Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-08-29
OPPOSES
PLANS On COAL
Declares That Presidents
Scheme of Purchasing Ag'cy
is Utterly Impractical

BLOOMFIELD. Aug. .9.-Charg-
ing that President Harding's sug-
gestion of a public purchasing agen-
cy "as a remedy for trust control of
the coal trade is utterly impractic-
able" George l.. Record who is a
candidate against Senator Joseph S.
Frelinghuysen, the Presidents per-
sonal friend. for the Republican
Nomination for United States sen
ator, last night, went on record with
a promise that If he Is elected to
replace Senator Frelinghuysen in
the senate he will present measures
not to regulate the trusts but to
destroy them.
He said in conclusions:
1.-The Presidents message to con-
gress upon the coal and railroad
strikes illustrates the truth of the
idea that 1 am pressing home 10 the
people in this campaign, which is
hal the private ownership of rail-
roads and of the natural
such as coal and iron, which are the
bases of our staple industries, is in
tolerable. and leads to enormous
nual economic loss.
THE President frankly admits the
great losses entailed by these strikes
but instead of going to the root of
the matter, which is the private
ownership of the railroads and the
monopoly control of natural re-
sources, he suggests further attempt
at regulation. One of his remedies
is tha. the government should pur-
chase great quantities of coal and
sell this Goa again to the people, SO
as to prevent profiteering. Like all
schemes of regulation, this looks
fine on the surface, but 1t can never
be made to work, for the same rea-
son that all other attempts at regu-
lation have always failed to work.
If this idea were carried cut it would
require many hundred millions of
dollars to be appropriated by the
government.
IF we set up a government agency
and furnish it with a big appropria-
ton of money, how is this agency to
function? The Goa trust is today
over charging the public for coal.
What reason is there to suppose that
they would not over charge the gov
eminent agency for coal supplied to
it? What power would the govern
ment agency have to force a fair
price, and who would determine
what is IL fair profit? In case of Il
uIodSlttliIthI Z lIlt SONel
ment agency and the mine opera-
tors, the agency would oe powerless
unless it was equipped with the
price fixing power. Any attempt to
fix a price upon a commodity like
coal would at once be taken into
the federal courts, upon the plea
that it was confiscation of property,
and forbidden by the constitution.
Then would commence Il long, te-
dious and very expensive litigation,
in which the coal operators would
have all of the advantage. They
would have the ablest lawyers that
money could buy. The government
would be represented by small sal
aried attorney generals assistants,
whose tenure of Office changes with
the administration. All Of the facts
are in the possession of the trust,
and the government would have to
painfully develop facts upon the
government side. A brand new le-
gal theory would have 70 be de-
veloped and fought through the
courts in order to establish the
principles of price fixing. For over
thirty years we have been trying to
fix the principle upon which to de-
termine a proper rate for railroad
service. AS a result of numerous
litigations, each lasting years and
comprising thousands of pages of
testimony, we have as yet no clearly
defined principle upon which to fix
a railroad freight rate. We have
contradictory and largely irrecon-
ciliable opinions from different
courts, and the supreme court of the
United States has as yet marked out
no clearly defined principle. If we
have had this difficulty with a COM
paratively simple business like the
railroads, think of the vastly in
creased difficulty of trying to work
out some principle upon which to
fix a fair price for coal.