The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-05-27
ENTITLED TO IT
Editorial From the St. Louis Republic, May $,
1913, Concerning the Railroad Situation.

st. Louis Republic. May S, 1918:
The great railway systems Of the
country are entitled to tina, S per cent
general increase in rates which they
are asking, and should get it.
Both the enemies and the cham.
pions of railroads ought to cut out the
epithets and the adjectives and get
down to facts, in view of the real
transportation needs of the public.
Railroads are not robbers" whose
pretensions to honesty and profess
sions of poverty are alike to be view,
ed with suspicion. Neither are they
"benefactors,' whose traffic officials
ought to be permitted to say exactly
what the public should pay for its
transportation. It is time for a new
and juster view of the railroad situa
ton.
A generation ago the morals of the
railroad business in America were
badly decayed. Railway ethics had
been made by buccaneers like Drew,
Fisk and Gould and past grand masl
ers of special privilege like the draw.
ers of the contracts which Rockefeller
obtained from the oilcarrying roads
Conductors Knocked down." supply
officials made gains en- route; the ship
per got his rebates and the politician
his free transportation. Public ano
railroads all were tarred with he
same stick.
OF "a sudden-a moral awakening,
even of the most genuine and useful
kind, is always one of the most I'M
reasonable of all things in its details
the public conscience awoke to the
evils connected with transportation.
Within year or SO "eminently re-
spectacle" practices came to be seen
for the shady things they were. The
public became converted to honest
methods in transportation Passes
and rebates were abolished by law.
The great mass of railroad opinion
approved the new order. But zone
sinner destroyeth much good ana
just as the public conscience began
to revolt against graft in the trans
portation world there came the reve.
lations of the Illinois Central car-re.
pair frauds, and of the Hartman loot
ing of the Alton As result, public
opinion, by a perfectly natural and In.
telligible process. set down all rail-
roads as would-be benefciaries OF
privilege and enemies of straiSht deal.
ing. Such examples of railway shors
| sightedness and greed as the dealing
of the Terminal Association with st
Louis in the arbitrary matter did mo-
help to better understanding Ant
! coincidentally with the revelations
! Just referred to came the great in
! crease in the cost of living and the
/ inevitable demands upon the railroads
for large wage Increases Just at the
time when all supplies and materials
were advancing in price as well.
How have the railways of the coun,
/ try met this situation?
They have developed a new type o,
railroad man. 1t is difficult to ge,
into this matter without dealing in
personalities, but every man at all
intimately acquainted with the ral-
road situation today can name offhand
a dozen railroad presidents in charge
OF systems of great Importance whose
professional standards are as high and
as exacting as those of any surgeon
banker or Judge in the land They
are keeping faith with the public ana
with the stockholders and giving the