WHERE UNCLE SAM MINES HIS OWN COAL
Where Uncle Sam Mines His Own Coal At Williston, North Dakota, there is a government owned and operated mine from which the coal is produced cheaply to run the irrigation works under the direction...
...With the water he irrigates thousands of acres of arid lands...
...Pertinent Comment ¶ PUCK says: "The United States Supreme Court has had no defender more zealous and steadfast than the Standpat wing of the Republican party...
...Can it be that the Standpatters are wilfully and knowingly entering the demagogue class...
...It costs more to operate the mine because of the character of the soil and coal, which makes extra timbering necessary...
...Of course this is mere child's play for Uncle Sam's engineers compared to the work they are doing in digging the Panama Canal...
...Uncle Sam has already proven himself a successful coal miner...
...Why these objections...
...With the coal he runs the power plant...
...With the electricity he runs the pumps...
...Exits are arranged so that entombing is impossible...
...What is the difference between running a coal mine in Alaska and running one in North Dakota—providing it is done successfully...
...Nobody works more than six days a week...
...The work day is eight hours...
...With the pumps he lifts water out of the Missouri River...
...Hence the government is mining its own coal at 90 cents a ton less than it could be bought in the open market...
...And the engineers in charge are reported as saying that if the mine were operated all the year 'round (it is worked only four months of the year, during the crop growing season) it would be possible to produce the coal at nearly twenty-five cents less a ton...
...The government provides barracks rent free, miners providing their own bedding only...
...Dick Maple, formerly with The National Rip Saw...
...A newspaper correspondent, C. L. Gilman, made a personal investigation of this government owned and operated coal mine, and reports interesting facts...
...Every needed safety device is used...
...The government provides good cottages for married men at $10 a month...
...From the mine he gets the coal...
...Miners get 60 cents a ton for "room work," 70 cents in 10-foot entries, 80 cents in 7-foot entries, and make an average of $5 a day...
...Uncle Sam owns the coal mine...
...he literally makes the desert to blossom like the rose...
...And this government owned and operated coal mine, conducted on model lines, is able to produce coal at $1.60 a ton...
...Why not...
...As a matter of fact is there any good reason why our government engineers should not run a mine just as successfully as the Morgan-Guggenheim engineers...
...Where Uncle Sam Mines His Own Coal At Williston, North Dakota, there is a government owned and operated mine from which the coal is produced cheaply to run the irrigation works under the direction of the engineers of the Reclamation Service AGOVERNMENT COAL MINE in Alaska...
...Yet, since the Standard Oil and Tobacco Trust-decisions, the same Standpat element is objecting strenuously to the efforts made to bring the trusts within the law...
...With the power plant he generates electricity...
...his engineers operate it, as they do also the power plant and irrigation works...
...The first number is a vigorous punch at the existing order...
...Here are some ef them: The government works its men six days a week, eight hours a day, and they average a profit of $100 a month abave living expenses...
...Air in tunnels 2,000 feet under ground is sweet and fresh...
...The government provides a "mess" where miners get good meals at 25 cents each...
...And when he has done this he transforms barren acres into fertile fields...
...This whole project is managed by Uncle Sam's servants in the Reclamation Service...
...No one has ever been killed or seriously hurt...
...The retail price of coal at Williston maintained by private operators is $2.50 a ton...
...Doesn't the Standpat element realize," Puck adds, "that in attacking the government for its attitude in regard to the Sherman law, it is really attacking the Supreme Court of the United States, which for decades it has so zealously championed...
...No boys are employed...
...But the fact that the federal government is now operating successfully a coal mine of its own in North Dakota is a poser for those coal magnates who warn us that "Uncle Sam is bound to make a flat failure of owning and operating a coal mine in Alaska...
...He owns a mine at Williston, North Dakota...
...THE WORLD'S BUTT-CUT of Nashville, Tennessee, is the unique name of a new monthly journal edited by Col...
...Socialism is its lode star...
Vol. 3 • October 1911 • No. 41
