With all the supply chain issues that are in the news today, it turns out that they are hardly new. Supply chain issues were a problem during World War I in Worth County. Labor shortages were also a problem, like they are today. The January 2nd, 1918 Worth County Tribune published a front page notice about the coal situation as follows:
The World War is a coal war. Coal energy is behind the munition industries, behind transportation by land and sea, behind the gun, and behind the man behind the gun.
Back of the transportation shortage lies the labor shortage. The stopping of immigration has depleted the labor market. War industries paying higher wages have drawn off many miners, railroad workmen, terminal workmen, and car shop artisans. The draft has taken many others.
The shortage of locomotives is further aggravated by the enormous amount of additional transportation which the war has brought on the railroads. New locomotives can be manufactured only in limited numbers in an emergency and a large part of the new locomotives manufactured must be sent to France to use in transporting American troops and supplies to the front. The total number of coal cars which can be manufactured in this country in a year is only a drop in the bucket compared to the number needed.
Reduced to the last analysis, the coal shortage is caused by:
1. The increased demand of coal for war activities.
2. The congested condition of the railroads and the shortage of coal cars.
3. A shortage of labor in the mines.
Worth Countians, along with all other Americans, are asked to conserve coal
1. By frugality in the use of coal.
2. By keeping home and offices at the healthful temperature of 68 degrees.
3. By careful and intelligent firing of furnaces and stoves. The establishment of the “Save Coal Habit,” as against the habitual wastefulness of our people, will prove a great national asset even after the close of the war.
The Household is Asked
1. To use wood or oil instead of coal where possible.
2. If the wasteful open fireplace must be used, burn wood in it.
3. Use fireless cookers, compressed steam cookers, etc.
4. Heat as few rooms as possible.
5. Learn how to run stoves and furnaces economically.
6. Keep thermometer at 68 degrees, no higher, for health.
7. Save a shovelful of coal a day.
The war has created a demand upon the US for one hundred million extra tons of coal and while there will be fifty million tons more mined in the US this year than ever before, the increased production will not supply more than half the increased demand. This fifty million tons must be saved shovelful by shovelful through patriotic care in American homes and factories.
Coal conservation has become a patriotic duty. The man who wastes coal wastes labor and transportation. With every shovelful of coal he wastes, he lowers the efficiency of the man on the firing line, he lowers the temperature of the contonments, he reduces the speed of the submarine destroyers, he diminishes the force of the projectile, he slackens the speed of the munition plant; in brief, he compels unnecessary use of care to carry him another shovelful of coal.
EDWARD KELSO
Worth County Fuel Administrator
Coal was not the only thing that was in short supply. In the same issue, Bram Brothers of Denver printed the following notice:
On account of unusual conditions of high cost and scarcity of goods, we find we must change our business methods. Beginning January 1st, we will allow no account to run longer than 60 days without settlement. Credit will not be given to customers who have unpaid accounts and notes now due.
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