The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-10
RAILWAY POOL PROBLEM
VIEWs OF MIR. BLANCHARD, OF THE
JOINT TRAFFIC ASSOCIATION.
Pools Declared to Be Equitable and
ing Their LegaIi1atiOn.


1896. was $S47. 364. $50. The railway bonds
were So. GAL, 600, COO. bout seven times greater.
Legitimate n so-caled watered railway
stocks were roundly s.. 900, 600 more, at
par. The annual interest on the national
debt is about $29, 0G0, 900 and about $252, 000,0 600
on the railway bonds.
President Mckinley told Congress, March
10 1897, that the governments gross re-
ceipts for its fiscal years 1S9i-5-6 We're
s., 012, 651, GOO, and that they were $l3S, 900, 600
less than it's expenses. The railway re-
oeipts in the same period were So, 40S, 200, 900,
over three times as much.
The Interstate-commerce : Commission's
report for 1885 stated that $500, 000,0G0 of rail-
way bonds were in default of interest, being
$43, 100000 more than the outstanding ma
tional bonds. These defaults increased in
1896. If the interest," payable thereon aver
aged 5 per cent. and it was three years in
default, such defaults would aggregate
$133, 800, 600, or about the same as the gov
eminent deficits in the same period. Dur
ing the same three years railway dividends
decreased $22, 900, 900 more.
The President specially convened an as
ISOLATION of the States. called Congress, to
tell them that business confidence and the
public credit required increased import
tariffs. The House concurred in his opinion
by eighty-four majority. Almost stimuli
taneously the Supreme Court declared, by
one majority, that an association of rail-
ways, which had reduced transportation
tariffs, should not agree even to that end
or to aid their credits, or TO secure the uni
formity of charges which the government
maintains in its import, postage. internal
tax, land and consular tariffs, and which is
required in the collection of all national,
state and municipal taxes.
Should this decision cause serious deple-
lions of railway earnings, interest and div
idends, it would involve greater actual loss
than to pass the interest on government
bonds, and as much. or more. impair the
national credit, because prosperity cannot
return to the Nation while increased dis
asters aSSa1l its largest material and finan-
cfal interest. The reductions of American
railway values in the markets of the world
prove this, despite a reassuring national
eLectlon: me prevention or correction of
tnat railway condition lies as fully within
the power and duty of Congress as to re-
store general business confidence by in
creased import rates, and when rightly I'M
derstood it will secure public approval, be-
cause the railways desire legislative aid
only to the end that their impartial pub
lished tariffs, which are the lowest Of the
world, may be observed.
II the Supreme Court opinion was
soundly based upon the laws, those laws
must have been enacted through public mis-
apprehenslons which it seems essential to
remove, and such amendments Of law
should be made instead as will secure
reasonable, impartial, public and stable
transportation changes by means found
wise and necessary to determine, collect,
Incomes which, being smaller, touch fewer
people.
HOW THE GOVERNMENT ACTS.
The government pays uniform railway
compensation for the like carriage of it's
mails, and stipulated prices for the trans
portation of its troops and supplies, and
it does not plead that competition" is
lessened, trade restrained or it's ex-
penses are increased because it does not
receive concealed rebates from those
charges. If governmental officers accepted
them they would be dismissed. Nor do it's
officers say that as the rates they ask for
are for the government they will exercise
It's power TO compel open or secret cut
rates, or that they will divert their large
business II aiIWay do not concede for the
state some or all of the irregular things
done under private guises called compel
ton As the government is the largest
patron of the railways, its legal aid should
be given to put and keep all other patrons
upon the same honorable plane on which
it conducts it's own business with the same
carriers.
If the United States purchased the rail-
ways they would continue to so act as to
their own traffic, and would fix and en-
force against all others the transportation
charges found reasonabI and made nublic
I1PAAC.
Conferences among parallel Ct lmental
lines would also be as essenti en- as
now, to decide and %anonunceal intri-
cate rates, and the changes in IN re-
quired by law, by new and COZ. trolling
trade conditions and by legitimate competi-
tive forces.
Railway competition, as now misunder@
stood, would then cease between parallel
government carriers as it has between gov
eminent custom houses, and, after the rail-
way receipts had gone into one national
purse they would be assigned to the proper
department revenues. These andlOgieS
represent not only present railway confer
ences or associations, but also the equality
and frmness of rates intended to be secured
by pooling.
The legal, unifying and police powers of
the government would then promptly re-
move all obstacles to uniform charges over
its lines, as in its postal management and
rates, but the impediments which confront
the railways are vastly greater, and in
power to regulate them is being lessened
and withheld New railway lines, consoli-
dationS and combinations, carriers antag-
onism, mans faults, the r~ivalries of States,
cities and districts, the ceaseless COMPETE
tion of water routes and rival foreign coun-
tries and markets, the wrongful depletions
of reasonable rates by weak carriers and
strong Shippers and the struggles which en-
sue, compel diverse corporate policies and
create recurring disturbances, which are
not only uncorrected, but increase The
pooling plan of railway cooperation is
therefore needful to secure the best public
ana railway accord, ana 1t Is but the
counterpart and equivalent of what govern
mental management would be, yet it is
forbidden by law and decisions, and a situa-
ton easily made better grows worse.
If the government purchased only the
Union Pacific Railway under the pending
foreclosure it could only announce its rates
upon the large competitive traffic Of that
great system after the conferences and the
methods that company now avail of. With
all its power. the government could not
maintain independent rates on that one line
and secure rival traffic for it unless its pri-
vate competitors made the some rates and
maintained them with equal honor and in
! fleXibility. nor can that railway do so now
Such a purchase might therefore be desir.
| able as a step to congressional thporizine
resentattveS and governmental officers to
consider the alternative which our competl-
tive railways must now contemplate
throughout the country, i. e., to observe the
interstate-commerce act and thereby sur
render their competitive traffic to more
plastic private rivals, or TO keep their
shares of business by the methods employed
by the latter. They would heed advice
then which is so far ignored.
IMPORT TRAFFIC.
When the government publishes import
traffics designed to secure revenues ade-
quate to it's needs, or to induce private CAPT
tai To enlarge national trade, it assures
to the world their impartial and unabated
collection. If the railways simuItaneousiy
filed with the government reasonable trans
portation tariffs which are equally or more
calculated to give effect TO the same ma
tionaI policy. upon what justihable grounds
can the Nation deny the aid of legally
regulated pools to collect and retain their
due charges, that being the only plan which
has anywhere proved effective against IL
legal depletionS of reasonable rates, which.
however small. are always Determinations
That ore is a governmental and the other