Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1916 — SAY ROADS CONFISCATE CARS [ARTICLE]

SAY ROADS CONFISCATE CARS

Coal Companies Say Shortage Is Not Their Fault. Chicago, November X. —Coal 0011*oanicg have brought the formal charge that the railroads and not themselves are responsible for the shortage and high price of coal. Attorney M. P. Gallagher of counsel for twenty-six companies operating fifty-five mines was expected to go before Judge K. M. Landis today and ask the immediate hearing of a suit for injunction. The petition is against 100 railroads, charging the confiscation or theft of coal cars - upon Buch a wholesale scale that many of the mines hav# been forced to remain closed two or three days each week. The operators petitioned the United States district court for an injunction restraining the roads from further confiscations and for an order compelling the return of virtually half the coal car equipment of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois and the Chicago, Terre Haute & Southeastern railroads. The thirty-fiye complaining mines have an aggregate daily output of 70,500 tons of bituminous coal. They represent an investment of $43,000,000, which, it is charged, is jeopardized and hundreds *of thrown out of work by the shortage. In addition, consumers pay. prices that would be unwarranted if the operator* could ship all their output.