The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-08-22
the market needs.

These dealers made great profits, so great that they were gradually eliminated by the coal companies. which were and are more often than not subsidiaries of great railroad companies. And what the specu- lators have done, now to a great ex- tent the coal companies are doing themselves.
 The fine art of price manipulation is one Of the most delightful fea- lures of the coal business, and little wonder it is that government has had to take hand.
 It has been so covert that the public although it squirmed, did not know how to explain it, and even today it has all kinds of people guessing.
 Recalling the fact that this spot coal was first of all manipulated as to price by an artificial control ot the law of supply and demand by the dealers, now when the dealers are 10 q very large extent eliminat- ed. the coal companies who are do- ing it still blame the middlemen. Moreover the coal companies make the spot coal the basis of their con tracts, that eighty per cent produc- ton to which reference has been made. and as the railroad and pow CT companies are also largely coal men themselves, they are glad enough to avoid discrimination when such discrimination means only taking it out of one pocket to place it in the other, robbing Peter 10 pay Paul when Peter and Paul are the same individual. In this way the large contractors who are not coal owners have to come through as well as the other unfor- turate private consumers.
 The railroads who are also coal mine operators aid in throwing dust in the eyes of the people. The ope-  rators-whith are oftener than not the railroads-say that they cannot get cars to supply the market with coal. They point out that they are working full blast but cannot get their goods to market. They put the blame on the railroads who are really the operators under another name.
 The railroads make answer that business is so brisk that they have not cars immediately available, that it is impossible to justify an in- crease in the purchase of cars. that they have cars delayed at various centers when those could be un- loaded and in turn kept in circula- tion.
 All of which is to a certain extent true. But there is Intentionally no system in use of coal cars. Coal cars are made to carry other lines of freight which could be carried more successfully in other cars just be- cause they bring about a car short age at the mines. Coal cannot be carried very well in all rolling stock and the end of an artificial short age increasing the coal demand is thus indirectly brought about by the manipulation that is not obvious and self evident to the public. It was considered a remarkable dis covery when 1t was made that coal order filled for long railroad haul was more likely to receive attention than one which provided only for shorter haul. The long haul kept the car longer out of commission. It was considered still greater dis covery to locate sidings full Of coal cars, fully laden. while cities near by clamored for the coal The market was being manipulated so that coal famine would reray the cost of detention, the demLrrage, the necessarily increased prize do- ing all of that.
 The difficulty which the country faces in solving the coal situation in an equitable manner is in still following the same train of ideas that prevailed when the coal and other industries were separated and the bold bad middleman was an in- dependent speculator, who found the position between the upper mili- stone inc nnaratnrs and the neither