Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1917 — WILL SET RETAIL COAL PRICES [ARTICLE]

WILL SET RETAIL COAL PRICES

FUEL ADMINISTRATION IS TO NAME THE RETAIL COAL PRICES. Arrangements are rapidly reaching a conclusion which will enable the Fuel Administration to make an announcement concerning the price of coal at the retail dealers and for small manufacturing plants which have relied upon “spot" coal. Before the end of the present month prices will be announced. It may be necessary to make them tentative, as in the case of the prices fixed for coal at the mines. Local committees will be asked to investigate and report upon costs. It is obvious that these will vary considerably between localities and between city and country districts. Care will be taken to include all items

which ought to be included, for there is no disposition on the part of the fuel administration to deprive the local dealer of his fair measure of profit. - In this connection Mr. Garfield has called attention to the rule governing the appointment of local committees by the state fuel administrators now being chosen. Leading citizens of ability will be placed upon the committee, but the rule states that local coal dealers are excluded. This is with no purpose to discredit the local dealers. They are as patriotic and reliable as any other class of citizens. The rule is made rather to save them from the kind of embarrassment that inevitably arises when men are called upon to pass judgment upon others in their own line of business agd to pass upon conditions which are intimately concerned with their own livelihood. Although there is a shortage of cars and of labor, Mr. Garfield states that by co-operation between those vested with power over transportation cars can be had. He, himself, has power to apportion and distribute the coal. John P. White, president of the United Mine Workers, has accepted Mr. Garfield’s nivitation to act as one of his advisers.