The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-24

Government Ownership of Railroads
The letter of President Ripley. of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad
to the Kansas Populist. newspaper which
has been advocating government owner
ship of railroads, summary of which let
ter appeared in our Geographic news col
umns the other day, should arrest the at
tention of careful students of the railroad
problem. The majority OF those from whom
the people hear most frequently with re-
gard to the proposition that the govern
ment shall own and operate the railroads
are office seekers who favor the scheme
for the reason that they see in the upheav-
al which would necessarily accompany
such radical change as the transfer Of
railroads from private to government own
ership an opportunity TO better their own
political fortunes. The majority of the pol
iticians who discuss favorably the propo-
sition present the question from a one
sided point of view They deal in glittering
generalities. and try to persuade the peo-
pie, whether or not they are themselves
persuaded, that government ownership
would result in a much improved service
and far cheaper rates.
President Ripley has given the matter
deep thought, both from the standpoint of
railroad stakeholder and private c!d-
zen. His conclusion is that as a stock
holder. government purchase of the rail-
roads would be a good thing for him, since
it is practically assured that railway
stocks would go booming upward in price
I,s1f ~,
eminent would buy and operate the roads.
From the point Of view of private citi-
zen, however, Mr.. Ripley thinks govern
ment ownership would be very bad thing,
for reasons which must commend them
selves to the consideration of every intelli-
gent student of the matter. Experience has
demonstrated. he says that the very best
service is given on roads that are private-'
ly owned. In support of this he refers to
the railroads of England and the private
ly owned lines in France, in comparison
with the government lines in France. Italy,
Australia and India. In more than one of
these instances the service is extremely
poor. the physical condition of the roads
is bad, and the country is forced to face an
annual deficit, which must be made up by
taxation.
The most serious considerations, how
ever Mr.. Ripley thinks, are political ones
There are nearly 100000 railroad employees
in the United States. If their places We're
dependent upon politics, if they were po-
litical appointees, this vast army of en-
ployes would WELD enormous influence in
favor Of the party in power. And not only
that, but politics would enter into every
consideration touching railroads. The field
for jobbery in contracts for building roads
and furnishing supplies for them would be
almost endless. No section of the country
which happened to be out of touch with the
dominant political element at Washington
could get a new railroad, no matter how
badly it might need road, while in the
districts which the friends of the admins
tration came from there would be lines as
thick as stripes on a cats back" AS to
the reasonableness of this forecast one has
only to look at the jobbery and favorite-
ism which have cropped out in other gov
eminent works. There is no reason to
think that the government would manage
the railroads any differently from what it
has managed other great public works. and
il is unquestionably fact that favorite-
ism has been shown in those works, not to
mention the jobbery and political log-rou-
ing which from time to time scandalizes
the country.