The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-01-15
FAULT OF THE FUEL
FAMINE IS FIXED
., AGED AT MAHOGANY DESKS
OF OFFICIALS. TOLD PEOPLE
last SUMMER NOT TO BUY.

WASHINGTON, D. C.-What is
Washington-the nations capital
ding in this zero weather with moth
mo going up, but things to buy?
What is her coal situation, if, indeed,
che may be said to have any situation
at all, and what are the prospects
for the war ending?
These are questions that people
coming to this city from the South
saw are uppermost in their minds.
But how answer them? Everyone
knows that right here in Washington,
not a stones throw from the white
house, the very worst kind of tan
ole exists over the coal shortage, if
there is really one; that with admin
istrators, both live and dead, ham
mering away at their jobs behind big
mahogany desks the country can
freeze, die if they will, but what care
they?
No more does the man who has
never felt the pangs of hunger know
what it is to be hungry than his
brother who never having felt cold
knows what it is to have his very
breath freeze within him.
In brief the whole country is both
cold and hungry, pinning their faith
to fuel and food administrators, who,
to say the least of the situation,
know nothing more of it, judged by
results, than a five weeks old babe.
This the truth. If doubted ask Wash
ington people and they will tell you
SO.
So far as other sections of the
country are concerned, nothing from
a national standpoint can be affected
in Georgia or South Carolina or any
where else, except to a very limited
extent, until some one shows some of
the dollar a year Washington-officials
sitting behind the aforesaid mahog-
'any desks-that if they have never
been cold or hungry and even if they
have never been called upon to
squeeze the sow's ear pocketbook to
meet the incoming bills, that there
ARE others-many Thousands others,
who are suffering from all three of
these ills.
Shortage of Coal.
So far as the alleged shortage of
coal is concerned, government off
cials are to blame for the present
Last summer when many
coal dealers began demanding excess
i've prices for their coal the authori-
ties said that there should be no hur-
ry to pay them, that there was no
use to be gouged, and that in time
the whole situation would be salts
factorily adjusted. Prices did not
even remain where they were at that
time. When people can buy coal at
all, in Washington and elsewhere, it
bis at a price which is simply outrage
Gus.
In Washington, there is a public
office supposed to be open for the use
.of poor people. These poor, dirty old
fellows, men and women with a fair
sprinkling of Gods little children
gather before the doors with the ris-
ling of the sun so that they may be
.m line for their bushel of coal, if
|perchance they are not rudely pushed
aside and told to go somewhere
where coal is not needed
Such situation should not be charg-
ed against any one, but the fuel ad-
|ministration. There has been a lack
entire lack of anything like even
sensible handling of the coal problem
that is reaching out over the whole
country.
The people are tired of investiga-
TONS. There are half a dozen such
going on now in congress, investigat-
ing this, that and the other, but there
Is so much red tape, so much delay,
SO many convenient pigeon holes for
those who are warm and well fed
that what's the use of being in a
hurry, anyhow?