The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-12-22
A NEW YORK VIEW.

Inc New YORK tribune editorial
of recent date reads as follows:
Senator Hansbrough makes an in
1eresting suggestion regarding the
causes OF the freight tie-up in many
parts of the country. We have heard
great deal OF the shortage of cars,
the shortage of side tracks and the
shortage OF trenlinal facilities, but
Senator Hansbrough says that some
of the confusion is due to shortage
of men. How seldom do We have that
phase of the question called to our
attention. The railroads cannot be
kept out of a tangle because there
are not brains enough to keep them
running in this rush season of
freight. Employees are somewhat like
cars and freight facilities, for there
are just about enough of them to do
the work of the world under the Or
binary conditions, and when for
season the work is doubled or trebled
confusion begins. The railroads natur-
ally carry staff just about equal to
the ordinary demands of their trade
Each of the employees has all he can
properly do under ordinary conditions.
yyhop %roH3o ;poraocoe ~ &c ;v,,poee;b1o
adequately to increase the force, for
experienced men cannot be had, and
even unframed labor is hard to get.
The regular employees are under the
same strain to which the car supply
and the terminals are subjected. Over
worked. they make all sorts of blund-
ers, which add to the confusion on
the overcrowded lines. We seldom
think of the shortage of men, because
men are elastic creatures, and under
strain do two mems work; but
how we'll they do two mems work we
may learn from railway accidents, in
so many of which the explanation is
that the engineer or the switchmen or
the towerman or the telegraph had
been working twenty hours day for
a fortnight, because there was no
one to take his place" If we apply
the repeated lesson of the railway ac-
cidents on large scale to the over
worked condition of freight traffic
throughout the country, We may read
lily see an inherent likelihood that the
shortage of men is a factor in the
confusion.
Senator Hansbrough says that the
shortage of men is not confined to the
railway business, but exists every
where. The railroad congestion af-
fords concrete instance on a great
scale. Such congestion is that one
industry could not exist of course, un-
less there had been increased activi-
ties in many productive industries.
There must have been a rush in pro-
ducing the goods that now block the
railways, a rush in financing their
production and their shipment, rush
in all the varieties of transportation;
indeed, the rush might be traced in
many directions, and it would prove
hard work, but it would not neces-
sarily prove general overworked or
overwork SO long protracted as to be
dangerous.
THE whole country" says Chair
man Knapp of the Interstate Com
merce Commission, lis in a state of
more or less congestion in the indi-
"vidual as we'll as in the organized
or corporate case. There is a con-
'ditios of inefficiency resulting from
demands which exceed present cap
"acity." Mr.. Knapp is in an excep-
tional position to know If the trouble
with the railroads is only an acute
symptom of general condition. There
are thousand evidences that this ia
an extraordinarily busy country. It's