Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-25
COAL DISTRIBUTION
THAT DOESN'T DISTRIBUTE
Why Is II That Some Sections and Some
Dealers Have Coal and Othero Are
Passed BY?


WHY is it that some dealers can get
w coal for their customers and others
cannot?
Why is it that some householders, who
put in their orders in April, have coal in
their cellars, and others, who put in their
orders at the same time, are still waiting
! for the delivery of the first ton?
These are questions which thousands
of families are asking in these cool days.
Their houses are uncomfortably cold.
They cannot heat them with gas. They
can get no coal for the kitchen range, nor
any coal for the furnace. And if they
could get coal for the furnace, they are
asked not to start a fire there until No
vcmber.
Francis A. Lewis, the Federal fuel ad-
ministrator for the city, has charge of
the distribution of coal. One naturally
looks to him for an explanation.
But nothing that Mr.. Lewis has said
thus far explains.
Conditions in the northern part of the
city and suburbs are worse than in other
districts. Mr.. Lewis says that the coal
shortage there is due to the increase in
population following the erection of new
houses.
This does not explain why som coal
dealers in that section have been supplied
with so small a quantity that they are
unable to deliver even one ton of coal or
dered by old customers. Nor does it ex-
plain why persons moving into the dis
trict lave been able to get coal delivered
from dealers outside of the territory into
which they lave moved.
The fuel administration has ordered
that coal is to be delivered from the yard
nearest to the home of the purchaser.
Yet coal dealers have delivered coal to
men who lave moved outside of their dis
trict. while the dealers within the district
to which the families lave moved have
no coal in their yards.
It is evident that something is wrong
with the method of distribution. No one
is complaining that he is unable to get a
full supply of coal in his cellar at the
present time, although the fuel admins
traitor has been calling upon the people to
fill their cellars in the summer. But there
is complaint because of the inability to
get coal into cellars that are empty in
spite of the observance by the house
holders of all the regulations of which
they have been able to learn.
The coal has been mined. The monthly
reports issued by the Anthracite Bureau
of Information show that more tom have
been taken out of the ground this year
than in the same period last year. We are
told that more coal has been shipped to
Philadelphia than is usual in the summer
| months, and we have also been told that
coal has been shipped to other parts of
the country in order that they might be
that most of the coal used here is brought
in during the winter. We are near the
mines and it can be got here quickly.
But one looks through these explana-
tons in vain for any light on the reason
for the empty coal yards and the empty
coal cellars in the northern part of the
city. They are no more Illuminating
thar the explanation that the cellars and
yards there are empty because new
houses have attracted new population.
They do not tell why certain little local
dealers have been passed by in the dis
tribution of coal. They do not indicate
that there was a proportional distribu-
ton among all dealers based upon the
amount which they are accustomed to
handle, for there has been no such dis
tribution.
Unless something is done and done at
once to relieve the shortage there wW be
suffering and sickness as a direct result
of The failure of the fuel administration
to secure an equitable distribution Of
such coal as has reached the city. And
if colds contracted by children and old
persons develop into fatal pneumonia, the
responsibility will be placed directly
upon the shoulders of those whose neglect
has produced the present intolerable con-
ditions.
l.1.- a-z