The Washington times., 1923-09-08
c. .O.P.|SHELPED
BY END|NGOF
COAL WAR
Hard Reviews Political conse-
qusnces Of PInchot Settle
ment OF Strike.
Continued from First Pasel

for the ensuing general tranquility.
Tranquility In the White House;
troubles aubdued by ministers or
dained by the White House, and
ensuing tranquility everywhePe-
Shat ia the apparent recipe.
Governor Pinchot viii at once
proceed 70 0ubdue the coal diatribu.
ton trouble which his coal mining
settlement has incidentally caused.
With the price Of coal raised so
cents q ton at the mouth Of the
mines, Governor Pinchot viii keep
his promise to try to show the cOun.
try how to chop 30 cents Q ton off
the cost Of the travels which the
coal puraues in freight cars and In
Dealers wagons on its way from
the mines 70 the consumers.
Governor Pinchot's headquarters
u Harrisburg eInphatically repeated
that promise over the long-distance
Coolidge Tranquil.
President Coolidg0 will be tran.
quil: and Governor Pinchot will
scratch to find new economies in
local coal distribution through CO.
operative coal consumers societies
or through municipal coal yards or
through pooling of dealers wagons
or through any other device that he
can find.
Governor Pinchot win make
great strides toward being Penn.
syIvania's favorite son for the next
Republican Presidential nomination:
but the friends Of Senator George
Wharton Pepper will not ,desist
from bringing him forward as also
Pennsylvania favorite son, and at
present it is still calculated by the
best Republican professional OBJ
servers that Pennsylvania delega-
ton to the next Republican ma
tional convention will 80 unin-
structed.
Favorite sons cannot politically
come in twins.
Distribution Problem.
The next immediate remaining
problem 10 to decide who will be
commissioned by the White House
to bring down the general cost
not simply Of coal distribution but
Of all non-agricultural industrial
commodities and activities.
The anthracite coal settlement is
seen as making the question Of the
The poor farmer. it 10 noted, will
now see large class Of wage.
earners--and also of employers-get.
ting higher wages and higher prices
while his own agricultural price
level is. stil1 substantially unraisec.
At Scranton, the urban center Of
the anthracite region, the cost Of
living since 1920, according TO the
United States Bureau Of Labor sta
tistics, has gone down 10 per cent.
Now wages are to 60 up 10 per cent
The statistical results Of those two
facts La that the miner now, in pur.
chasing power. will have the equiv q.
lent Of one dollar and thirty-fivs
cents for every dollar that he had
in 1890.
S6 Per Cent Better OFF.
He il going to be thirty.five per
cent better off. The poor farmer
off. too.
Washington despairs Of doing 1t
by raising the prices of what tie
farmer sells. It begins to aspire
to do 1t by somehow lowering the
prices OF what the farmer buys.
Building materials, according to
the Bureau OF Labor Statistics, are
still at price line which Is 80 per
cent above the level Of the year
1913, while the price line of farm
products is still only IS per cent
above it.
Washington is looking for the
genius who can take those two price
lines and bring the 90 per cent one
down somewhere near to the 35 per /,
cent one.
It is thought that possibly the
President will appoint a peace indus
tries board. like the old War Indus
tries Board. and let people. like Eu-
gene Meyer, jr., who used to be a
member of the War Industries Board
and who is now managing director
OF the United States War Finance
Corporation. see what they can do
by bargaining and arguing with our
nonagricultural ''profiteer1ng" indus
tries.
To drop those industries down Is
now seen to be q large part of the
task Of lifting the farmer up; and
the greatest final outcome Of the
anthracite coal settlement IL thought
to be this:
That with Pinchot lifting the min
er up, somebody must lift the farm.
er up mighty politically soon.
Copyright. 1888, Washington Press