Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1918 — Be Fair With The Coal Man [ARTICLE]

Be Fair With The Coal Man

We all think we know all about the other fellow’s business, and we are often quite sure that he is getting the best of us. This seems to be a time when everybody is after everybody else. *»«• Everyone seems to be taking advantage of the situation and getting big prices for their* services or for the goods they are offering for sale. In some instances it seems to be true that we are paying entirely too much for the necessities. However, the attack made on the Rensselaer coal dealers does not seem to be fair. Admitting, as the Democrat quotes, the prices paid for coal and the prices at which it is sold to be correct, is there a profit of $2.00 per ton or SIOO per car. The Democrat does not tell you that much of this coal must be delivered in lots of five hundred pounds each. For this one dealer pays 40c per load for delivery, or $1.60 for a ton of coal. This explains what the coal dealer is able to do with a part of his seeming “Excess Profit.” Every car of soft coal that comes here is from three to nine tons short. The dealer has to pay for the car as weighed at the mines. This takes another good slice out of that SIOO per car profit. In order that proper equipment and men may be ready to make delivery of coal, the dealers must have on their expense and pay rolls a large item, which day after day does not earn them a cent. There is not a coal man in town who would not be delighted to have Mr. Babcock handle the coal business for him now and be willing to give him every cent of profit there is in the business. It is not a fact that Francesville is selling coal a cent cheaper than it is sold in Rensselaer. They did sell a car of slack over there for $4.00 per ton. This would have been sold here for about three dollars.

When we know the extraordinary efforts our coal men- have made to take care of the people here, the added expense of delivery, and the enforced idleness of men and teams, it is easy to explain why it is absolutely necessary for them to have a margin. One of our coal men, in order to try to get more coal, made a trip into the coal fields of southern Indiana at a considerable expense. ’All have done a great amount of telephoning and telegraphing and deserve praise rather than censure. They have attempted to follow strictly the orders of county coal administrator, B. F. Fendig. All have worked together, and thus far the situation has been handled the very best possible for all concerned. It is understood that Mr. Fendig thinks the prices are reasonable and that he feels grateful to the coal dealers of the city for their splendid co-operation in this trying time. Any one who knows personally the. men who are in the coal business |n this city, knpws that they are men of good character and of strictest integrity, and attacks upon their honor will result in the one who attacks them hurting himself rather than them. One should be slow to impugn the honesty of business men and should do so only after all the facts in the case at hand have been carefully investigated.