[PRCo] Coal and Smoke

[Fred Schneider]

I hear ya.    Some things never change, particularly human nature.   I guess as long as man has been on the planet, he has been fighting over jobs, religion, politics, and the right of the boss to tell him what to do and whether the boss has the right to make money.

I like reading those papers for all sorts of reasons but I have only been giving you guys links to items that pertain to trolleys, secondly railroads, and third items of extreme local importance.   Politics?   Well, I scan them because they do interest me but I really don't want to screw up D. Brashear's list with a lot of garbage.   

One of the topics I have been scanning and sometimes reading in the Pittsburgh Press but neglecting to copy for you guys have been all those numerous stories on ferreting out the communists in government.   I have long thought of Joe McCarthy and his fight against the Communists to be much later but was I ever dumb … turns out it resurfaced immediately at the end of World War II.  Almost every issue of the Press has some story against the Commies.   I am beginning to wonder if we are drumming up hatred for other countries so we can make money fighting a war or because we are afraid of competition from another political party in out own country that might take seats in the house and senate away from the Democrats.

With that I looked up McCarthy … he was originally a Democrat who switched his affiliation in 1944 to Republican.   So I guess either thought of mine could have some validity. 

I cannot help but think of an acquaintance of mine who today is a general manager of a major transit authority in the United States.   His father was allegedly fired from a job as a trolley motorman because someone said, "He's a communist" during the McCarthy era.  That is rather sad.    What does a man's political views have to do with how well he runs a streetcar and reacts to the public?  





On May 25, 2014, at 11:02 PM, Herb Brannon wrote:

> Someone wrote:
> "We all know that smoke control is a done thing in Pittsburgh but it is
> fascinating reading back in the 1940s when the opposition … the miners, the
> coal industry, and the factories were fighting to make sure it didn't
> happen.   They were all taking the stance that smoke is good for the
> economy."
> 
> They still are taking that stance. Now they say everyone is waging a "war
> against coal". They also say that they now mine "clean coal", whatever that
> is.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Herb Brannon
> 
> 
> *In Pittsburgh.............................A City And.........A State of
> Mind*
> 
> Let's Go Bucs
> 
> 
> 
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