Truth. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1901-1908, 1905-12-09
II r. II II II.

rail. 1t is a personal matter to elch
and every contributor.
Stop the first man you meet on the
street and ask him what the railroads
do with the money they get. The
chances are a hundred to one that he
will tell you of what he knows, or, in
other words, of the quota that comes
his way. What do the railroads d
with the $1,200000,000 they receive
from service and investment each
twelve months? The cartoonist, with
his pencil tilted against the vested
interests of the people of the nation
would picture this vast amount flow
ing into the pockets of favored few.
The truth of the mater is that but
little over eight per cent of this
amount went last year to the $4,000
or more registered owners of stock
To the millions of people who own
in common the stocks, bonds and
mortgages held as securities by i'll
situations in which these people are
insured, where they have their saw
ings on deposit, or in which they are
stockholders, went fourteen per cent
Even this twenty-five per cent paid
to those directly interested through
investments in railroad securities is
diffused throughout the county, the
people of no state failing to secure
their share and each individual re-
ceiving in this form interest upon his
contribution to railroad prosperity.
Wages of Railway Employees.
And what about the remaining sew
enty-eight per cent of this vast in.
come? The 100000 railroad en-
ployes who drew $776,000,O00 from
this sum in wages could account for
about forty per cent. The coal miners
who furnished fuel could tell of an
other $150,000,000. State and city and
county treasurers could show credits
amounting to $60,O00,0OO paid in taxes,
S5O,OOO,O00 went for permanent i'm
provements, $3S0000,O0O went into Cd.
Grating expense and miscellaneous
items other than wages, and the bal
ance was all paid out for labor, ma
terial or service necessary to the con-
duct of the roads. These millions
gave employment directly and indi.
rectly to thousands of men and wo-
men whose names are not upon the
regular pay roll
Certain prosperous communities in
the West are commonly spoken of as
railroad towns" This means that
railroad interests, railroad employees,
and railroad work are most in evil
dence in the daily life of these COM
munities. The railroad towns" of
several years ago are now cities in
their own right. The railroad towns"
of today will be the proud cities of
tomorrow. These new cities are lusty
in their civic strength, replete with
evidences of healthy activity, and are
apparently sufficiently resourceful to
meet any form of disaster with COM
posture. This is true with one excep-
ton: deprive them of their railroad
outlet and they would become as the
sparsely inhabited outposts of civil.
cation in earlier days. Despite their
apparent multiplicity of interests, they
are still railroad towns" and always
will be. Every American city is
railroad town." Take the railroads
from New York and that metropolis
becomes once more a Dutch trading
post.
Railroads Practically Operated
at Cost.
AS the people prosper SO do the
railroads, and the latter in turn give
back of their surplus to their owners.
the people. 1t is not too much to saw
that l1pdor thn n,ooox.4