The Saint Paul globe., 1897-05-31
THE MIDDLE GROUND OF FACT.


Between the railway manager of the
Jay Gould stripe, who may have sur
yived the changes of management, the
railway manager pressed by expectant
stockholders with sharp appetites for
dividends, who is trying to make MS
road earn all it can and warped from
the straight path by the temptations
that beset him; between these, on the
one hand, and the demagogue, who
makes capital of some real and more
imaginary wrongs, and the producer,
on the other, who honestly believes
that it is his products alone whose
prices are falling, while railway earn
ings remain firm, sustained by auto
cratic power, there is the middle gronud
of solid fact, on which alone just rela-
tions of carrier and carried can be per-
manently built. Railway property and
inves stments in it are no more sacro-
sanct than are investments in farms
or merchandise or realty; and if 1t be
true that, while farm produce and fac
tory products have been yielding to the
force of economic laws that diminished
their values, railways have maintained
charges at former levels by virtue Of
their supposed monopolistic powers,
then it is fact that should be estab-
lished. IT, on the other hand, there has
been a shrinkage in charges commen-
surate with that that has fallen on
the sooner that fact is generally known
the sooner that safe middle ground
may be occupied.
In 1873, the epochal date usually
adopted, the all-rail rate on grain from
Chicago to New York was 55 cents a
100 pounds; it is now 20 cents on wheat
and Is on exported corn. Stated in
bushels it is a decrease from 33 to II
cents, or so per cent, on wheat, and pro-
portionally on corn. In that year TO-
26S miles of our railways collected an
ing 168, ,000,000 tons one mile. In 1895,
179, 1872 miles of road collected an aver
age Of .S39 of a cent ton for carrying
1853, 900 tons one mile. This is a re-
duction in charges of 81 per cent. When
1t is considered that for the greater
portion of these intervening years rail-
way construction has been largely in
those portions Of the country where the
road was the pioneer, or followed close
1v after the advancing settlements, with
a resulting increase Of the dispropor-
ton between earnings and cost Of op-
Grafton, the rate as well as the extent
of the decrease becomes more distinct
and important.
Again, the dreaded money power
pehlnd the roads, the bette noir of the
shipper and the manager, has not been
exempt from the universal shrinkage.
In 1873 the dividends paid by the roads
were on an average 81, ,120 a mile, and
in 1895 they were s454 mile, a depre-
citation Of nearly go per cent, and but
40 per cent of what they were in 1873.
Sixty-eight roads paid no dividend in
1895, and the average for the whole
was 1.57 per cent Meanwhile taxation,
since 1888, has increased from $25,000,-
900 to s39, 100000 or 54 per cent. Again
there is that other section of the money
power that had invested in the mort
gage bonds Of the railways which car
ried 5, or 7 per cent. The receiver
ships, that have multiplied so in recent
years, Indicate how many of these in.
vestments have failed to make any re-
turn. while recent arrangements, hero
tofore noted in these columns, have cut
down the rate of interest to 3A per
cent and less, a shrinkage thereof
from 40 to so per cent The economic
laws are impartial in their operation
and force down to normal levels all
values, those Of the railway as well as
those of the farm and the factory.
When one goes abroad to compare
charges and rates here with those OF
foreign railways, one finds that the
American shipper is served at cost
lower than those of any Of the great