The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1918-02-11
Assurance of Cooperation
Received from Several
Sources
MEANS SOME LOSS
AND INCONVENIENCE
SHOWS Loyal Spirit of Those Giving I'm
entertainments and Dances-orders
should Be Accepted in Spirit as
Given.

Should Be Accepted in Spirit as
Given.
Inc request of the fuel committee
that entertainments Except moving pie.
tures) and dances be omitted or nos,
poned until after April 1st. goes into
erect today. No requests for special
permits have been made to the commit
tee and number Of organizations and
individuals have cheerfully signified
their intention to conform TO the wisbes
OF the committee and have given mn for
me present entertainments which they
mad planned to give during February
and March. Among these are tho
Woman 5 club, the Daughters of tho
American Revolution. the Centra Con.
gregational church, the Banjo, Mandolin
me Guitar guild, Miss Mary Cox : chill.
dren dancing class, the Red Cross
dahce committee, and others. The fuaI
committee very much appreciates the CO.
operation shown; the giving up of these
entertainments means considerable in.
n
/ the organizations and shows 4 Ioval
/ spirit on the part of the individuaIs
Who have such entertainments in cbaroa
Under the circumstances If wonId 10
very unfair for others to take advan.
tage OF the voluntary feature of the
committee ruling and 90 ahead with
pIahs as usual without first securing
from the committee a special permit. If
.hefe are circumstances which make il
pest to make exemptions to the rule
Statement made to the committee will
prevent any MISUNDERSTANDING Tn.
less such permit is obtained, entertain
ments or dances held during February
anu March are plainly in violation of
the request and indicates that the per
sons III charge are unwilling TO get in
line unless compelled to do so.
lhere IS no question about the authori-
ty of the fuel committee to take this
action. The distribution of coal and
wood IS entirely in the hands of the
committee and as there is not enough in
sight to supply all wants of the com
lnunlfy, the committee would of course
pc justified in refusing to supplv coal
and wood 70 persons or organizations de-
Ginning 10 obey its requests. The COM
mlttee some time since notified the Brat.
tleboro Country club that it would have
TO get along without coal, and the diree
tors accepted this restriction without
complaint and have since been burning
wood In view OF the fact that wage
earners have been compelled to go with
out part OF their weekly pay, that stores
ana ofnces and factories have had TO
shat down at considerable loss. and
that block owners have had to burn
wood instead of coal at considerable
extra cost, it surely seems fair that for
a few weeks such amusements as can be
dispensed with without working any
actual hardship on anyone, should he
omitted or postponed until after April /
The reason why this request was is
sued last week is that the state fuel
administrator sent out letter to local
fuel committees asking for such a re
quest; as soon as the matter could no
considered and as soon as it appeared
that the fuel situation was not improy
ing nationally, the committee issued its
request. 1t would plainly not have been
right to have this request go into effect
immediately so the date set for its TAX
ing effect was Monday, Feb. IL.
me committee members serve with
out pay and have been TO considerable
pefSohal expense for postage and tele-
phone calls, and as there are no funds
to use IN sending out notices to indiyid-
uals, 1t Is necessary TO depend largely on
the papers to make the requests of the
committee public. The Reformer has
been willing to publish a great deal of
TINS matter without charge and this is
the only practical way of getting puh-
hclty. Therefore n notice in The Re
former has the same effect as a person-
al notice sent by mail
The question as to whether the ruling
applies TO any particular case or not Is
not one to be settled by the individual
interested IN the ease, but by the fuel
committee If the entertainment is
held in heated public room, the pre-
sumption is that the room cannot he
heated without using a certain amount
of fuel. The argument that the room il
heated anyway cannot be considered as
final as it cannot be denied that less
heat is needed to keep pipes from freez-
ing than is needed to hold entertain
ments, even dances.
When we think of what some of the
loyal citizens of the United States are
voluntarily enduring for the sake of
making more successful the immediate
prosecution of the war, and of how some
have already suffered, we ought to be
ashamed to even protest because we
can { have white bread every dav and
dance once week.
The fuel committee does not derive
any pleasure from issuing orders or fix