coal: the resource and its full utilization. 
25 
duties, and by improvements in utilization, thus destroying the over- 
dependence upon high-grade coals which now necessitates undue 
haulage. 
The wastes in utilization may be done away with by establishing a 
method of separating the energy-producing constituents of coal from 
the commodity values and using the products to their common 
advantage. The most logical point of attack is the municipality, 
to which may be attached a public utility plant converting raw coal 
into smokeless fuel — artificial anthracite plus gas, or gas alone— and 
valuable by-products, ammonia, benzol, and tar. Such a plant would 
supply the fuel needs of the community and ship the surplus by- 
products to serve as raw material for a coal-products industry, devel- 
oped thereby to proportions consistent with its importance to social 
progress. 
Integrated mining will lessen the increased costs that will come 
with the impending extraction of thick-seam and easily obtainable 
coals. 
Reduced coal transportation will remove an unnecessary burden 
from the railways and prevent the repetition of the congestion 
difficulties so acutely felt during the winter of 1917-18. 
By-product utilization will give cheaper fuel through the advan- 
tageous disposition of all the values contained. It will also end the 
smoke nuisance, relieve transportation, and cause the growth of a 
great coal-products industry with ultimate possibilities ranging 
beyond the grasp of the imagination. 
This paper does not presume to set forth the exact methods whereby 
these results may be attained; the procedures remain to be worked 
out in detail. Its purpose, however, has been to present a line of 
attack, drawn up on the basis of the character and extent of the 
resource, which may be followed to specific advantage. There are 
no serious technical obstacles in the way; the chief requisite for 
progress is a popular appreciation of the fact that coal contains 
greater values than society is getting from it. From this realization 
will spring a public demand that scientific and technical knowledge , 
be used, not merely in making improvements in the details of present 
practice but in revising that practice itself and shaping a policy of 
administration more in keeping with what is known to be the poten- 
tiality of coal. “Mankind,” writes John Bewey, “so far has been 
ruled by things and by words, not by thought * * * . If ever 
we are to be governed by intelligence, not by things and words, 
science must have something to say about what we do and not merely 
how we may do it more easily and economically.” 1 
1 It should be borne in mind that fundamental changes in coal economics are capable of just as much 
harm if handled ill-advisedly as of good if competently directed. Unless a type of public management 
superior to anything this country has developed in the past can be put forth, the whole matter might 
better be left in its present state of inadequacy. 
