"Polluted Commerce"

One day last month seven trucks rumbling out of the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan were met by policemen and confiscated, their drivers hauled off to the New York County House of Detention. Next day two obscure Brooklyn coal dealers named Nowosatka and Slutzky were arraigned in Felony Court on a charge of receiving stolen property. Fortnight ago a grand jury indicted them for dealing in coal stolen from the Pennsylvania property of Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. and trucked into New York. The truck drivers were named as witnesses. Last week the grand jury followed up its indictment by recommending immediate war on the bootleg coal business by which more than 10,000 jobless Pennsylvania anthracite miners have kept themselves alive during Depression and which has lost legitimate coal dealers in the East $32,000,000 a year (TIME, July 13). Stiffly the grand jury observed:

"Ordinary comity between states imposes an obligation upon the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to stop this condition of anarchy which results in a flow of polluted commerce into this state and thus imposes upon our taxpayers the heavy burden of enforcing the law against contraband commerce. . . ."

Recommended:

"That the Governor of the State of New York memorialize the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to take appropriate action.

''That the legislative bodies of the City and State of New York consider and enact proper protective legislation.

"That the District Attorney of the County of New York and the Police Department of the City of New York continue in their efforts to end this criminal traffic. . . ."

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