The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1910-05-12
TOO MANY RAIDS ON RAILROADS
Political Agitation Reaching Danger
Point.

| question as TO the concern 1t is giving
them-other than railroad men see in
the situation that which isn't assuring
from the standpoint of the public at
large. No one would accuse Willis j.
Abbot of being predisposed to favoring
railroads, his long and intimate associ-
alton with the great commoner and his
writings for years establishing for him
the reputation of a pu5liclst IN the
broadcast sense of the term.
Zone of the most prominent manu-
facturers of railroad supplies in the
United States drifted into Washington
the other day." Abbot writes, land
talked to me and Chairman Mann, of
the Committee on Interstate Commerce,
somewhat in this fashion:
g In 1907 the attacks of the Roose-
stopped railroad construction all over
| the country. Nothing was bought by
road except what was actually neces-
| sary for its immediate operation. Steel
rails that had been purchased were
stacked and held for the time when re-
turning prosperity and congressional
quietude would permit their being laid.
Near my plant on the Pacific Coast
there were, in 1908, nearly two miles of
! locomotives on side tracks, exposed to
the weather, out of commission
idle.
/ Z" Now the political agitation which
led to the entire cessation of railroad
activity in 1907, and produced the panic,
is again being pressed to the danger
point. 1t means the cessation once
more of railroad building, betterment
of equipment, and, as railroads are the
greatest employing and purchasing cor
porations in the United States, their
prosperity or adversely is reflected in
the labor market of the nation.
] " 1T isn't so much that fair control
of the roads is opposed either by them
or by financial leaders, but the con-
tinual attacks upon them in Congress
antagonize investors and seriously limit
the roads borrowing capacity. That
necessarily limits their ability to build
new cars, to straighten and improve
their lines, to replace timber trestles
with bridges of steel or stone. And in
cidentally it closes opportunities of en-
ployment to some hundreds Of thousands
of American workmen.
After this outburst of pro-ralroad
oratory, continued Abbot, Il went to
the document clerk in the Capitol and
asked for full set of the bills intended
to regulate railroads which had been in
troduced and printed at the present ses-
sion Of Congress. The package re-
ceived in return weighed about ten
pounds: the number of bills which spe-
officially referred to railroad regulation
was ffty-eight; the number which by
indirection affected the railroads was so
great that the clerk has not yet given
me copies of all
Among the latter is bill providing
that cans of oysters and crabs shipped
over interstate lines must be stamped
with the weight of the oyster or crab
meat contained therein. This PROPOSE
ton is put up to the Committee on In
terstate Commerce. Another one is
that no apples shall be sent in closed
packages, else they be considered to be
misbranded within the meaning of an
act prohibiting
transportation of adulterated or mis-
branded food That, too, puts it up to
the railroads to determine how the
harmless apples Of commerce shall be
packed and carried.
There is an element of humor in the
fact that one bill Is intended to prevent
the entrapping or shooting of carrier
pigeons, which would seem to indicate
that by and by the aerodrome would
become subject to the powers of that
committee.
The Interstate Commerce Commit
tee holds, so far as legislation in con-
cerned, the prosperity of the railroads
of the United States in its hands. What
it shall recommend to the present House
of Represen tatives will almost assured
ly become law. The law so made will
affect, according to the last statistical
abstract, l,500, 900 railroad employees,
and | am reliably informed that an
equal number of workingmen are en-
gagged in the various industrial estab-
lishments which furnish railroad sup
plies. Yet to this committee have been
presented in a two months session, So
bills ranging from the protection of car
rier pigeons to the President S plan for
the creation of commerce court.
Between these eXtremes-the one
ridiculous. the other serious-is a mass
of proposed legislation bearing on rail-
roads. 1t would be no stretch of
imagination to say it was a mass of
anti-railroad legislation. That few of
the 81 or more varieties of bills stand
any chance of passage is not important.
They are drawn for home consumption
and the constituents down home when