Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-07-01
EXPRESS COMPANIES AND GOVERN
MENT FAVORITlSM.
Norfolk virginian-P Pilot.1

tNorfolk Virginian-Pilot.t
Under the measure about to pass Con-
gress the jurisdiction of the Interstate
Commerce Commission is extended to
cover telegraph and telephone lines.
This raises the question why the au-
thority of that body is not made to in
clude also the express companies.
These latter institutions handle large
proportion of the country's transporta-
tion business, in their conduct the gen.
eral public is largely and directly inter-
ested, and yet they are left practically
without government control, regulation
or supervision of any kind. Like the
Pullman Company and the refrigerator
car concerns, they are parasites fatten-
ing and battening upon the public and
the railroads alike. though, in the end.
the people, of course, have to bear the
full burden of their exactions. They
monopolize the parcels-c carrying bust
ness of the country, make their charges
and rules of service to suit themselves,
and otherwise conduct themselves as
they please and always with an eye sin
gle to piling up profits.
That these profits are inordinately
high is notorious. Golfers Weekly has
recently figured that the average an
nual earnings of the FIVE great express
concerns range from forty-three to one
hundred and twenty-five per cent on
liberal capitalizations. The Adams
Company paid yearly dividends of ten
per cent from 1903 to 1907 and in June
of the latter year declared an extra
dividend of two hundred per cent, pay
able in bonds. In February of the cur
rent year the Wells. Fargo Company
added to its regular annual .dividend of
ten per cent. an extra dividend of three
hundred per cent. Payments of big ex-
ira dividends, known in the parlance of
the street as cutting melons," are of
periodical occurrence not alone with the
two companies mentioned, but with the
other three big express concerns as
well. the sums so distributed represent
ing accumulations of earnings which it
was deemed unwise to distribute annu-
ally for fear the public would the more
easily get on to" the actual and enor-
nous profits filched from the public
pocket.
Obviously charges which permit of
such accumulations of earnings are in
ordinately and unreasonably high and
constitute gross imposition on the
public which has the burden to bear,
but even such extortiops do not satisfy
the voracious greed of the concerns ex-
acting them. Constantly the express
rates are being advanced on this or that
commodity, as witness the recently an
nounced and totally unnecessary in
crease in charges on oysters shipped
from Norfolk and other Virginia points.
The only excuse offered by the express
monopolies for exactions which they
themselves do not denysare in excess
of anything which the necessities of the
case demand, ia that to lower the rates
would be to ensure such an increased
volume of business that it could not be
expeditiously handled, And yet, even
while advancing this claim, they have
for years been bending every nerve and
exhausting every trick known to poll
tics and the chicanery of the expert lob
byist to prevent Inauguration by the
government of parceispost system tha I
would at one and the same time relieve
them of a surplusage of business, add
to the country's facilities for handling
the parcels traffic and cheaper the cost
of such transportation to the public.
And so far, be it said to the discredit of
Congress, their efforts have been uni
formly and eminently successful.
Doubtless there are good and sufii-
cient reasons why telegraph and tele-
phone lines should be brought under
some reasonable measure of govern
ment regulation. but what sort of gov
ernmept favoritism is it that, while sub
jecting these corporations to control,
permits the express companies to GO
without any supervision at all, free to
follow only their own sweet will both
as to rates charged and the general con-
duct of their business7 And where il
the secret of the influence which secures
and has long secured such favoritism2
1