often an inspector was
| to go around, measure the product.
put in the denaturng material, and
permit the stuff TO be taken to a CEN
trail refinery. where it could be made
the necessary number of degrees
'proof"-that is be refined and made
strong enough for industrial use.
But the results We're disappointing
Some denatured alcohol was made,
but farmers generally didn't set up
stills, and the price never went much
under fifty cents a gallon, while the
Rockefeller monopoly went right on
pricing kerosene and gasolene as it
pleased.
Lane Solves Problem.
1t became known in a general. hazy
sort of way that Senator Aldrich and
other Standard representatives in
| Congress had fixed" the law so IL
wouldn't work. but nobody took the
trouble to dig into the matter very
thoroughly, and the hope of cheap
alcohol died out.
! There's a new senator from Oregon,
! however, who has been quietly look
| ing into the matter for some time.
| He is a doctor and was one of the
| cheap alcohol enthusiasts when the
| law was passed. When 1t didn't work
! he went out to find why it didn't
work. And he found out He found
| that farmers who had tried to ar
range to make alcohol had first been
met by the treasury provision re-
| curing n $4,000 bond.
| Then the law required them to make
an amount of alcohol which necessi-
| tated a big outfit and considerable
capital, and when some of them tried
to buy the expensive outfits they
found that the men who made ket-
would lose other and bigger custom
ers il they made stills for dena-
tured alcohol. In a few cases plants
were established, but it was discov-
/ cred that the law prescribed the kind
and amount of the ingredients to be
used in 'denaturing" the alcohol and
that these denaturing fluids cost
more than the alcohol was worth.
Little by little Dr. Lane found out
lot of these things He pieced his
information all together, and wher
he was elected to the Senate anC
came to Washington last winter he
set out to take the jokers out of the
law. With the jokers left out. he
says, there isn't any reason why al.
most every farmer in the countr,
can't make alcohol as a side line. OF
why great number of central rein.
ing plants cannot be profitably estab.
lished that will give us ten-cent al.
cohol for industrial purposes
Senator Lane has told the Presi-
dent about the matter, and Mr. VIII.
son has told him to go as far as Inc
pleased and he would help. The Ore.
| gon man is going to try to get the
| necessary amendments to the law ir
| the pending tariff bill. If he cam
| do that he's going to fight it out b,
| itself next winter. He thinks. though
that there won't be any trouble abou,
! putting the amendments in the tariff
BILL
81 don't think Standard Oil
| controls Congress this year" sale
Lane the other day, "and never
/ T.. i ~