Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 282, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1919 — INDIANA COAL SITUATION IS BECOMING DESPERATE. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA COAL SITUATION IS BECOMING DESPERATE.

Indianapolis, Nov. 21. —Half-time operation of all manufacturing plants in Indianapolis as a fuel conservation measure will be taken up at a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce here tomorrow morning. If this action, urged by officials of local public utilities companies, is taken, it will become effective on Monday and will effect between fourteen and fifteen hundred manufacturing establishments in the city. During the day orders were received from L. C. Baldwin, regional director of the Allegheny region, prohibiting the granting of permits for coal for industries not included in the first five classes of the fuel administration’s priority list and to consignees in this list only when needs are vital. On receipt of the order, J. L. Doerk, chairman of the Pennsylvania railroad’s coal committee in Indianapolis, requested utilities furnishing power to industries to decrease that service as much as possible and to take into consideration the unfairness of denying coal to non-essential industries using this fuel for power, when other consumers in the same class were allowed to operate on electric power. Governor James P. Goodrich today, replying to a message from Governor W. Harding, of lowa, in which it was proposed that the states seize affd operate the coal mines, stated that he did not favor such a procedure for the reason that it probably would complicate negotiations now under way in Washington to bring about an end of the strike. . No change was reported during the day in the situation in the coal fields of the state. The coal shortage, however, is becoming more acute throughout the state and the suspension of operation of many plants is said to be imminent.