Fuel of the Future

Unless Secretary Wilson has allowed his enthusiasm to run away with his judgment or is giving a great jolly, every man will be able to procure from his own garden the means of producing his heat, light and motive power. It will not be necessary to harness Niagara Falls, nor to pay tribute to the Rockefellers and the Rogerses, nor to worry over the differences of opinion between the coal miners and the operators. The empty coal bin will no longer wear a menacing look and the coal scuttle can rust undisturbed in a corner. Is the house getting dark and the rooms chilly? Just step into the garden and dig a hill of potatoes or cut a few cornstalks and you have the raw material for all the light and heat that you need.

This is not the wild talk of a scatter-brain like Nikola Tesla, but comes from a hard-headed man of affairs — James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture. Denaturized alcohol is the substance that is going to work this revolution, and it can be made in practically unlimited quantities from potatoes, yams, sugar beets and cornstalks. Denaturized alcohol is alcohol rendered undrinkable and uncombinable in beverages.

This is what the Secretary says about it: "The Northern States could readily depend upon the white potato as a source of heat and light, the Southern States upon the yam and the sweet potato, and the Western States upon the sugar beet. The average amount of sugar and starch which goes to waste in the stalks of Indian corn annually would make 100 gallons of commercial alcohol per acre. When we consider that the number of acres in Indian corn is approximately 100,000,000, it is seen that the quantity of alcohol that is lost in the stalks is so large as to be almost beyond the grasp of our conception."

So it appears that the long-sought fuel of the future is right at our very doors, and we never knew it. King Alcohol, from a demon, becomes a very truculent and useful servant, and more than all, the spectacle of the coal barons on their knees, vainly begging the consumer to buy the product of their mines at his own price, is one to excite derision and sardonic laughter. And the great Standard Oil Company, the octopus of all octopuses, will quietly dissolve and fade away into thin air, and there will be none to mourn its departure, no, not one. The news is really too good to be true. It will be well for Secretary Wilson to go carefully over his analysis and his estimates once more, to avoid the possibility of raising false hopes.