But that is not all. If there were not an ounce of water power in this country, still we should not be dependent upon coal for heat and power. Oil will burn quite as well as coal—in fact, a good deal better. Dr. Rudolph Diesel, of Munich, in 1912 declared before the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London that exhaustive researches had indicated the presence of as much oil in the globe as there is coal; that new oil fields were constantly being discovered, Borneo, Mexico and even Egypt, in addition to other known lands, containing great fields; that “the world’s production of crude oil had increased three and a half times as rapidly as the production of coal, and that the ratio of increase was becoming steadily greater.” Why then do we continue to burn coal? For the same reason that we continue to do a number of other foolish things. Because we do not manage this country in which we live. The men who are managing it are managing it for profit. If there were a greater profit for the Coal Trust in switching from coal to water power or oil they would switch us quickly enough. If we were to change to oil, it would be a simple matter to lay oil pipes in the streets precisely as we now lay water and gas pipes, and heat our houses with oil sprays blown into our furnaces with jets of steam. Certainly, there would be no difficulty in heating houses from a central heating plant that burned oil. Plenty of western cities have such central heating plants now that burn coal. And the idea is a good one, too. The central plant decreases the danger of fire, besides doing away with dust and the necessity of shoveling coal into the furnace of each house. But gentlemen like the Coal Trust barons figure this way: “We have a certain amount of money invested here. We are looking only for the highest rate of interest that we can get upon our investment. We might serve the people better if we were to turn to water power development or the burning of oil, but it is doubtful if we should obtain a greater rate of interest upon our investment. Certainly, we should lose a lot by junking our coal mines, as we should be compelled to do if we were to prove their worthlessness—so, we’ll just keep on dealing in coal.” And, the people of the United States, through their failure to “get together” politically behind some party that stands for what they all want—the people of the United States are getting the worst of it. If the people of the United States want their government—which is actually themselves, though they do not seem to know it—if the people of the United States want their government to take over and to operate the coal mines solely for the benefit of the people of the United States, they can do it simply by standing together and talking and voting for what they want.