The Washington times., 1906-07-19
President Stickney.


There are just two men left in
active life in the United States who
are entitled to place among those
great old captains who financed and
built, and afterward operated, man
aged. and developed great railroad
systems of which they are still the
moving spirits One of these is
James j. Hiu and the other is \. B.
Stickney; snd, curiously enough,
they are both citizens of the capital
CITY of Minnesota.
President Stickney is a Washing
ton visitor this week, having come
here for a conference with the In
terstate Commission about the new
railroad rate law. There is no rail
road man in the land in whose
sense, honesty, candor. and intelli-
gence on public questions the whole
public has quite so much confidence
as in those of \. B. Sticlney. He
built a railroad in a country grid
ironed by railroads. Everybody said
ii would fail, out it didn't. Then
they agreed that it was just built
TO sell-a financial blaclmailing
scheme. But it hasn't been sold.
"They" have for years denounced it
as a lawless, rate-cuttiug, rebating
concern; but when the Federal
grand iurics went out indicting traf-
fic managers it found victims on
nearly every other road in middle
Western territory except the Great
Western.
President Stickney is one of the
great practical economists of the
age. If he talks currency reform
10 a bankers convention he raises
a national discussion and comes off
with the honors; if he writes a book
on transportation problems, it be-
comes a textbook; if he publishes
an article on Government control
of railroads, the intelligent student
of that question must have read il
before he can again be abreast of the
times. No American financier more
fully enjoys tho confidence of foreign
investors. In London the board of
governors of the Bank of England
compete for the privilege of enter
tanning him iB their homes. And
with all these activities and inter
ests he has found time to develop
a great railroad and to found a
snug private fortune.
President Stickney believes the
new rate law a long and exceedingly
useful step in the right direction.
He does not assume that it is by
any means a finality, and he believes
that its success or failure viii de-
pend greatly on the grasp and com
prehension with which the commits
sion administers II. He told the
commissioners that they ought to
have every rate in this country pub
lished so widely and in such simple,
comprehensive form that the mys-
terry of rates should forever be ex-
ploded. He would at one blow do
away with the fiction that there is
a certain black art about tariffs,
and he would make it impossible
lightly and casually TO change any
rate. He assured the commission
that it need not be frightened at a
lot of bugbears that traffic and ex-
ecutive officials have been conjur-
ing up.
Mr.. Stickney wants the law and
the commission TO make good" and
he doesn't propose to have the rail
road men scare Lhe commission.
There was a ii1e wisdom in the
. characteristic advice of this prac-
teal railroad man about fixing rates
''You might as well try to exter-
inmate the race Of mosquitoes" he
said, by killing every mosquito you
see, as to correct rate evils by
changing specific rates one at a
time"
As there are ab.nt as many rates
as mosquitoes, and as it takes NOR,
effort to change the individual rate
than TO kill the particular mosquito
the advice seems excellent.