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Conservation and regulation in the United States during the world war
Conservation and regulation in the United States during the world war Author:Charles Richard Van Hise Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. THE WORK OF THE FUEL ADMINISTRATION. Before the law was enacted which lead to the organization of the Fuel Administration, the Federal Trade Comm... more »ission had taken up the coal question and had made various reports upon the subject. THE INVESTIGATIONS OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION. The facts under this heading are mainly taken from the reports of the Federal Trade Commission. In consequence of the war and the revival of industry there came an increased demand for coal. This did not appear immediately; indeed in 1915 the needs did not require the maximum production of 1913, and it was not until nearly the end of 1916 that the increased demand for coal led to any fear of shortage. As we have already seen in the first part of these lectures, the demand during the winter of 1916-17 locally exceeded the available supply, and there resulted hardship and industrial difficulties, especially during the latter part of the winter. With this shortage went rapidly enhancing prices. The situation became so acute by June, 1917, that Congress passed a resolution asking the Federal Trade Commission to make an investigation regarding anthracite coal. The Commission saw that the anthracite coal problem could not be considered apart from that of bituminous coal, for the reason that under conditions of increased demand, one may take the .place of the other to a considerable extent in industry.' Thus, while in April and May of 1917 the production of anthracite increased by nearly 25 per cent, the amount which went into household sizes did not greatly increase, because the demand for coal was such that the larger sizes of anthracite were diverted to the production of steam on an extensive scale in plants which had heretofore used bituminous coal. The difficulties in the coa...« less