The record-union., 1893-01-28

percentage in one way or another finds
its way back to the railroads through
legitimate business channels. 4. It costs
the California Southern twenty-four
cents mile for fuel-or 20 per cent. of the
gross receipts against four to ten cents a
mile on Eastern roads. Yet Mr.. Leeds
has The effrontery to insist that fuel cost
here is not greater, all things considered.
3. While in Southern California a train
load is 800 tons, in Illinois, Kansas and
the West it is 600 tons. an item that in it.
selfcompletely upsets Mr.. Leeds assump-
tions relative to locomotive capacity on
this coast.
Moreover, these gentlemen produced
proofs establishing the fact that railroad
enterprise in the South had been the
chief factor in the great development
there and the building up of the country,
but that not yet had the reward of rail-
road capital begun to materialize. That
still it was matter of the future and in
volving still greater investment and
building, but that the proposed amend
ment would check all progress in the
South and bring advancement to halt.
The Chief Engineer of that extensive
system in the South pointed out to the
Senate committee that as against the fine
spun theories Of Mr.. Leeds the physical
difficulties in railroad construction in
California are very much greater than in
Kansas, Illinois and the West upon sta
tistics from which Mr.. Leeds bases his
judgment.
There are here deserts to cross of hun
dreds of miles yielding no revenue what
ever; gorges, canyons and nights to over
come unknown to the West and destruct-
i've agencies to be considered that are rare
there. As Mr.. Freeman put it, no State
in the Union presents so many obstacles
to profitable railroading as California.
1t remained for Mr.. Johnson of the Pa
cific Coast Railroad to point out still an
other obstacle, one Mr.. Leeds has never
taken into account. the large land-hold-
ing monopoly, which is a deterrent cut
ting an enormous figure in railroading.
On his line the people make no com
plant whatever of rates, yet on an actual
cost of 1892, S27 the net earnings of his
road have never reached anything like
per cent. of interest. But Mr. Leeds
experimental" scheme would reduce
the income of his road Il per cent. on the
chief commodities it carries.
Again, and he has been twenty-one
years in the business, here and at the East.
his figures and facts prove that Leeds is
ignorant of railroading in California; ties
do dry rot here and are useless for even
''fonce posts"; materials do cost more
here than at the East, labor is higher.
grades are greater and strain on machin-
cry is heavier than on the Western roads
indeed, Mr.. johnson offered proof that
railroad maintenance is more than double
the cost in California that it is in Kansas.
Missouri and Illinois.
Mr.. Fulton after this returned to the
witness stand to point out that all the
material his road buys in San Francisco
is always put up to the Eastern price with
freight added" though the rise at the
East may not be two hours old in other
words San Francisco knows how to turn
a thrifty penny at the expense of interior
development.
'Mr. Leeds gets $4,000 year to tell
California railroad men how to econom-
ize, ," said this clear-headed manager of the
Nevada, California and Oregon road. ''but
if he will come to us we will show him
that he is ignorant of the business in its
practical workings"
But this was not all, another short-line
road reaching into and developing one of
the best sections of the State came to the
stand by its representative and proved
that the amendment Mr.. Leeds would put
into the Constitution would choke the
Carson and Colorado Railway Company
to death. 1t cost 81, $4,000 to build the
AOSius anu ~ Op6IdlS IL TAD1,oUU Il year. / eJ
for ten years the road had not made
enough to pay the annual interest charge
of 6 per cent. By refunding it was re-
| duced to per cent. and still the road
yielded but l per cent. on the original
cost of construction. On this road l33 per
cent. of the gross earnings is paid into
the public treasury for taxes alone.
| The Colusa and Lake Railroad Com
pany showed that, though it was built at
less cost than any road on the coast--phe-
nomenally low cost-yet not one dollar of
! dividends had been made. The Leeds
proposition introduced in the proposed
amendment would drive the road to the
wall. So, too, said the representative of
the Yreka short line, a road built out of
public spirit, at low cost and operated at
less cost per mile than any road in the
United States.
Evidently Mr.. Leeds will have to re-
construct his fence-post theories, reform
his ideas about fuel cost. turn and make a
garment out of his doctrine of oper-
ating and maintenance costs, patch up
new and repair his ideas about the earn
iDor coDoo,fI- of Co1ifnrDio railrOofls ard