If the nation could not get along without coal, there might be some excuse for this colossal sacrifice. Even then, it would be hard for those who might be compelled to make the sacrifice and, if we were to be fair about it, we might have some difficulty in determining who should go to the mines and who should go to the opera. If we were to be fair about it, perhaps some of those who now go to the opera would go to the mines sometimes. But the nation could easily get along without sending anybody into the mines. Water power and fuel oil will do everything that coal is now doing.
Please consider the water power question. In a report made to President Taft in 1912 by Commissioner of Corporations Herbert K. Smith, these statements appear:
Steam and gas engines are creating in this country approximately 19,000,000 horsepower.
Water wheels, in this country, are developing 6,000,000 horsepower.
The water power of this country, capable of development, is approximately 19,000,000 horsepower.
These statements mean that there is enough undeveloped water power in this country to more than take the place of every coal-burning steam engine. This water power, if converted into electricity, would do everything that steam does and more. It would run machinery. It would light streets. It would heat houses. Moreover, the water power, once developed, would not have to be dug out of the ground every year. “White coal,” as the Italians call water power, is mined by the sun and thrown into the furnace by the force of gravitation. Railroads need not haul it. Nobody need deliver it. It hauls and delivers itself.
But that is not all. If there were not an ounce of water power in this country, still we should not be dependent upon coal for heat and power. Oil will burn quite as well as coal—in fact, a good deal better. Dr. Rudolph Diesel, of Munich, in 1912 declared before the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London that exhaustive researches had indicated the presence of as much oil in the globe as there is coal; that new oil fields were constantly being discovered, Borneo, Mexico and even Egypt, in addition to other known lands, containing great fields; that “the world’s production of crude oil had increased three and a half times as rapidly as the production of coal, and that the ratio of increase was becoming steadily greater.”
Why then do we continue to burn coal? For the same reason that we continue to do a number of other foolish things. Because we do not manage this country in which we live. The men who are managing it are managing it for profit. If there were a greater profit for the Coal Trust in switching from coal to water power or oil they would switch us quickly enough. If we were to change to oil, it would be a simple matter to lay oil pipes in the streets precisely as we now lay water and gas pipes, and heat our houses with oil sprays blown into our furnaces with jets of steam. Certainly, there would be no difficulty in heating houses from a central heating plant that burned oil. Plenty of western cities have such central heating plants now that burn coal. And the idea is a good one, too. The central plant decreases the danger of fire, besides doing away with dust and the necessity of shoveling coal into the furnace of each house.
But gentlemen like the Coal Trust barons figure this way: “We have a certain amount of money invested here. We are looking only for the highest rate of interest that we can get upon our investment. We might serve the people better if we were to turn to water power development or the burning of oil, but it is doubtful if we should obtain a greater rate of interest upon our investment. Certainly, we should lose a lot by junking our coal mines, as we should be compelled to do if we were to prove their worthlessness—so, we’ll just keep on dealing in coal.”
And, the people of the United States, through their failure to “get together” politically behind some party that stands for what they all want—the people of the United States are getting the worst of it.