Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1908-01-25

ssSOplo OF European countries
What we need now is not. low
rates. freight or passenger, but
Il vast increase in facilities for
andling business. OF all the alb
sard movements of the last II
months in the railroads and pol
iiical worlds nothing else quite
equals the effort to force down
railroad rates.
1t is almost puerile in its
short -sightedness. 1t has cost
our country billions of dollars
without a redeeming thing to the
credit side. Money for railroad
expansion cannot possibly be
had under present conditions
Infinitely better would it be
for the whole country If the peo-
pie would recognize that, instead
of reducing rates, the railroads
must be given full authority to
make a general advance in rates
commensurate with the in
creased cost of doing business
The railroad business must be
given an opportunity to make
profits large enough to tempt
capital from everywhere to seek
investment in railroad securities
Men are not going to put their
money into such enterprises sub
ject to the dangers of legislation
and they would be foolish il.
they did so-unless the profit is
great enough to Justify such
risks. To attempt to limit the
earnings to per cent or even 10
fr vn6 OF
is not only absurd but economI-
cally false, for any attempt to Ii
nit the earnings of Legitimate
business undertakings will in
evitably react and cost the coun-
try far more than the difference
between a fixed income and thGs
profit which might otherwise be-
made. Their own preservation
would necessarily require of the
railroads as favorable rates, as
could be given with safety for
themselves and their future.
OF recent, years the public
seems to have come to the con
cluSion that men with bul ring
bank accounts are waiting eager
ly for an opportunity to put mon
Sy
though the control of the rail-
roads is taken from them, anG
though other people who have nc.
interest in them are given au-
thority to fix the rates at which
they can do business. The idea,
is very fallacious. The capital
needed for railroad expansion is
not going to seek railroad invest
ment, but railroad men must
seek the capital with diligence
It must be presented in such d
way as to indicate profits large
enough to justify the risk, or
otherwise those who have the
bulging bank accounts will keep
their money themselves or else
put it in securities over which
they do have some control. Asa
field for investment the railroad
is no longer an attractive propo
sition, and this, too, comes at a
time when never in our history
do we so much need money for
: railroad expansion. It is quite
within bounds to say that during
the next five or six years this
country ought to spend 81, ,50O,-
100000 year in the enlarge
ment of railroad facilities We
ought within the next five or six
years to put one-half as much
| money into the enlargement of.
railroad facilities as sthe total
amount represented in all the
stocks and bonds of the rail-
: roads of the country. Where rs
there so vast sum to come
from? If it should not come, then
business will be halted, railroaE
facilities will grow steadily
worse instead of better. and the
country will suffer as it has suf-
fered for the past few years be-
cause the railroads were unequal
to the volume of traffic The
country holds it's hands mp in
c horror, and justly SO, at the dis
aSterouS railroad wrecks but
7 railroad wrecks happen to con
: siderable extent because the vol
ume of traffic is largely beyond
the facilities of the railroads.
and partly, too because men
) have been taught during the last
t few years to seek to get as much
2 as possible and give as little of
: faithful work in return as pos
t sible While railroad employees