The Nevada County picayune., 1914-06-05
Russian Train, Government Ownership.

E per cent out of the consumers dol
 lar. Out of the same dollar the farmer
 averages a fraction over 60 cents, the
 intermediary channels of distribution
 about 441a cents, and the railroads
 about 5 cents.
 When we start looking for the cul-
 prit who is to blame for the high cost
 of living we will have to look further
 than the railroad offices or yards. He
 is not hiding in box car or behind
 A big mahogany desk. His name is
 Legion. He is not a man. He is a family. They constitute the unnum-
 bered army of middle men who can
 take bite out of the biscuit as it passes from the producer to the con sumer. They are warehousemen, the brokers, the draymen and the retail CTS. In short, they are the agents whom the producer and the consumer must pay about 45 per cent of the cost of things for their services. The railroads collect per cent. Whether this is too much or too little, it cer
 tainly is not oppressive and seems a bagatelle in comparison with some of the other charges we pay without grumbling. 1 heard, for instance, of a man who shipped four bundles of iron rods by rail distance of 450 miles They had to be handled four times by railroad employees, changing cars twice. They weighed 365 pounds and cost for freight 69 cents. The owner had them delivered to his home by truck, three-fourths of a mile from the depot, and paid the carrier 50 cents and did not think it too much, though it was at the rate of 65 cents a mile, while he had paid the railroad 69 cents for hauling the same ship ment 365 miles. We farmers take a notion to visit the annual stock show. We pay $2 to ride 100 miles in a steam-heated, upholstered coach, which on European roads would be consid. cred too good for anybody except grand dukes and imperial majesties. We alight at the big granite walled station and give our trunk check to the taxi man, who whirls us across town with our baggage, and pay $2 for that Commute two-mile ride, and don't holler, because we don't want to look cheap. But if we have to pay $S.6O a head for shipping a thousand pound critter a thousand miles and sell him for $S0, we sic our legisla- lures on the railroads and try to tie them into bow-knots and threaten to lear up their tracks. It is mostly be- cause We lend open ears to our long haired, lop-eared politicians, who worm thelr way into office many times on the so-caled railroad issue. They Will accept free rides from these same roads while they are berating them Tor oyercharges. They don't tell us mat; neither do they tell us that the railroads of England, where all other llVlng expenses are cheaper and where | ldDor Is paid about one-half what it is here and where population is about l ten tlmes as dense to the square mile, | eharge for freight 2.32 cents per ton | per mile, instead of TAI mills, as here' and charge passengers 1.53 cents per mile to ride in cars which run on | lour wheels and look about as much | Ike passenger coach as our better | i've stock cars look like a Pullman. l
 The Tact is, We demand of our rail- | foaus services such as are given in | no country of the globe, and wherever | such service IS approximated the pre- mum charged is about cents or 4 | cents a mile extra The ordinary pas sehger wagon" as they still call it | oh foreign roads, weighs about as much as a moving van. and string | ol them could be pulled, we'll loaded, oy good pair of Percheron horses. It requires only 50 or S0-ton loco motlVe to move these trains 50 miles an hour American coaches weigh |