The record-union., 1898-09-23


sonable for their own interests, If the
employees were to rally and mass them
| selves to defeat those causes?
The causes which do so operate apart
from general hard times) are. chiefly
| two, viz: % Excessive competition
among railways themselves, resulting
in the making of inordinately low rates.
| ca Hostile legislation in various States
passed under general pressure of pub
lie hostility created by demagogues and
which manifests itself in promiscuous
abuse of 1.-The corporations" and in de-
mand for Government ownership, etc.,
etc.
In regard to the first of these causes
Excessive competition-it is easy to
say: But that is the fault of the rail-
ways themselves. They have no busi-
ness to build SO many lines" Is it
their fault? Let us stop and think. If
you and l each ran grocery in a
given town, would it be our fault If a
third one started? Can existing rail-
ways stop new ones being built And
after they are built, there is no way
at present in which the new line can
be restrained from demoralizing rates,
any more than you and I could pre-
vent the other grocer from cutting the
price of sugar. We should have to
lose the sugar business, or cut prices,
too. So it is with railways; and there
is only one apparent way in which they
| can be prevented from getting rates
down to impossible figures, and that is
by the legalization of pooling.
The average freight rate per ton per
mile, which was 1.04 cents ten years
ago, was only 929 cent five years ago,
and only .S06 cent last year. Now If
this tendency goes on, increase in pub
lie business will not do any good. 1t
will be offset by the fall in rates and
the effect on the employees will be pre-
cisely the same as if hard times had
continued. If the railways last year
had received the same rate as they
did five years ago (only a little over
one-tenth of a cent a mile more) they
would have received about S12O, ,O00,O
more than they did and it would have
all been clear net revenue. They would
undoubtedly have employed a hundred
thousand men more than they did, for
they needed them badly enough.
The pooling law might not be of any
assistance, but there is a good fighting
chance that it would. Without it there
is no apparent prospect Of escaping a
further fall in rates to, say, Z cent in
the next five years. That will mean a
further loss of revenue of over $780,
600, 900 a year. And that must mean
that the employees will have to suffer.
II the pooling law can stop that and can
hold rates where they are-at between
s and g of a cent per ton per mile
it will be a godsend to railway en-
ployes.
Why then do not railway employees
try to bring this thing about? Instead
of promiscuous criticism, which does no
good and only breeds ill-will, why do
they not mass their efforts in behalf
of the pooling bill? They are more in
terested than anybody else, and they
have tremendous power. They
showed it in the campaign Of 1896
Why not use that power? Why do they
not get together and bring pressure on
their Senators and Congressman and
on public opinion? Why do they not
explain these facts to their friends and
neighbors who are not railway men,
and get their help? Do the employees
realize the tremendous power that they
direct, and, secondly, in even greater
degree, on the people at large, II each
one constituted himself a missionary
to preach against and overcome the
blind public prejudice against the rail-
ways and the ignorance of railway af-
fairs? And why do the employees not
do this, when their own livelihoods are
so directly interested?
As for the adverse legislation in var1-
Gus States, it's general effect is the
same as that of the competition Whlcn
forces rate reductions. In many states
efforts are being made and Will be
made to put the maximum passenger
rate chargeable down to z cents mile
The average rate is necessarily far De-
low the maximum. To-day the average
per passenger per mile (Which IN 1854
was 1856 cents and five years ago
21S4) is only 2.019. An increase OF
two-tenths of a cent would have meant
S26,000,0 900 more net revenue to the
railways last year. maximum OF
cents woald mean an average or GER
tainly less than 1.5. This would be,
roughly, q reduction Of SS0,OOO,O00
year to the railways Of the country.
And where will the SS0OOO,O0O come
from? It evidently cannot come from
the S12OO0,0OO paid in official salaries.
Part Of it would, but certainly all could
not, come from the SS7,00O,00O paid in
dividends. It is from the S460, 0,OOO,OOO
of the payrolls that the bulk Of 1t must
be taken.
And all the other anti-railroad legis-
lation, whatever it may be, whether
it is to reduce rates, to increase taxes
or to impose some new burdens on the
companies, has the same effect viz: 1t
reduces earnings. And reduction IN
earnings means a cutting Of the pay