The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, January 27, 1919, Page 5

0LD GANG LEGISLRTIVE STOoRE IE WE HAVENT GOT WHAT THE FARMER. ASKS FoR WE CAN i GIVE HIM'JUST @s & GOoOD * LECISLATY How often the farmers have been told by those they have elected to office that for some plausible reason the legislature can not give the farmers or the workers just what they want! Either what they want is visionary;Jmpractical, or socialistic or if the demand from the toilers”is very strong, the old gang shop has “gomething just as good.” Cartoonist Morris here shows what the North Dakota farmer who had been trading with the old gang for years finally did. Then after the fat boy had gotten this well-deserved drubbing, the farmer kicked him and his rubbish out of the store and began to fill the shelves with goods the people wanted. The farmers of a number of states are getting ready to do the same kind of legislative store cleaning in the near future. ‘State Plans DévelopmentvofLign—ite Freed at Last From Railroad Control, North Dakota Is Ready to Go Ahead in | Development of Home F uel Supply—Great Quantity Used Now 4 \ OME of e history-making measures ‘before the farmer- controlled legislature of North Dakota concern that state more than any other but there is one measure of 2:jual im- portance to every maa woman and child in_the Wes’. That is the lignite coa. 1 I With only the surface of the state scratcned, North Dakota has within its borders enough lig- nite coal to supply the whole United States with cheap fuel for 100 years. And in spite of that fact North Dakota has been importing nearly all its fuel from the East. ' This lignite is not only “capable of furnishing cheap fuel in its raw state. It can be prepared , for more convenient use in the shape of briquettes and from it can be made products that will take the piace cf oil and gasoline if the world’s supply of these fluids should ever run low. These are not statements of a soap-box orator. They are definitely and scientifically ascertained facts, and any one interested in confirming them is invited to correspond with Dean E. J. Babcock of the School of Mines, University of North Dakota, or Captain I. P. Baker, federal fuel administrator for North Dakota. Also, doubters might be referred to Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, who has never _ .yet been referred to as a socialist or a bolshevik, but who requested congress for $100,000 to demon- strate the possibilities of lignite as fuel to the people of the United States. FUEL SHORTAGE BOOSTS LIGNITE A combination of two things has brought lignite to the close attention of the people of North DPa- kota and far-seeing people generally. One element was the investigations. of 'the Nonpartisan league and of Dean ‘Babcock, and the publicity given by the League to Dean Babcock’s discoveries. The other element was the war. . The war brought with it a fuel shortage. Greedy B N A e S T L W W 3% shipowners on the Great Lakes, instead of using their vessels to carry iron ore eastward and coal westward, neglected the people of the Northwest and hurried back to Duluth with empty boats, so that they could load the more quickly the profit- able iron ore of Minnesota. And people of North Dakota, robbed of their usual fuel supply, might have frozen to death if they had not turned to lignite. Scarcely any lignite had been mined pre- - viously, but the year 1918 saw 1,000,000 tons taken from the ground, nearly all of which was used in North Dakota. At the same time about 2,000,000 tons of imported anthracite' and bituminous coal were burned in the state. _The state of North Dakota wants to share -its heritage of cheap fuel with the people of the en- ~tire United States. And that is why the North Dakota legislature is now busy with bills for state development of the lignite industry. LARGE SCALE } OPERATION ADVISABLE ) Much of the lignite lies in state school lands in western North Dakota. However, the best mines yet developed are on private property. No mines are operated on a large scale and the present cost of operation, per ton, is now much greater than it should be. Ll What the farmersiof North Dakota propose, and what probably will be done at this session of the legislature, is to allow the industrial commission, consisting of Governor Frazier, Attorney General Langer and Commissioner of Agriculture Hagan, authority to purchase and operate one or more mines. ! It is certain that the most efficient and econom- ical way to mine lignite will be the way that five- sixths of the iron ore of Minnesota is now mined— by steam shovel. Under such conditions cheaper fuel may be furnished to the citizens of the en- tire West. : An appropriation also will be made to be used in demonstrating the uses of lignite briquéttes. This work probably will -be done under the immediate direction of Dean Babcock, who will be authorized . B T A e AR A T AT to put up a commercial briquetting plant, capable of turning out enough tonnage of this more con- venient form of the fuel to convince North Dakota home owners of the advantages of their domestic fuel. Some work may also be done in introducing the use of powdered lignite, which, when fed into a furnace under pressure and draft, makes the hottest fire of all. ‘In fact, its use in this man- ner is so efficient that it has often been proposed | that lignite be used for smelting, in the North- ' west, of the iron ore of Minnesota and the copper ore of Montana, instead of shipping the iron ore east, the method now followed. N "USE OF LIGNITE HELD UP BY RAILROADS There are some difficulties in the use of lignite. When exposed to the air it slacks rapidly and loses its heating power. It can not be fed into furnaces in just the same way that anthracite and bitumi- nous coal can. Its heating power is somewhat less. But lignite is so much cheaper and so much more readily obtained that the West is bound to use it in time in preference to the forms of coal used-now. Furthermore, when put up in briquette form, it is much more convenient than either an- thracite or bituminous coal. And the experience of the last year has shown thousands of North Dakotans that lignite can be used in its raw form with perfect ease—it is just a question of understanding how to do it. The railroads of the United States have always dis- couraged the use of lignite because the use .of ‘bituminous and anthracite coal meant big freight profits on the-long haul from Pennsylvania to the West. When the Pennsylvania deposits would be exhausted, the railroads held, would be time enough to commence using lignite. Then they could collect freight again for hauling lignite from the West to Pennsylvania. N But the North Dakota farmers have a different idea of it. They are going to see that a cheap fuel is supplied to the West now. They are wisely going to do the development work themselves in- stead ‘of depending_on private capitalists whom the opponents of the people could easily control.