The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, February 11, 1918, Page 11

e R L AT produced during 1917 than during any other year in the statg’s history. This is technically-true. But when you ask how much more the coal companies have produced to help the nation, which needs 50 per cent more coal than ever before, the answer doesn’t sound so fine. ’ The fact is that 1917 coal production in Colorado was 12,433,129 tons., The coal production in 1910, when there was no great national need for fuel, was .- 12,104,887 tons. During the seven years between 1910 and 1917, the production of coal has remained practically stationary, with an increase of less than 3 per cent. Considering the fact that the nation needed coal so much more this year than any other previous year, considering the high prices offered, and com- paring the production with the demand, the coal companies of Colorado have actually fallen down on the job. - They have proved as inefficient, in the hour of national need, as the railroads. FARMERé AND WORKING MEN PROPOSE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP The national' government has taken no steps yet to take over the coal mines, limiting its work to a price control that results in the people of Colorado being soaked about $1 a ton more for their coal than previously, while people of other states pay more yet. But the farmers and working men of Colorado propose to take the situation into their own hands. This is what is being done: The National Nonpartisan league of Colorado has adopted a new plank. The first demand on the Colorado state program is STATE OPERATION OF COAL MINES. But the farmers of Colorado can not possibly come, into possession of their state government until after the legislature of 1919 has a chance to-act, and it would take monthsg after the session of the legis- lature to put a law for state operation of coal mines into effect. The farmers of the Nonpartisan league, and or- ganized labor in Colorado, working in conjunction with the League. are solving this difficulty. Initia- tive petitions are now being circulated in Colorado Whlla the pntranee of a coal mlne is narrow, itis wldgned lnfldo lnto !arge chambeu earved out of the uolld coal, whlch comes’ ln veins. the miners’ heads, is ten" feet thick How foohsh we, as a people, have been. ‘We seem helpless. We lel profiteers exploit our natural resources, charging -us many' times what the service is worth. Even where the people own great natural resources, we let poli- ticianms .give them away or lease them ' to private interests, so that those inter- ests can make profits out of us. Are we such children that we can not de- velop our own .natural resources and serve ourselves with coal, oil, fertilizer, copper, iron, etc., AT COST? Here is a story about Colorado coal. The state owns coal land. - It has been. letting private interests mine it and charge an exorbitant profit on it. But Colo- rado producers—the working men of the cities and mines, and the farmers —have awakened! They are now put- ting through an initiative law to have the state mine its own coal. ‘‘Social- ism!”’, “I. 'W. W.’ism!”’ ete., ete! by the farmers ard labor men. Thése petitions call for an amendment to the state oonstitution that will allow the state to mine its own coal and sell it to consumers at the cost of operation, after first placing to the credit of the state school fund the 10 cents-a ton royalty that the school fund now gets from the sale of the coal to private operators. 1f the signatures of 26,000 voters are secured this amendment will go upon the ballot this year. It will become effective immediately after being adopted. HOW THE PEOPLE PROPOSE TO HANDLE COAL The Colorado farmers and labor men have adopt- 3d the same idea that actuated North Dakota farmers _ to compete with the coal trust operations. in planning their state owned grain elevator. The state is authorized to issue $500,000 bonds, or as large a portion of this sum as may be necessary, to open the mines and operate them. Against each ton of coal mined a charge of 10 cents is to be made, to go into the school fund, and an .additional 10> cents to be placed into a sinking fund that will be used to retire the bonds. The coal is then to be sold to the public at the cost of operation, plus only this charge of 20 cents a ton. Bonds will be retired without burdening the state with a cent of taxation. - The industry will pay its own way, as the private coal industry of Colorado has done for years, with the difference, however, that the state industry will be operated for the service of the people, instead of for the private profit of John D. Rockefeller and his associates. Aside from giving the people coal practically at cost and breaking the strangle hold that the Colo- - rado Fuel & Iron company, John D. Rockefeller's corporation, has had on the state, state mine opera- tion in Colorado promises to accomplish other things. It will aid in the development of the state. Some of the state’s richest deposits have been held idle to the present date because private enterprise had all the coal in sight that it wanted to work, and preferred to make a big profit on small deals rather than a smaller profit on large development work. According to Horace W. Havens, mineral 'superintendent of the Colorado state land board, there are in the Calumet state-owned mine, Huer- fano county. 11,200,000 tons of codl and in the Marr state-owned mine, Jackson county, 31,500,000 tons of coal that have never been touched in either case, because the coal trust had plenty of other available material in sight. Under state operation these mines can be opened The United States can be given the coal that it needs for industrial enterprises to keep the war going and the farmers of the middle West and the poor in the cities of the East can be provided with coal that will not represent extortionate private profits to every one along the line—operator, jobber, railroad and retailer., . ’ SR