The Topeka state journal., 1909-03-10
A NEW KIND OF PUBLICITY.

- NEW h1ND OE' FO6x1CI14a
i "a group of men who represent
more than 500 million dollars of in
lvested capital, and whose plants in
normal times employ more than one
and a half million men, has adopted a
novel and interesting campaign of
publicity" says the Worlds Work for
March, editorially. '"They admit that
their object is to sell more of their
products. They make and sell nearly
all the railroad equipment, supplies,
parts, and machinery that are used in
this country.
/ Their buyers are the railroads.
They found. last year, that they could
not sell, because the railroads could
not buy. Going behind this grim fact,
they found the railroads unable to
buy because they did not make enough
money. The cause of this condition
| they found to be exceedingly complex.
Some of its constituent parts were
quite beyond their reach. They an
aIyzed the cause as best they could,
and set to work with a propaganda to
search out and remedy what they
could
''They studied the legislation of the
states. Here and there, they have TAX
en- an active hand in framing public
opinion on this subject. They confess
that railroads have done much wrong,
but they argue that that is no reason
for cutting off the railroads heads and
killing them. On this basis, they
preach and write and talk.
Under the circumstances, is it not
time that we woke up to the fact that
traffic is international? And should
our railroads not have fair show in
our own borders? It may be true that
heaven ordained Japan and Greater
Britain to control the trade of the
Pacific; but surely our own laws
might at least give our own railroads
whatever little chance heaven may
leave to them.
zone may find these men making
speeches at public dinners in all the
cities from Boston to San Francisco;
working hand in glove with big COM
mercia1 bodies of states and cities;
preaching their doctrine in little inter-
views here and there-wherever their
normal business takes them; studying
figures dug up from railroad annual
reports or legislative records; even
reading with much labor drafts of
bills from the last session or sketches
of bills for the. coming session in their
own or other states
''They take but 1anguid interest in
wind and noise. And the strangest
part of the whole movement is that
they seem to have done some real
good. Perhaps that is mainly because
they began at home, with their own
army of employees, and tried to teach
them just why they were on short
hours last year, or out of work.
This organization referred to in the
foregoing is the Railway Business as
sociation and the work it's members are
engaged in cannot fail to be of lasting
benefit not only to themselves but also
to the railroads and the people of the
country. The interests of the latter
two are common. The people of this
country could not develop it in prop
er proportions if it were not for the
railroads. And during the past cou-
pie of years they seem to have awak-
ened to this fact. This is evidenced
by the lack of legislation, which might
be looked upon as hostile to the rail-
road interests, that has been attempt
ed in the legislatures of this year all
over the country, but particularly in
this section of it. No one doubts the
necessity for a reasonable and effective !
supervision of the affairs of railroads
by the federal and state governments.
But in bringing this about the rail-
roads must not be crippled SO as to |
have their efficiency impaired in the |
slightest degree.