26 BULLETIN 102, PART 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
And, in conclusion, it may be asked what are the assets and the 
liabilities in this business of demanding a full accountability from 
coal. Here is the balance sheet: 
Assets: 
Ample coal resources. 
By-product coke experience. 
Municipal gas-plant installations. 
Liabilities: 
Tradition. 
Character of the past administration 
of the average public utility. 
Character of our past conduct of tech- 
nical matters. 
The assets are large, but the liabilities, it must be admitted, have 
been insistent enough to block progress in the past. Whether they 
will continue to overbalance the assets will depend upon the course 
of public opinion. It is up to the man in the streets to determine 
which shall prevail. A continuation of the present system of coal 
economics may be justified on the basis of indifference to progress, 
but not on the basis of ignorance; its unnecessary prolongation 
should afford a prospect intolerable to the thinking man. 
