Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-04-26


things as duplicate reports. records Of
employment, sleeping cars diagrams and
berth checks. dining car checks. audited
tickets. duplicate copies of tariffs, etc.
X
The compliance of the railroads with
the demands of the accounting division
of the interstate
Willing to Comply commerce commits
With Demands. m ,oh IS IN .;,,' inc g
compliance. But the fact that there are
expert railroad accountants. known as
examiners, on the rolls of the commits
sion. who may walk in at any moment
and demand the exhibition of all records
and memoranda. has given a stimulus to
their efforts to meet the requirements of
the law.
In addition to the requirement that a
UNIFORM system of accounting shall be
adopted by the steam railroads. the same
requirement is made Of electric lines, eX-
press companies, sleeping car companies
and pipe lines. Under this authority an
investigation into the affairs Of the eX-
rress companies has been made. which
reveals them in the light of the great
est profit makers in proportion to actual
investment that the commercial world
affords. 1t is shown that the total assets
or the express companies are rated as
eight tunes as much the value of the
property used in operation. 1t is also
shown that their capital stock and funded
dent are four times as great as the value
or their real property and equipment
and also that their net profit in a single
year Is 226 per cent on the value of the
real property AND equipment of the COM
panies.
The accounting officers of the railroads
are representing the new thought in
railroad management, which involves a
new relation to the patron. In times
past every railroad in the country has
eyes Tor any instances of undercharges
to the shippers. AS soon as one of these
was discovered Mr.. Shipper very prompt
~ received q notice to that effect, and
was invited to make it up. But no one
ever heard of shipper being notified
that ne mad been charged too much. Err
rors are much more frequently made i'm
this direction. and 1t has been necessary
Tor large establishments to maintain a
force OF clerks to watch out for over
charges. The president of the accounting
officers association recommends that
roads be as careful to refund overcharges
of their own initiative as they are to col
lect undercharges.
x
The policy of state and federal rail
road regulation has led the railroads TO
adopt new plan
SCaClSClcS GaCnereQ OF statistic gather
by New System. ins If AZ tho "a" aeon meet-
ing officers last year one of it's members
asserted that there are two kinds of sta
tistics needed by railway managers-sta-
tistics for action and statistics for de-
Tense against the attacks of the rate
makers. He asserted that the statistics
OF cost per passenger mile are as mean
ingless as statistics Of puffs of smoke or
of car-wheel revolutions.
While railroad men feel they must
acquiesce as gracefully as possible to the
power of the Interstate commerce COM
mission. they declare it is beginning to
amount to practical assumption Of con-
troll of their affairs. The commission re-
plies that this Is not true: that a railroa
may use its funds as it pleases, but that
when it does so 1t shall give q true ac-
counting of how 1t is using them. 1t may
use its earnings for betterments If 1t de-
sires to do SO. but 1t must show that fact
in its accounts, SO that betterments pro-
vided out Of earnings may be reckoned
as profits.
Tomorrow-HONORIN GRANT.