The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-07-25
Railroad Rates
 Burden of $I35
 On Each Family

Washington, D. C., July 25.-Under our complex civilization every man, woman and child depends for at least part of the necessaries of life on the transportation of commodities. This burden 1t is fair to recognize as tax It is recalled that in 1905 our annual payments to railways Gin which about 70 per cent. was for freighD first rose above two billion dollars; that in 1907 1t exceeded s2,5s9 100000 and 1908 it declined to a little below s2, 2,400, ,000,- 900 the current average being reckon ed at two and half billion of dollars
 This vast amount of money spent for the transportat tion of the things that we eat and wear and use; the coal that we burn, the brick, the iron-ore and the thousand and one things which enter into the life of the people, if reckoned as head tax would be equiv alent to over $27 per capita for our 92 900 inhabitants; as family tax it is $135 annually for each average family. Reckoned as a land tax it is over $1.25 an acre for every acre of our vast national domain, or an an- nual figure corresponding with the price for which most of the public lands were sold; and if figured as a tax on the improved land which yields our abounding farm products it av-
 
 415 GOO, 900 acres.
 The question therefore asserts itself with brutal force how long can pro- duction continue under so weighty a burden? No wonder the quantity of farm production of the necessaries of life has fallen off since the year of congestion, 1906, though the value of the products continues to increase un- der the inverse relation brought out by the Secretary of Agriculture in his last report; and no wonder that re tail prices of food have scared since the farmers learned in 1906 to limit their production to what the railways can carry.
 There are in the United States 295 navigable rivers of a total length of 26 400 miles. If these rivers could be made to do quarter of the haul ing of freight and thereby move that freight at a quarter of the current cost there would be an apparent saw ing of half a billion dollars annually in traffic charges, reducing the cur rent transportation burden to $20 per capita ar s1OO per family, Or $1 an acre on land, all of which saving might be measured in reduced cost of living.
 Commissioner of Corporations Her. bert Knox Smith in speaking of the crying needs for a comprehensive pol icy by the general government to- ward the waterways of the United States, which has been the slogan of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress, since it's organization fif- ways must be made an integral part of our entire carrying system.
 ''The tremendous predominence of through traffic in the United States between widely separated sections makes unification with the whole transportation system almost essen- tial for the life of any part of that system We find, however that gen. eral water traffic is almost isela ted from the main currents of the traffic of the country By general water traffic I mean the traffic that is not carried upon water lines controlled by or closely affiliated with the rail- roads. There is a surprising lack of coordination between the rail lines and general water lines. And until we have close physical rail and wa ter lines with close commercial con- nections at the through terminals of the railroad the enormous charge for transportation cannot be appreciably reduced.
 My personal opinion is that the construction of waterway channels by the government should be absolutely conditioned upon the present or fu- ture assured existence thereon of ad- equate terminals provided by the To- cality and by 1t kept permanently open for the general benefit of these users of that channel. The local au- thorities are only ones who can fur nish and keep open the proper termin- al frontage, and such a requirement would not only result in providing terminals, but would also go far to prevent the presentation of worthless and visionary schemes of waterway inprOYem ent If the locality is re- uuired to stake it's own money on such terminal improvements it is not going to urge upon Congress channel work of such futile character as will mean loss of the money invested This is the system in many places in Eu- rope, and judging from the results there. it has certainly worked admir-