Conservation Through Engineering

The coal strike 1 National stock-taking 3 Coal as a national asset 3 Public responsibility 4 The miners' year 5 Have we too many mines and miners? 7 The long view 7 Saving coal 9 Coal and coal 10 Expansion abroad 11 Saving coal by saving electricity 11 White coal and black 12 The age of petroleum 13 Oil shale 15 Save oil 16 Use the Diesel engine 17 Wanted--a foreign supply 18 By way of summary 20 Land development 22 A program of progress 22 Garden homes for the people 23 Reclamation by district organization 24 Soldier-settlement legislation 27 Alaska 29 Matanuska coal 32 Save and develop Americans 32

NOTE.

The plea for constructive policies contained in the report of the Secretary of the Interior to the President deserves a hearing also by the engineers and business men who are developing the power resources of the country. The largest conservation for the future can come only through the wisest engineering of the present.

The conditions under which the utilization of natural resources is demanded are outlined by Secretary Lane, and it will be noted that the program recommended calls for the cooperation of engineer and legislator. To bring this power inventory to the attention of the men who furnish the Nation with its coal and oil and electricity, this extract from the administrative report of the Secretary of the Interior is reprinted as a bulletin of the United States Geological Survey.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING[1]

By FRANKLIN K. LANE.

In an age of machinery the measure of a people's industrial capacity seems to be surely fixed by its motive power possibilities. Civilized nations regard an adequate fuel supply as the very foundation of national prosperity--indeed, almost as the very foundation of national possibility. I am convinced that there will be a reaction against the intense industrialism of the present, but as it must be agreed that the race for industrial supremacy is on between the nations of the world, America may well take stock of her own power possibilities and concern herself more actively with their development and wisest use.

THE COAL STRIKE.

The coal strike has brought concretely before us the disturbing fact that modern society is so involved that we live virtually by unanimous consent. Let less than one-half of 1 per cent of our population quit their work of digging coal and we are threatened with the combined horrors of pestilence and famine.

It did not take many hours after it was realized that the coal miners were in earnest for the American imagination to conceive what might be the state of the country in perhaps another 30 days. Industries closed, railroads stopped, streets dark, food cut off, houses freezing, idle men by the million hungry and in the dark--this was the picture, and not a very pleasant one to contemplate. There was an immediate demand for facts.

How much coal is normally mined in this country?

By whom is it mined?

What is its quality?

To what uses is it put?

Who gets it?

How much less could be mined if coal were conserved instead of wasted?

What better methods have been developed for using coal than those of ancient custom?

Who is to blame that so small a supply is on the surface?

Why should we live from day to day in so vital a matter as a fuel supply?

What substitutes can be found for coal and how quickly may these be made available?

This is by no means an exhaustive category of the questions which were put to this department when the strike came. And these came tumbling in by wire, by mail, by hand, from all parts of the country, mixed with disquisitions upon the duty of Government, the rights of individuals as against the rights of society, the need for strength in times of crisis, calls for nationalization of the coal industry, for the destruction of labor unions, for troops to mine coal, and much else that was more or less germane to the question before the country.