Evening star., 1946-05-05
Text Of White House Report Outlining Effects of Coal Strike

! ext OF White |
Tert OF statement issued last
night at the White House on the
impact OF the coal strike follo,cs.. !.
The President has received from
the Once Of War Mobilization and
Reconversion the following report on
the impact of the coal strike on re-
conversion, based on data assembled
by the Civilian Production Admin
istration:
Manufacturing plants are closing
down all over the country as a result
of the month-old soft coal strike
And yet the American people have
barely begun to feel the full impact
OF this national disaster. The basic
industries-particularly steel-have
received the initial body blow from
the strike. The impact on even
these industries has been cushioned
by stocks. on hand and in transit
But FROM now on the effects will
spread rapidly throughout the econ
omy and the damage to reeonversion
progress will take months to mend.
Not only have inventories of coal
been nearly exhausted, but inven-
tories or raw materials dependent
on coal are being depleted. Even
after the miners return to the pits
it will take 10 days to two weeks
before coal consumers begin to re-
ceive a regular supply, and 1t will
probably take another week for
closed plants to build up sufficient
stocks to resume operations. Then
the first weeks of production of
basic materials will have to be used
by manufacturers Of consumer goods
to fill depleted pipelines-inventories
Of both raw materials and goods In
in process
RAILROADS.
Drastic curtailment of both pas
senger and freight railroad service
has been imposed on coal-burning
railroads effective May 10 by the
Offlce of Defense Transportation.
Coal consuming carriers are or
dered to stop all railroad freight
shipments except foods, fuels, and
a few other essential products, and
to reduce passenger service by Is
per cent on that date. In the mean
time the director of ODT has urged
the carriers to extend their volun-
tary curtailment of service to con-
serve shrinking coal stocks. On
May /. the country,s class / rail-
roads had an average of less than
four weeks supply of coal, and five
OF these roads were desperately
short. with 9 days supply or less.
In the first three weeks of the
strike the Governments emergency
stock of 1,650.000 tons of soft coal
was reduced by nearly a third to
maintain operations at food pro-
cessing plants, gas and water works,
hospitals and other vital activities.
If all requests for coal were granted.
the emergency stocks would last
only SO hours.
Soft coal production in April
amounted to about 100000 tons
compared with an output of more
than $4,000, 900 tons in March. The
daily rate of production in May is
even lower than in April, owing to
the walkout of the Progressive
Miner Workers who are not afIil-
lated with the United Mine Workers
and who were not on strike during
April.
Reports collected by the Civilian
Production Administration indicate
that the coal strike Is cutting
deeper and deeper into the activity
of all segments of the economy.
UTILITIES.
Electric power companies, hard.
pressed for coal, are taking drastic
steps to curtail power consumption.
On May 2 Northern Indiana joined
Illinois in reviving the wartime
brownout affecting entertainment
establishments, advertising, +. and
other uses not essential to public
health and safety. Industries
throughout the area have been
asked to cut their electric current
consumption to an aggregate Of "a
hours from Monday through Friday
each week. Gas utilities have also
been hard hit by the coal strike.
(The White House review was
prepared before issuance of the
District dim-out order yesterday
FOOD.
AS a result Of the coal strike the
Department Of Agriculture is re-
ceiving daily complaints in ever in
creasing numbers from the dairy in
dustry, perishable food packing
plants. and related industries en-
gagged in the processing and packag-
ing OF poultry and other perishable
food for domestic consumption and
for export to the starving peoples of
Europe. Until recently it has been
possible to keep these plants op-
Grating on a bare minimum of fuel,
but the situation has become alarm
ing. For example, the following
milk-processing plants Of the Bor-
den Co. now have less than 10 days
supply of coal, and several of these
have less than three days supply:
Columbus, Wis: Dixon, Ill; Lewis
ourg, Tenn; Gcuverneur, N. Y:
Dixon, Ind.
One telegram, typical of those cur
rently deluging the Department of
Agriculture, is the following re-
ceived May l from the A. Costig-
llanno Stella Cheese Co. of Chicago.
"Our coal supply Wisconsin plants