Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-09-30
GROWING EXPENSES
FOR THE RAILROADS
Increase Due in Part to Con.
tinued Demands of Govern
ment for information.

CHICAGO. Sept. 30.-It is a con-
tinued story, with the situation grow
ing more tense all the time and the
outcome of the plot extremely doubt
futile story of the railroads of the
United States.
Net income is tagging farther and
farther behind the ratio of the old
days, and cost is swift-footed.
A little here and little there
through the whole administration of
the roads-traffic cost, accounting, re-
lations to the government, etc. 1t is
said that the cost of the proposed
valuation of the roads by the Inter-
state Commerce Commission will be
SIS, 100000 or $4,000, 900, covering a pc
Rod of say, five years. 1t Is assumed
that the government will pay this bill,
but it is by no means certain that the
whole cost will come from the Federal
treasury
The Interstate Commerce Commits
sion asks 81 100000 to start with, and
Congress is talking about 100000.
Meanwhile the authorities are ask
ing the railroad companies for infor-
nation, and information costs money.
CURED; blue print may cover frog
or a whole system, and there may be
many thousands, or perhaps even
millions of them, from a given COM
pany The roads themselves have
blue prints, but it is doubtful whether
they will be accepted by the commits
sion, for a certain kind of paper is
required in order to produce the exact
effect called for. Other items de-
manded are multitudinous-not only
statements of accounts, recital of va
rious classes of equipment, number
and age of rails, width of right of
way, terminals, lands, etc You may
continue the list at pleasure.
Burden on Companies.
Yes, the government is supposed to
pay for everything, but when you
consider the extent to which the val
uators must fall back on the road it
is easy to see that an extremely large
expense can be saddled on the COM
panies.
The accounting has already been
revolutionized, and much information,
formerly not considered worth saving,
has to be kept on hand. Any one Of
these drafts on the resources and in
come of the companies may seem to
an outsider to be trivial, and it is,
but the grand aggregate is serious
when added to the other burdens.
And the idea that railroad rates
must be crowded down to as low a
level as possible has not yet passed
out of the popular mind. For ex-
ample, the Nebraska Railway Com
mission recently issued an order
to so per cent.
Tho ajIrOad mon are a good deal
frightened by this action, and they
are cooperating to see what can be
done in the matter of resistance. Fight
it they will. A hearing is set at Lin
coin for October 9.
Long Law Suit Ahead.
The proposed reduction is so dras-
tic that good authorities say the
roads would be put out of intra-State
business. That will not happen till
the question has gone through long
period of litigation.
Similar reductions are contemplated
in several other States. The decision
of the United States Supreme Court
in the Minneapolis rate case has slim
ulated the determination to make
cuts. 1t will be remembered, how
ever, that the court decided that
rates must not be confiscatory.
That the railroads of the country
are not now doing sufficient business
to make them particularly purse
proud is shown by the report of the
American Railway Association.
True, the surplus of cars was re-
duced from 5s,306 to 40,159, from the
aggregate of the preceding two weeks,
but as compared with this surplus of
40 159 there was an actual shortage
of $500 cars in the corresponding two
weeks of 1912. And a car surplus
should be reduced at this time of the
year if ever