The Huttig news., 1908-09-12
FACE SERIOUS PROBLEM.
Income of Railroads Impaired on Account of
 Adverse Legislation.

In lengthy interview in which he shows the relation of the ship per and consumer to the railroads IT. c. Powell, viee-present of the Queen & Crescent Route. has the following to say regarding recent adverse legislation enacted throughout the country:
 You can therefore realize how absurd it is for any one to say that any railroad management is trying to throttle an industry by exces- sive rates or inefficient service. Keeping in mind that the only means a railroad has for obtaining money to meet expenses and the payment of these interest charges is from the transportation of frieght and passengers, it must be evident that the railroad officials must of necessity be constantly on the lookout for new traffic and for additional means of increasing the volume of traffic already handled.
 Most, if not all. of the laws which have been passed for the purpose of regulating railroad freight and passenger rates have been drafted under the mistaken impression that there is at all times accessible to every railroad a large volume of business waiting to be transported If this were true, it would not be necessary for the railroads to maintain a traffic department, and as every railroad does maintain z traffic department and employs a large number of representatives whose duty it is to keep in touch with the business conditions.
 The difference between rates es- tabished by acts of Legislature and those established by the railroad companies is simply this: The rates of leg stature do not take into account the commercial conditions. which vary from year to year and sometimes from month to month: whereas the rates made by the traffic officials of a railroad are primarily on commercial conditions and are changed as commercial conditions change.
 l Furthermore, through the meu- ium of traffic associations and reg ular meetings of these traffic asso- citations the officials of the differ ent railroads interchange views anc discuss conditions, so that the of. heial of one road really has the benefit not only of the information furnished by his own representa- tives but the information furnished oy representatives of all othel lines interested in the same traffic By this means errors of judgment of one man are corrected by th( information obtained by another With the possible exception of the business agencies such as Funn's or Bradstreets, there is no more complete organize ton in the coun- try than the traffic organization ot the railways.
 As have said before, in the at tempted regulation of railroad rate through Legislative actions, thf mistake is made in assuming tha .here is always available a larg volume of traffic ready to move Of course. large commercial cen ters constantly produce freight O one kind or another, but this freigh nay not move in the direction O every railroad except in limited quantities.
 It is the constant effort of eyerl -o;lro5d fbrot.oh fife freioht an( passenger departments and througl ts industrial department, to locat' industries at these local statiop which will either ship a larg' amount of material or manufacture articles or will afford means of de veloping the passenger traffic, bu it should be clearly understood tha the development of local traffic o tbic kind fs matter of Slov