The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1905-10-27
What the Roosevelt Rate Bill Really Is.

success.
What the Roosevelt Rate Bill Really Is.
The October Outlook epitomizes the
railroad rate regulation issue as fol-
lows:
1t is not proposal for the govern
ment to adjust on its own initiative the
railroad rates for the country.
1t is not proposal for the govern
ment to carry on the business, or,
properly speaking, any of the business,
of the railroads.
1t is not proposal for it to take
first step toward government owner
ship and administration.
1t is not proposal to have it enforce
on the railroads lower rates. One COM
plant is that the rates are already made
too low in many instances by rebates or
by disastrous competition.
The proposal is to take one step-in
the hope that this one step will prove to
be adequate and final-toward unifying
and systematizing the transportation of
the country, which is now in state of
chaos, and is carried on in an morgan
lied and unsystematic manner to the
great detriment of the people.
The Outlook comments that the peo-
pie know just how much each man
must pay to send letter from one part
of the country to the other and there
fore are beginning to demand that
freight transportion shall be so ar
ranged that each man can know, with
as much definiteness and accuracy what
freight he or any one else must pay be-
tween one point and another and be as
sured that all pay the same.
Unequal, not excessive, rates is what
the people complain of. But, the Out
look inquiries, how can the rates be
leveled with the thousands of railroad
lines through the country, each trying
to earn money for stockholders and
fixing their respective rate tariffs on
the basis of how much the shippers
can bear?
Americans have proceeded on the
false principle that low rates are the
great desideratum; that free compe-
tition will secure low rates; therefore
combinations between roads must be
prohibited and that railroads are pri-
vate property, administered on the
plan of charging all the managers can
get.
On these theories they have been
administered for owners and not the
public; in the interests of private ship
pers; for real estate booms; to destroy
rivals; to bankrupt owners so that
managers can acquire the road cheap;
to take, in some instances, what large
shippers will give, while thousands of
small shippers are bankrupt, scores
of towns destroyed, multi.millionaires
produced and a plutocracy created
which threatens the republic.
More than this, the system has gone
on in the interests of economy, ignor-
Ing ueVlCeS III tue luJcIcoU VI puulio
safety, until last year the deaths on
the rail in the United States were o.
2O1, greatly exceeding in number
the Russian loss at the battle of Muk-
den. With a mileage less than half
that of the United States, England
last year carried twice as many pas
sengers and killed only one-tenth of
the number.
If railroad managers foresee perils
in the very moderate amount of gov
ernmental supervision which President
Roosevelt proposes, they should unite
in suggesting some other remedy as
definite and as practical.
l.. w. Hubbell was in Montrose yes
terday.
Mr.. and Mrs. ]. J. Davis are visiting
in Chicago,
Mrs. Luella Moore, of Detroit, is
visiting Mrs. J. Fl. Laverock.