The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1919-12-19
SAVING OUR
RICHES
Sage Advice from Secretary
Lane on the Conservation
of Our Resources
i 4 \ i. i. !. !. i. !. :.
From the N. Y. Times.

~ - s1a .' "is !. IL IL ~ y. sfs
From the N. Y. Times.
1t was said that Mr.. Gladstone
could be eloquent about budget. He
allured with facts, he charmed with
figures. Hearers found his exposi-
ton interestin, entertaining. They
came to be bored, perhaps to sleep;
they stayed to look intelligent and
think that they understood. Mr..
Gladstone might have made romance
of the business Of our Department of
the Interior, it covers so many fields
of fruition and endeavor. If Frank
lin K. Lane is not as deft magician,
his annual report absorbs and de-
lights. He has Imagination, vision,
humanity, style. He is an optimist
and seer. No one understands bet
ter the resources Of the country and
their boundless possibilities. How
rich these states are, and how hlest
their peoples, one doeeeeeeeeeeeeee
their peoples, one does lot know until
Secretary Lane tells his story and
shows how the treasures he passes in
review can be conserved.
M. Lane begins with coal, which
will not last forever-but there is a
water power such as no other nation
possesses. The strike is in every
body's mind. "We live virtually by
unanimous corrent," he says, because
''let less than one-half of / per cent
of our population quit their work of
digging coal and we are threatened
with the combined horrors of pesti-
lence and famine" And yet:
If last years coal were used as con-
struction material it would build o
wall as huge as the great wall of
China around every boundary of the
United States fro mMaine to Van
couver, down the Pacific to San Diego
and eastward following the Mexican
border and the coast, to Maine again
and this same coal contains latent
power sufficient to lift this same wall
200 miles high in the air, according to
one Of our greatest engineers, Stein
metz.
But we do not take stock of our
yield of coal; we waste much of II
and we do not mine it right. 81 feel
justified in saying" observed Mr..
Zane, chat the problem of the strike
is not to be solved in it's deeper sig
nificance until we know much more
about coal than we know now, and
this especially as to the manner in
which it is taken from its bed and
brought to our cellars" He declares
that the short year is "a source of loss
to both operator and miner and is a
tax on the consumer" Seasonal
fluctuations in demand is in great
measure at fault. Sometimes there
is no market; again, car shortage is
the trouble; and labor cannot always
be absolved from responsibility. The
industry needs stabilizing: "Coal
does not have pressure behind it
which forces it out of the mine and
into the coal yard, 1t rather needs
to be drawn out by the suction de-
mand. And herein. the public must
play its part by keeping that demand
as steady and uniform as possible"
Mr.. Lane reaches the conclusion
that, unless mining and selling coal
is to be an emergency industry, there
must be a longer miners year and
additional markets. More coal must
go abroad, There is always a great
demand for it overseas. With s per
cent of the population of the world,
we produce as per cent of all the coal
consumed. In 100 years our annual
production has grown from 100000
to 100000 tons.
An immense amount of coal is
wasted. The fuel engineers of the
Interior Department discovered a
preventable loss of 10000 tons in
one establishment alone. A railroad
authority says that every fifth SHOW
elful of coal that the average fire.
man throws into his furnace serves
no more useful purpose than to deco
rate the atmosphere with long black
stream of precious scot. At best one
fifth of all our coal is wasted" Uni
verssl is the need of conservation.
Mr.. Lane calls for the Harvesting up
Of American water-power to save