Mexico weekly ledger., 1914-10-08
RAILROADS %
WITH THEIR INCOME
CONTINUED From Page one)

I0OUlAnANA
Az was stated in the previous article
the ~operating income Of the railroads
for The fiscal year ending Jnne 81
1914. was sI20, zoo 900 less than ior
l9ls-while expenses and taxes were
10000. 900 greater. II a therefore
10 SEEN nj a glance that unless the
railroads 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 lar
off-and yet the slight increase nee.
essary to save them is so small tnat
The average citizen would not be con-
scious of il after it had gone into ef-
feet. In a future article this ques-
ton will be more fully discussed.
A Barometer Of Prosperity
l.. II is an old saying that when the
railroads are prosperous everybody
is prosperous-and the manner in
which their income is disbursed, as
above explained tells the reason why.
In short, for years they have been re-
garded MS the great business oarome-
ter of the Nation. No other industry
in the country employs so many men
as do the railroads-and furthermore
il is a high grade of labor employed
upon as lucrative a basis as obtains
in any ether large industry. When
times are good nearly two million peo-
pie, 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 ne
cessities produced on the farm cannot
help but have a tremendous effect up
on the Commerce and Agriculture OF
the Country.
But this is only half the story.
| Aside from the nearly two million OPP
eratives directly employed upon the
railroads in normal times, the hun
| dreds of thousands of men who work
in the great steel mills, the coal
mines, the lumber industry and in the
big a and locomotive shops are equal
ly vitality affected-for when the rail-
roads are making extensive improve
ments and buying heavily Of these
supplies it means that these great in
dustries are runnings full blast while
when the railroads are subsisting on
ly 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 nun
Der of years. This has not been due sc
much to politics but rather that We
have been passing through n of the
most marked business depressions in
the history of the country-a period
or REIMBURSEMENT in the industrial.
world in which a cropping after sounC
economic policies, bad crops, etc.
have all played their part. That much
of the troubled situation in the labor
world however have been due to the
fact that the railroads have been anC
are now facing the most critical per,
iod in their history is so true that ex.
tended argument is superfluous. Strul
Cling against an ever-increasing cos
of labor, operation and supplies anC
an merchandising net income the!
have had to economic in every direc
tion-and in the frantic endeavor I,
keep their heads above water the!
have been forced TO discontinue hun
dreds of trains, TO cut the forces worl
ing in their myriad railroad shops an,
thus dispense with many thousands O
former employees. In like manner, Gu.
ting down the purchases. Of steel, lum
Der, coal, new cars and LOCOMOTIVES
has likewise affected the payrolls O
these industries-and hence the army
of unemployed which for some year
has been haunting every city in tn
land.
The Farmer vitality Concerned.
That the farmer has a very vita
and personal interest in this situation
should be apparent at a glance. Whei
the millions Of laboring men in tn,
United States are profitably EN-
ployed and when all our great indus
trial enterprises are running full shift
it can that he will have a large
demand and receive a higher price
for the things he produces on hi.
farm-fOr his corn, wheat, pork, beef
mutton, cotton, wool and other farm
products. In other words, so inter-de
pendent have we become and so close
ly allied are the interests of the far
mer, the merchant, the manufacturer
the laborer and every other great Ma.
tional industry that the prosperity O
one has become the prosperity o.
all. When times are good, the rail.
roads spend around $500, 600, 900 {
year for betterments, extensions anC
new lines-and this expenditure al.
ways opens up a market for thous.
ands of mules used in heavy construc
ton work.
Another fact which the average mar
doesn't take into consideration is the
effect of drouths and crop failures on
the railroads. While admitting off
hand that these things hurt the far.
mer, merchant and manufacturer he
forgets that when the farmer doesn't
produce big crops and ship lots of
live stock these things cut a big hole
IN the receipts of the transportation
companies-forcing them to run
trains that are only half loaded while
thousands of empty box cars stand
idle on the side tracks. During the last
four years Missouri and the Corn
Belt generally has had three severe
drouths and the railroads possessed
no magic power which enabled them
to escape their full share of the re-
sultlng consequences. They bear no
charmed life which places them above
the memorable law of cause and eff
tect--no necromancer's art which
changes dross into gold or a deficit
INTO a surplus. Well might they ex-
claim with Shylock in his pathetic de-
Tense of the jew, IF you prick US.
do we not bleed? II you tickle us. do
we not laugh? If you poison us, do
we not de-" ADV. ITO be continued
next week..