A democracy that acquiesces in its own ignorance of the elementary facts respecting an industry upon which, not only its own economic life, but also the economic life and civilized progress of the entire world so largely depends, betrays the high privilege and responsibility of a self-governing citizenship. Today neither the public nor the Government knows whether the coal industry is fairly capitalized, what the extent and value of the coal reserves are, whether depreciation and depletion charges are reasonable, or what are the profits and losses of the industry. Nobody knows whether the prices which the consumer is required to pay are fair and reasonable. Nobody knows precisely what the preventable wastes of the industry are. The annual wages of the miners are not subject to precise statistical statement, nor does anyone know the number of hours the miners work when the mines are in operation or the number of hours they are given opportunity to work. The statements we have are for the most part large averages based upon inductions from small cross-sections of the industry. The working conditions of the miners, the technical state of the organization of work underground, the cost of living at the more than eleven thousand mines, remain in the foggy realm of guesswork, estimate, and speculation. In the face of conditions which, as the operators of Illinois and Indiana stated in 1914, "endanger the lives of the miners, waste the coal reserves, and deprive the operators of any hope of profit," the people, like the people's government, are ignorantly helpless. In the absence of essential information, the public especially at times of controversy within the industry is left to the mercy of prejudiced and partisan propaganda. "I think it is plain folly," Dr. Garfield, formerly head of the Fuel Administration, testified before the Senate Committee on Manufactures, "not to provide for a continuous finding of the facts as to the cost of production, as to the stocks of coal on hand, as to the working conditions in the mines, and as to the cost of living.... We cannot get along as a Government or as an industry, whether you think of it from the standpoint of the operators or mine workers, without knowing the facts, and the public is also vitally interested in these facts." The U. S. Geological Survey has in the past issued: 1. Annual report on the production of coal by counties and by producing fields. 2. Annual report on the movement of coal, showing the state or locality to which coal produced in each district is shipped; and the origin, by producing fields, of the coal consumed in each state or locality. 3. Current reports at frequent intervals, showing production of coal, operating conditions at the mines, and the movement of coal by rail and by water to various consuming districts. 4. Occasional reports on stocks of coal in the hands of representative consumers. 5. Annual reports on consumption by the larger users. 6. Special reports.