The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-10-16
Railroad Question One
OF Most Serious Import


to wonder whether the only salvation OF
the railroads of the future is not to be
| secured by passing the various systems
over to the ownership and operation of
the government.
These men do not like to voice their
| apprehension in public. They are espe-
cially careful at this time about what
they say lest there should be suspicion
that they speak with intent to influence
the interstate commerce commission.
There are several propositions upon
which men of large affairs and railroad
managers and the greatest railroad man
ayers of the United States. seem to agree.
One of these points is this--there must
be secured speedily a larger as we'll as
a steady return TO the railroad companies
in the way of net earnings If new capital
il to be obtained. The question then is
simply this: Can the railroads gain the
increase in net earnings they hope for If
the interstate commerce commission
grants their petition to increase their
tax rate ) per cent?
The Tariff Law
The new tariff law will be adjusted
speedily with no very great friction to
American business interests. The COM
mon opinion here is that when the panlS-
ing and currency bill now before Con-
dent for his signature it will be found
to be fairly satisfactory. The determine
tion of these two important matters
leaves the railroad situation the one vital
matter before the American people. The
railroad companies will endcavor to prove
to the interstate commerce commission
by official statistics that the prices
charged for the transportation of COM
modities on the railroads has steadily
eli ipaA Int WI 10 cfa dkr
reduction of cost has been going on the
cost of labor and materials has constant
ly increased and is now increasing.
These are regarded here as the two
vital points upon which the interstate
commerce commission must base it's action.
Farsighted business men careful of what
they say or of the way they express
their thoughts nevertheless do intimate
that If these two conditions continue they
will create influences which may ulti-
mately throw some of the railroad sys-
TENS of the United States into the hands
of the receivers. They regard, however,
these influences or conditions as not inn
mediately dangerous because it is pos
sible for the interstate commerce COM
mission to change them SO that health
full influences will be established.
Forty Per Cent Reduction
The railroad companies are prepared to
show to the interstate commerce COM
mission that within a geperation's time
the reduction in freight rates upon agri-
cultural products from the west to the
Atlantic coast is equivalent to an av-
erage of a little over 40 per cent. So
also rates upon other than agricultural
commodities themselves are selling at
the highest prices ever quoted. Attention
has been frequently called to a very
graphic statement made by the execu-
tives of the Boston and Maine railroad
system-a statement which will be
brought to the notice of the interstate
commerce commission. 1t is said in that
statement that the Boston and Maine
Railroad company would be compelled to
haul ton of freight eight miles at a
rate of 21a mills per ton mile to earn
enough money to buy a 2-cent postage
stamp
1t is certain that the hearings before
the interstate commerce commission
whereby evidence may be obtained upon
which to justify whatever findings the
commission may deem expedient to make
may be quite as interesting and instruc-
tive as We're the hearings before the com
mittees of Congress which had charge
of the preparation of tariff and the bank
ing and currency bills. MIR. George A.
Post, president of the Railway Business
association, which is in very close touch
with shippers, reports that the shippers
OF the United States as a whole are far
less opposed to the granting of the in
crease in freight rates than they We're
when the proposition was first made, for
the shippers realize that in the long run
their own prosperity is in no small eX-
tent dependent upon the prosperity of the
railroad companies.