The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-08-03

| dI1u COI1oCAtC OAiO supply. Second, to the colossal dumbness of the people in the threatened area, who have lazily refused to do anything at all to pro- | tect themselves against this short age, in spite of repeated warnings.
 For months the Office of Petro- leum Co-ordinator, the Office of Price Administration and its divi- sions of Civilian Supply and Ration ing the Office of Defense Transpor- tation, the War Production Board, and the Department of Commerce have warned of this impending shortage and advised the people liv- | ing in houses heated by fuel oil to convert their units to coal burning where that was possible. Further more, the Office of the Solid Fuels Co-ordinator has been staging a campaign all spring and summer, urging people to put in their coal now so there would be no trouble about getting it in the Fall and Winter. And on top of all this, there has been the actual gasoline short age, stuck like a boil on the nose, to warn everyone that this fuel oil shortage was real and no phony. PUBLIC
 APATHETIC
 In spite of all this, the reaction of that portion of the public which should have been concerned has been an amazing hookworm indif- ference The customary attitude has been, "Oh, let the other fellow con- vert" People who have found that conversion back to coal might ocSt from $50 to $75 have refused to make the expenditure, apparently waiting for government subsidy. Others, who have cleaned up the old coal bin in the cellar, hesitate to convert 1t back into storage space | for the winters fuel. Some have been unable to get grates to rein stall in furnaces that formerly burn ed coal, due to confusion on pri- critics and allocations o fmetal for manufacture of the grates which are necessary.
 Best guesses are that only about per cent, or 2S,Oo0 of the 1,4o0,- 900 oil burners in the eastern states have actually been converted to coal. The average oil burning home furnace consumes about 2,000 gall Ions, or approximately 50 barrels of fuel oil a year. That figures out to 70 million barrels to supply these eastern states in an average win- ter. At most 60 per cent of this quantity now seems available. If fuel oil rationing comes, therefore, the average home owner affected must expect to get only about 60 per cent of his usual 2,000 gallons, or 1,200 gallons.
 If that doesn't scare 'em, what will?
 RESERVES
 DWINDLE
 In peacetime, 1t took IS million barrels of all petroleum products per day to keep this eastern area going. By gas rationing, consumption has been cut dow nto 1 million barrels day-a wonderful saving. But petro- leum products coming into this area now by occasional tanker, by tank car, tank truck, barge and pipeline total only from 600,000 to 100000 barrels day. Tn other words, the east is using up Its reserves at the rate of from 100000 to 100000 bar rels a day.
 It doesn't take a dollar-a-year man or government economist to tell you that you can't keep the kiddies warm this winter if that goes on very long. The solution lies in a concerted program of teh most drastic action from all government and prviate agencies in the next 30 to 60 days.
 Decision on fuel oil rationing must come first from WIPE. The rationing division of OPA does not want to ration fuel oil, but has made it preliminary studies and will be prepared to put in 8 fuel oil rationing program on sched- ule, even if 1t means reducing the existing four gallon "A" gasoline ration to three gallons, in order to divert tank car capacity to hauling fuel oil. And 1t may be necessary to spread rationing of gasoline and fuel oil clear to the
 Anyway you look at it, it's go- Mississippi river, to stretch supplies. ing to be cold winter.