Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-03-24
ONE HUNDRED YEARS
OF ANTHRACITE
The Fuel Problems Of the Present
and Those OF the Past and
the Future

The Fuel Problems Of the Present
and Those Of the Past and
the Future
| FOLLOWING the recommendation of
l. the coal commission OF an average
! increase of - per cent in the pay of
bituminous coal miners, the President
has ordered that government control
over the maximum price of coal cease
on April I.
The effect of this order is to open the
way for the mine operators to pass on
to the consumer the increased cost in
mining coal incidental to the increase
in the pay. of the miners.
! 1t is evident that Mr.. Wilson does
not believe that the operators have been
making eXorbtant profits running as
high as 1000 per cent. as asserted by
Mr.. McAdoo some time ago. If he had
agreed with Mr.. McAdoo, he would have
insisted that the operators pay the in
crease in wages out of their profits.
The coal commission did not discover
any such margin of profits as Mr.. Nc
Adoo profcsscd to find.
The talk in the winter about the
operators agreeing not to pass on to
the public any increase in wages was
interesting but no one with any knowl-
edge of business methods expected any
thing to come of it.
If the Presidents order is inclusive
of his power to divert coal from the in
l.. = . -. i'll,
tries which he thinks are in greater need
of it, the normal processes of distribu-
ton will be restored and the business
men with foresight will be allowed 10
profit by their wisdom, while the bust
ness man who has been trusting to luck
will not be able to summon the govern
ment to his relief.
The fuel problem today is tied up with
the mining and distribution of coal.
What will be its state in another hum
drcd years no man can foretcll. 1t may
be that we shall be troubled with the
production and distribution of cleo
tricity. or we may have discovered
way to get heat from the sun and shall
be troubled over means to store sun
power from cloudless days to last
through a week of rain. Or some eX
pert physicist may discover how to
gather the heat generated by the passage
of sound waves through the atmosphere
so that a railroad train may be op
Grated by the power derived from the
noise that it makes while passing over
the rails. Every physicist knows that
heat is generated in this way. just as
hundred years ago very physicist knew
that there was such a force as cleo
tricity. But until the latter quarter of
the last century an electric motor was
nothing but a laboratory toy. 1t now
draws heavily laden trains over the
Rocky Mountains and is used instead of
a steam locomotive for drawing trains
through tunnels into the great cities.
The steam engine was in its infancy
hundred years ago and its use was
limited because of the lack of suitable
fuel. Wood was burned in houses and
factories. Wood was used for smelling
ores. No steamship could be built big
enough to carry sufficient fuel to enable
it to make n trip across the ocean.
Modern transportation dates from the
beginning of the use of coal.
1t is a century this year since anthra-
cite began to have commercial uses.
In 1920 this city absorbed the total
output Of the anthracite mines Of Penn
sylvania. The Lehigh Coal and Naviga-
ton Company shipped }G5 tons here in
that year, and this was more than
enough to supply the local demand.
Business men looked askance on the
black stones. Some of them doubted the
evidence Of their senses when they saw
the black stones burning. They were
like the countryman at the circus, who
remarked as he stood in front of the
dromedary, There ain't no such an
imal.
But the human animal learns by ex-
perienCe. Unlike the beaver, which
builds his dam today as he did 10000
years ago, man is continually enlarging
his knowledge and harnessing for his
use the new forces of nature as fast as
he discovers their potentialities.
Where in 1870 it was found that 36J
tons Of anthracite was more than enough
to supply the local demand for the new
fuel, conditions have changed SO that in
1919 it took 5000, 900 tons to provide
heat for our houses and fuel for the
steam producing plants in factories and
Office buildings. And there was shipped
from the anthracite mines of the state
nearly 10000, 900 tons of coal, for
mining which more than 5000 900 900
was paid to the mine workers.
William Penn had no conception of
the wealth in the black rock, outcrop-
pings of which appeared in various
places in his great domain. Nor could
he have imagined the effect which the
of this stone would have on
the progress of the world He burned
wood. He Travelled on land in stage
coach and on sea in sailing ship. The
people Of the twentieth century travel
on land in gasoline driven automobiles
or steam or electrically driven locOmO-
tives. and on the sea in steamships and
in the air in airplanes. We talk across
the continent and send messages across
the ocean with such expedition that
Paris is nearer Philadelphia in time
than Greenwich was to London in the
eighteenth century,
The next twenty FIVE years il likely to
see greater advances in MECHANICAL in
vpntiOn than the last fifty, for it has
been discovered that the chemist and
the physicist have uses beyond telling
the student something about the con-
stitution of matter and the laws that
govern it. The modern man of science