THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES If Uncle Sam Operated Coal Mines— New Zealand Finds State-Owned Mines an Effective Check Upon the Exactions of Private Monopoly THREE years ago when Senator La...
...Secretary Lane pointed out that for the main-"tenance of agriculture we rely more and more largely upon mineral fertilizers...
...but it is the most exacting friendship in the world.—Youth's Companion...
...The total production was 2,087,000 tons to 1912...
...We own and operate railroads...
...The New Zealand government went into the Let Us Have a Democratic Army...
...That is the opinion of Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane...
...In addition to supplying its own needs, it has sold coal directly to the people in competition with a coal trust...
...Taking Stock of Our Resources ONE effect of the European war will be the realization of the people of the United States of the tremendous value of their mineral resources...
...The private companies lowered prices, and the market remained at this point until last year...
...Especially is this true of lignite, brown and other coals used by the working classes...
...During that time Alaska has been declining...
...It is a real victory for a sensible anti-monopoly policy...
...The government, then under the leadership of the famous premier, Richard Seddon, who had started in life as a miner, did act quickly...
...Miners are paid the union scale...
...The people were paying from $9.50 to $10.50 per ton retail, and in some cases much higher...
...It has succeeded only partially...
...All mining in New Zealand is strictly regulated...
...When Gardner spoke, the people of the United States were in the mood to consider whether or not there is any safety for any people in this war-mad world, save in strong armies and mighty navies...
...The main shipping point is Westport, where the government has built a harbor...
...Yet we have some three million acres of phosphate lands in the west...
...Prices have been kept at a little below the going rates in Australia and undue extortion has been prevented...
...KNOWLEDGE is said to be power...
...And yet we are in safer plight today than before the war broke out...
...It is our coal Our government is maintained to do something besides collect taxes and look wise...
...Recently a law was enacted by Congress providing for the leasing of Alaskan coal fields—a measure which contains safeguards of the public interest largely because of the efforts of Congressman Lenroot of Wisconsin...
...If Any By HERBERT QUICK NO SPEECH yet made in this eventful Con-gress has excited more comment throughout the country than that of Congressman Gardner on national defense...
...I am for an army system in which young men will be trained for citizenship, with soldiership as a by-product...
...Most of the countries now at war are dependent upon importation of foodstuffs, and we have cause for self-congratu-lation in the United States that we are able to feed ourselves...
...Would this change of supply mean higher prices in this country...
...The inevitable coal "ring"— as monopolies are known there—made its appearance and, in combination with the "shipping ring," controlled the market exactly as does the railroad-coal combine in Pennsylvania...
...The frontiers of peaceful nations have been violated, and blameless peoples have been tramped into the earth by sheer brutal power...
...The southern states have for years largely supplied the world with phosphates, a large part of which has gone to Europe...
...Enormous indemnities have been levied on cities of industrious workingmen...
...why not coal mines...
...The rate in the United States for the same period was 3.58, and 22,194 men were killed...
...I think I see in the vast tangle of the world's peoples other and greater possibilities of wars in the future...
...Knowledge is power in the same sense that wood is fuel...
...In 1912 the total sales of the state mines and depots amounted to $1,096,660...
...Forced to the latter course by suspension of commerce with other countries, I believe that American enterprise and energy will almost at once turn to the development of the native resources, rather than permit production to lag and supply to be diminished in any industry...
...Transportation is all by water...
...I think that the army should be a great system of vocational, technical, scientific and literary colleges...
...Perhaps this war will end militarism...
...The rates are high, and in ten years the government has had to pay $2,000,000 for this service...
...SLOW in contracting friendships, let him be even more slow in breaking them asunder, and, if possible, never let him do so.—Petrarch...
...It is that we may study such changes that I would pursue a policy of watchful waiting on Gardner's proposal...
...THE BEST FRIEND that a high-minded man can have is himself...
...A government that constructed the Panama Canal will have no difficulty in becoming a model mine operator...
...Wood on fire is fuel...
...I am not opposed to any justifiable system of national defense—but I am in favor of waiting at this time and starting on a different basis...
...What is needed to make available these resources in our own country are laws designed to open them to development while at the same time fully protecting public interest...
...Let us not invest too much in a business which is in process of the most rapid and basic change...
...If we are to become a nation armed, the peo-ple must make up their minds whether or not we are to depend on a huge standing army or a citizen-soldiery...
...Gardner points out the fact, of which most of us were already aware, that the United States has a very inconsiderable army and that several of the naval powers of the earth are either equal to us in sea power, or superior...
...I am not hopeful of seeing the end of wars in this struggle...
...New Zealand, for example, has found its state coal mines conspicuously successful and a powerful instrument in the public interest Judson King, Secretary of the National Popular Government League, has this to say concerning New Zealand's experience: For the past ten years the New Zealand government has successfully operated two state-owned coal mines...
...We have abundant coal on our state lands...
...The coal deposits are located on the west coast of the middle island and are shut off by a high mountain range...
...Do you mean," Mr...
...But the enterprising gentlemen managing this business deal quickly found that they had a people and a PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT to reckon with...
...It will at least put militarism on a different basis...
...There have been no strikes...
...I am not in favor of building war enginery which this war will condemn to the junk-heap...
...It is our government...
...They have been well managed and have returned a neat cash profit to the government...
...Presently prolonged strikes in the Australian mines threatened a shortage from that source, and the New Zealand combine prepared to charge famine prices and reap a harvest...
...The three essential plant foods are potash, nitrogen and phosphorus, the latter used generally in the form of phosphates...
...The nations from whom we may have been supposed to be in peril are struggling with other nations in an exhausting war...
...The nation of New Zealand consists of three large islands, covering a distance, from north to south, of about 1,000 miles...
...This is an achievement of which Congress may well be proud, for it has been achieved without bitterness and practically without partisanship...
...Indeed, Uncle Sam's engineers are already operating coal mines with marked success—for instance, those in North Dakota...
...It may spell the end of the battleship...
...there will be more and more if some strong body will keep perpetually telling the truth, and holding up the light to them that long for it.—Morgan Dix, D. D...
...The ring surrendered, but the government went straight ahead with its mines...
...It has been easier, and perhaps cheaper, to import mineral products and materials from other countries than to go to the trouble and expense of developing our own resources of the same nature...
...What we possibly have not so fully realized is that we are nearly as independent in the possession of essential mineral resources, and that the interference with manufacturing caused by interruption of the flow of importations of many necessary raw materials, may be overcome almost wholly by development of neglected resources in our own country...
...Up to 1903 coal production was wholly in private hands...
...coal business not to substitute state monopoly for private ownership, but to REGULATE PRIVATE MONOPOLY BY COMPETITION...
...I would have the degrees conferred by the United States army as honorable and as creditable to the graduates as the degrees conferred by Yale, Harvard or the University of Wisconsin...
...One of the first effects of the war has been to make us realize the interdependence of nations in the matter of food supply...
...Prices were kept up to the level of coal imported from Australia 1,300 miles away...
...Rapacity has been checked, but coal is still high—too high, say the people...
...Next retail depots were opened up in the principal cities, and coal was sold to the people at around $7 per ton where the trust had been charging from $8 to $13...
...THERE is much to cheer...
...We can't afford it, and, besides, only fools or impotents will consent to be robbed...
...Chile holds a practical world monopoly of the most readily available nitrogen in its great nitrate beds...
...The main difficulties to be overcome are in the rearrangement of the distribution system necessary to establishing this independence...
...Yet in this country we can draw nitrogen from the air and fix it with lime by the use of large and cheap electrical development, as is done at Niagara Falls and in Norway...
...Very largely," asserted the Secretary...
...It will certainly show the relative values of what may be called professional and amateur soldiers...
...Lane, "is the supply of mineral products necessary to meet the requirements of Twentieth century civilization...
...They have supplied cheaper coal to the public schools and other public institutions...
...The parliament passed a law authorizing two state coal mines...
...They opened in 1904, and at first the entire output was taken by the railroads and other government institutions...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES If Uncle Sam Operated Coal Mines— New Zealand Finds State-Owned Mines an Effective Check Upon the Exactions of Private Monopoly THREE years ago when Senator La Fol-lette submitted to the United States Senate a resolution setting forth the sense of the Senate "that the government should own and operate all the railroads, docks, wharves and terminals, make provision for operating mines and leasing mines at reasonable royalties, with suitable safeguards for prevention of waste and security of life," etc., he urged that the first step taken be the building and operation of government railroads and then, this being accomplished, "the government itself should own and operate at least one great coal mine, to supply its naval and military needs and to sell the surplus at a reasonable profit, as a check against extortion by private corporations developing other mines...
...Now her coal is to be opened to the world under conditions that will prevent monopoly and I trust insure development...
...It is entirely possible," he said in an interview, "to so utilize these resources that the label 'Made in America' will become familiar in our own and foreign markets...
...The people of New Zealand reasoned the situation out about like this: The coal ring proposes to rob us...
...I am for the democratic army...
...A good deal of the interest in this address is owing to the fact that the speech was made in the midst of a world war...
...Money has been saved to the state railroads which has been distributed among the people in the form of reduced passenger and freight rates...
...Recently the price has been raised and the people are now demanding that the state transport its coal IN ITS OWN SHIPS...
...I would have the United States offer to the young men of the country courses of study which would make them willing to pay if it were necessary for admission into the ranks...
...Eight years ago these coal lands in Alaska were locked up...
...Lane...
...It will show the value of aircraft and their place in any system of national defense...
...The very earth is shaking under the tread of armed hosts, and the air is vibrant with gunfire...
...CHINESE philosophers, looking at the European spectacle, must be confirmed in their belief that the western worship of brute force is a stupid thing.— Springfield Republican...
...And he made an impassioned plea for a greater army and a mightier navy...
...Business is established along certain well-marked chan\nels, and usually follows the line of least resistance...
...But the proposal to have Uncle Sam operate coal mines in competition with private owners is still a pressing question...
...The state mines have not reduced prices as much as was expected...
...It is not an untried venture by any means...
...The other two measures, which have already passed the House and will come before the Senate in December, are a water power bill and a bill under which our oil, phosphate and potash lands can be opened and put to use...
...During the period of transition from one supply to another, and the initial development of new sources of material, cost of production might possibly be slightly enhanced, but with a new production and distribution system, wholly domestic, once established there is no reason why prices should be higher, and no reason why fluctuations in prices in other countries should so affect our industries or prices of our products to home consumers...
...The reason for this partial failure lies in the one word—TRANSPORTATION...
...So they told their government to get into the coal business and do it quick...
...Of an importance second only to that of the food supply," said Mr...
...The government does not own its own colliers, but must depend upon the shipping "ring" to carry its coal to market...
...Opening Alaska COMMENTING on the passage of the Alaska coal leasing bill, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane said: "This is the end of an eight-year struggle...
...Is there any good reason why we in this country should not make as good provision for our own welfare as they have made in far-off New Zealand...
...We have depended, with the rest of the world, very largely upon the mines of Germany for our supply of potash salts and war has cut off this supply, but we have large deposits of potash in a California reserve...
...From 1900 to 1910 the average annual fatality rate from accidents in coal mines was only 1.74 per 1,000 men employed...
...It is the best time in the world's history for a nation protected as we are on all vulnerable sides by oceans to wait and see how things develop...
...We now have achieved three-fifths of our conservation program—a railroad for Alaska, a new reclamation law, an Alaskan coal leasing bill...
...Knowledge on fire is power.—Alexander McKenzie...
...Not necessarily," replied Mr...
...I would have chemistry, mechanics, agriculture—all the arts and sciences—taught in the army—with military training on the side...
...It may demonstrate the use-lessness of forts...
...Beyond question, the state coal mines have proved of vast benefit to the people of New Zealand...
...The miners live in good houses built by the state and surrounded with ample yards for garden patches...
...We can afford to wait a little...
...The government was paying high prices to run its railroads...
...This means that 12,755 of these lives would have been saved had the United States protected coal miners as well as does New Zealand...
...Lane was asked, "that the United States can make itself independent of the rest of the world in its manufactures...
...Incidentally the coal barons were quietly given to understand that if they attempted to pull off their deal before the state mines could be gotten into operation, the government, acting under the right of EMINENT DOMAIN, would probably TAKE OVER THEIR MINES and relieve distress...
...The total for the nation for this period was about 15,000,000 tons...
Vol. 6 • November 1914 • No. 45
