Iron County register., 1914-10-08
IRONTON MO, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1914 NUMBEI

upon properties WOEbu b1o glga1JlC
sum of twenty billions. Thus it can be
seen that on the basis of the present
rates the railroads pay back to The pub
lie in one way and another practically
every dollar they receive for service.
As was stated in the previous article,
the operating income of the railroads
for thetiscal year ending June 80, 1914,
was $120, 600, 600 less than for 1913
while expenses and taxes were $76,-
100000 greater. It can therefore be
seen at glance that unless the rail-
roads are given some increase in
rates in the very near future the time
when many of them will go upon the
rocks of financial ruin is not far Off
and yet the slight increase necessary
to save them is so small that the av-
erage citizen would not be conscious of
it after it had gone into effect. In a
future article this question will be
more fully discussed.
A Barometer Of Prosperity
1t is an old saying that when the
railroads are prosperous everybody is
prosperous and the manner in which
their income is disbursed, as above ex-
planned, tells the reason why. In short,
for years they have been regarded as
the great business barometer of the
Nation. No other industry in the coun-
try employs so many men as do the
railroads and furthermore it is
high grade of labor employed upon as
lucrative basis as obtains in any 9TH
er large industry. When times are good
nearly two million people first and last,
derive their living from the railroads
and when this vast army is working
full time and is contented the millions
they pay out for merchandise and for
the living necessities produced on the
farm cannot help but have tremen-
dous effect upon the Commerce and
of the Country.
But this is only half the story. Aside
from the nearly two million operatives
directly employed upon the railroads
in normal times, the hundreds of
thousands of men who work in the
great steel mills, the coal mines, the
lumber industry and in the big car
and locomotive shops are equally vi
tally affected for when the railroads
are making extensive improvements
and buying heavily of these supplies
it means that these great industries
are running full blast while when the
railroads are subsisting only upon
absolute necessities it means~ that
many of them are only working half
shift.
Why Men Are Idle
Every man who reads the neWspa-
pers knows that our large cities have
been crowded with idle men for a num-
Der of years. This has not been due so
much to politics but rather that we
have been passing through one of the
most marked business depressions in
the history of the country period of
readjustment in the industrial world
in which cropping after sound eco
nomic policies, bad crops, etc., have all
played their part. That much of the
troubled situation in the labor world
however has been due to the fact that
the railroads have been and are now
facing the most critical period in their
history is SO true that extended
is super1uous. Struggling
against an ever increasing cost of la
Dor, operation and supplies and an ever
net income they have had
to economic in every direction-and
in the frantic endeavor to keep their
heads above water they have be en-
forced to discontinue hundreds of
trains, to cut the forces working in
their myriad railroad shops and thus
dispense with many thousands of for
mer employees. In like manner, cut
ting down the purchases of steel, lum-
ber, coal, new cars and locomotives
have likewise affected the payrolls of
these industries and hence the army
of unemployed which for some years
has been haunting every city in the
land.
The Farmer vitality Concerned
That the farmer has very vital
and personal interest in this situation
should be apparent at a glance. When
the millions of laboring men in the
United States are profitably employed
and when all ohr great industrial en-
terprises are running full shift, it
means that he will have larger de-
mand and receive a higher price for
the things he produces on his farm
for his corn, wheat, pork, beef, mutt
ton, cotton, wool and other farm pro-
ducts. In other words, so inter de-
pendent have we become, and 30 close
ly allied are the interests of the farm
er, the merchant, the manufacturer,
the laborer and every other great Ma
tional industry that the prosperity of
one has become the prosperity of all.
When times are good, the railroads
spend around $5O0,O0O, 900 year for
betterments, extensions and new
lines-and this expendi ture always
opens up a market for thousands OF
mules used in heavy construction
work.
Ar 0.her fact which the average man
doesn't take into consideration is the
effect of drouths and crop failures on
the railroads. While admitting of
hand that these things hurt the farm
er, merchant and manufacturer he for
gets that when the farmer doesn't pro-
duce big crops and ship lots of live
stock these things cut big hole in
the receipts of the transportation COM
panies forcing them to run trains
that are only half loaded while thous-
ands of empty box cars stand idle or
the side tracks. During the last four
years Missouri and the Corn Belt gen
orally have had three severe drouths
and the railroads possessed no magic
power which enabled them to escape
their full share of the resulting con-
sequences. They bear no charmed life
which places them above the inexor-
able law of cause and effect no nee.
romancer's art which changes dross
into gold or deficit into a surplus
Well might they exclaim with Shyloch
in his pathetic defense Of the Jew
"If You prick US, do we not bleed? L
you tickle us, do we not laugh? 1
you poison us, do we not die?"-Adv
(To be continued next week.)
N& ------------rs- >