The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-03-07
ROOSEVELT, THE MAGNATES
AND THE BIG RAILROADS
The President Makes 1t Hard for the Roads to
Cut Wages---Senator la Toilette Intrudes
on Strained Situation.
mail Special to the Advertiser.)

Great are the railroads. Greater still
are Roosevelt and La Toilette. Just
at present it may be worth while to
remember especially La Toilette. For
few days Washington has been feel
ing again as though it were a camp
of railroad interests and antagonists,
just as it was for many merry weeks
two years ago when Congress was
brooding over rate bin.
Railroad men are coming in here
daily and they certainly are lot of
sore heads. The President struck out
at them anew the other day when he
addressed letter to the Interstate
Commerce Commission to prepare data
about railroad operation and the con-
duct of financiering projects, as against
possible strike of employees. Like
many Roosevelt output it came as
bolt out of the blue and took every
body by surprise The Interstate Com
merce Commission came right back, as
a matter of fact 1t said it had all
the information the President was like
ly to want on those subjects. Under
the rate law there is a provision for
monthly accounting by railroads and
this system is so thorough that it
furnished about all the President or
anybody else would need to know as
to whether railroad had been and is
being operated economically and wheth-
er there is cause for its reducing its
wage scale.
The President intended his letter
should act as a preventative of Strikes.
which the Commissioner of Immigra-
ton, Mr.. Sergeant, an old labor union
man, and others have been telling him
were coming. They have also been
telling him that the clash would be
something greater than it was in 1898
when Eugene Debs got into prison, be-
cause the railroad employees are now
better organized than they were then
and can hold out longer The railroad
Presidents who have been hurrying
down to Washington on this and other
questions, are grumbling at what Presi-
dent Roosevelt has done to them in
the time of their adversely, but the
opinion is that he has made it more
difficult than ever for the railroads to
cut down wages.
And also in this time of their ad-
versity Senator Robert NJ. La Toilette
enters upon the scene. He makes the
President and all Congress take no
tice. The Aldrich currency bill was
getting along nicely in the Senate. To
be sure the Senate has been on the
point several days of falling asleep
so dull was the debate on the measure.
1t has clause permitting the bonds
of railroads to be used as a basis for
currency.
The great west, now tremendous
factor in National legislation, has been
grumbling about that clause, the wis
dom of which even. some of the great |
Senate leaders doubted The Western |
insisted that the eastern |
would profit chiefly from
this provision 1t would accentuate |
the value of their securities. The rail
roads, however. would like to see the
provision become a law. They are feel
ing the hard times more than any
other corporations. Traffic is falling
off. Freight and passenger receipts are
at very low figures. 1t is next to i'm
possible to get money for construc-
ton work. The outlook for these prop
critics and the hundreds of thousands
Of their employees is rather dismal.
The giving of their bonds little
preference, such as that proposed,
would quicken railroad business. 1t
would be easier to raise money by the
sale of bonds, which the national banks
would have use for.
One day two or three weeks ago,
Senator La Toilette rising from his
lone corner of the Senate, gave no
tice of an amendment that only the
bonds of railroads should be accepted
when the roads had been appraised to
the satisfaction of the Interstate Com
nerce Commission. That was a step
toward the appraisement of railroads,
which Senator La Toilette was the
first to advocate prominently. Presi-
dent Roosevelt only toIerates Senator
La Toilette. He didn't like to see the
Wisconsin Senator come Quitting in"
with any railroad thunder and at first
lie frowned upon the appraisal scheme.
Then, after hesitating several months,
ill the railroad rate bill had gone into
effect, he embraced the idea.
The railroad presidents groaned when
hey heard what the President had
lone. They groaned some more when
hey saw Mr.. La Toilette persistently
quietly putting forward that
but they hoped for the
BEST They might have remarked,
Cheer up, the worst is yet to come"
rhe Western Republicans who do not
hesitate to advocate the guaranteeing
If deposits in national banks by the
government and some other like pro-
7isions, even though they be somewhat
3ryanesque, kept on grumbling about
he bond provision. They grumbled in
he Senate and they grumbled in the
House and, as Republican leaders of