The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-06-17
NUDGE TALKS ON
RATE CONTROVERSY
Rock Island President Gives His
Views, Declaring Rate Advance
Was Necessity to the
Railroads.
THE WAGE INCREASE
When New Scale is Effective It viii
Amount to Over 100000
Increase, But Earnings
Show Decrease.
THE WAGE INCREASE

President Nudge of the Rock Island
lines, at one time Missouri division
official for the Santa Fee with offices
at Fort Madison, later vice president
of the A., T. & S. F., gives his opin-
ions concerning the national freight
rater advance question thusly:
with reference to the question OF
the proposed increase in freight rates
which the western railroads planned,
my views of the situation briefly ex-
pressed are as follows:
There has been a large increase in
the most of railroad material and Ia
Dor in the last five years. The increase
in wages has not come each year, but
it has occurred twice in the last four
the increased cost of our own con-
struction and operation, but the manu-
facturers have passed along in their
prices to us and the advance in the
cost of their labor and materials We
pay our own increased cost of living
of our employees. The rise in mater
ials has Teen chiefly in lumber and
coal, and especially in railroad ties.
Cost Of Operation Grows.
THE cost of operation of railroads
has also been increased many millions
of dollars in the last five years by rea-
son of various state laws regulating
hours of labor and other methods of
operation.
The taxes of the Rock Island road
are about s6OO,OOG,00O higher this
year than for the previous year.
I'VE have, by various improve
ments, Offset to some extent the adj
vance in cost but we have reached
1 the limit in that direction. Larger
cars and engines, better equipment
and other improvements generally
have enabled us to overcome por-
ton of this increased cost. Now we
are going the other way, and, in spite
of these improvements, we are losing
ground rapidly.
/ ''The railroads most seriously af-
/ fected by the rate increases that are
being discussed now have for the
nine months of the present fiscal year
shown quite large gain in the vol
ume of traffic. and consequent large
increase in. gross receipts, but practi-
cally every one-I think every one
/ will show decrease in net earnings
the net revenue over the same per-
iod last year-and they will show this
/ before the wage increases really be-
come effective.
4 Increase in Wages.
The wage increase of the Rock
Island road, when they are finally eff
4 fective, will amount to over $1,000 900
a year. AS We are already showing a
decrease in net earnings, it is difficult
to see where we will get the money
to meet the advance in wages, and we
certainly will not have money to
spend on improvements which will be
needed to take care of an increase in
the volume of traffic.
THE increase in rates proposed
only cover a small percentage of the
total traffic-certainlv not over %
per cent. 1t was recognized from the
start that there was a large proper
ton of the traffic on which the rate
could not be advanced, because, in
some cases, of the value of the COM
modify, and, in others, because of the
market competition, which prohibited
increases. Therefore, only these com
modities on which the freight rate is
small percentage of the price of the
article were, as a rule, the ones con-
sidered.