Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1908-12-26

Inc average yearly earnings of rail-
road workers is a little more than
5000. A ten per cent. wage advance
means only $50 for each man, but it
adds 100000, 900 to the billion-dollar
pay roll-a sum equal to a third of all
the profits distributed to the half mill
lion owners of the railroads in the
most prosperous year in their history.
Similarly, ten per cent. advance in
freight rates, such as is now proposed,
would add $180,000,0O0 to the revenue
of the roads, or more than two per
cent. on all the outstanding $4,000, OOO,-
600 railroad stock. The business is so
big that fractional changes in receipts
or expenditures, if spread over the
country, produce results of astounding
proportions.
Dividends to Shareholders.
Having taken look at the railroad
business from the viewpoint of the
100000 workers, let us see how it
looks to the $4,000 owners. The rail-
roads earned last year, gross, $2,600,-
100000. The small end of the railroad
business is the passenger traffic. The
receipts from 9OO,O0O,0O0 passengers
were $570,000,000. The average rate
paid was a trifle over two cents a
mile. The figures show that the aver
age American made ten railroad trips
in the year of an average length of 81
miles, paying $3.50 for the service-so,
800 miles appears to be the average
yearly travel of the American on the
railroads. The railroads also received
more than 500, 100000 carrying mail
and express matter, mostly on pas
senger trains.
But the 100000 freight cars are the
big earners. They brought in 81 $780,
OOO, 900 last year, 80 times as much
money as all the gold mines of the
country produced, Az times as much
money as all the gold mines of the
world produced. Great is the Ameri
can freight car, even if it does go
banging along on fiat wheel! 1t
earned this huge amount of money by
sheer work, for it charged only three
quarters of a cent for carrying a ton
of freight a mile. But even three-quar-
tiers of a cent a ton runs into money
pretty fast in the big way we run our
railroads. A 50-ton car, at this average
rate, earns 371a cents a mile; this is
1875 a mile for 50-car train-and
in the 3,0O0-mile journey across the
country this runs up to $4,000. Big
cars and long hauls make possible the
low American freight rates.
Where Freight Comes From.
A word as to where all the freight
comes from More than half of all the
tonnage carried on the railroads is
the product of the mines-a third is
coal and coke. The soft coal tonnage
is enormous-a quarter of all the traf-
fic-because this is the great fuel in
Industrial plants from coast to coast
Hard coal-the householders' fuels
a big item in freight, but not nearly
SO big as soft coal. Manufactures
stand next to mine products in inn
portance, with about a seventh of the
total tonnage, and in this class the
steel industry takes the lead Lumber
and other products of the forest rank
third; agricultural products fourth,
with merchandise and miscellaneous
freight, last. 1,000-ton train, loaded
with freight in the proportions in
which the country's freight tonnage is
divided, would carry:
Tons
Mine r,roducts 81
Manufactures 11o
Forest products IL
Farm and ranch products ------- 10S
Merchandise -