Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-13

officers Of the railroads are so Ignorant un-
trusted to fix the charges for which their
own railroads will carry freight. Not only
must the power to make rates be taken away
from freight and passenger agents, but the
presidents must not be trusted with it. If
they are left to manage, each the property
which he has been chosen by the stock
holders to manage. they will, Mr.. Walker
AYERS officially, plunge the roads into bank
ruptcy. No such wholesale indictment of
either the honesty or competency of railway
managers has ever been made by equal au-
thority. The declaration that bankruptcy
is hanging over most of the roads does not
accord with the roseate reports that have
been published by many of these officials;
but as Mr.. Walker is the official representa-
tive of these very presidents, and has been
given a big salary to leave the Interstate
Commission and devise means for evading
the law he was sworn to support, it is not
likely that they will impeach his veraclty
as he has impeached their integrity.
rect his last scheme for smothering compe-
tition between the lines would not afford the
remedy. The way to prevent the wanton
reeklessness or systematic dishonesty that
wrecks railroads by carrying freight and
passengers at losing rates, is not to take
away the penalty. No greater penalty can
be inflicted on stockholders who elect men
of that stamp to manage their property,
than the bankruptcy which ought to follow.
When it is made clear that the penalty will
ensue, the owners Of railroad property will
take care to forestall it BY the penalty of
dismissal for agents and officers who adopt
the practice of throwing away the corpo-
ration's money. On the other hand Mr..
Walkers constant effort is to protect both
stockholders and agents from the natural re-
suits of their own insanity, by placing them
under guardianship; and the remarkable
nature of his argument appears from the
fact that having practically alleged lunacy
as the condition of the great body of rail-
road management, he proposes to protect
them from evil by choosing as their guardians
a general rate committee of the lunatics.
The assertion is, of course, untrue. 1t has
the semblance of truth, that railway methods
make their managers altogether too prompt
to plunge into those conflicts, which are
always based on the railway idea of exclusive
privileges and generally have in view the
of combination in one form or
Dat q, H.
ayers as a whole cannot be trusted to man.
age their own affairs. They are as intelli-
gent, conscientious and careful as the great
mass of leading business men. Other busi-
ness men will, when they see, or think they
see, within their reach the profits of mo-
nopoly, resort to the policy of cutthroat
wars to force the establishment of the CON-
bination. When it is beyond their reach
they conduct their business on the policy of
only so far as will permit a
profit. The same is true of the railway
managers. The loss of cutthroat wars is
not due to their recklessness or dishonesty,
but to the system which is incessantly seek
ing the completion of virtual monopoly.
1t is for that end that cutthroat wars are
fought. When all such combinations are
made clearly impossible, it will be found
hat the majority of railway men can con-
luct the affairs of their corporations as
'ensIbly and conservatively as the rest of
The remedy for the reckless disposition of
railway management is not, as Mr.. Walker
imagines, to protect them from the results
Of their recklessness, but to place it beyond
dispute that each corporation must make its
rates exclusively on the basis of what it |
,an afford 10 perform the service of transpor-
ofion