The Washington herald., 1914-03-24
"Spsak for Yourself, John" /"


vania Railroad, in this column and we
again quote him and once more it is
to point moral and adorn tale. Speak
ing to the stockholders of the railroad
at their annual meeting he denounced
as false the assertion that the manage
ment under his direction had been tech
nically manipulating the accounts for
the purpose of showing that the cost
Of operation had increased to an ex-
tent greater than it actually had, and
made this declaration of intent:
Your management is determined
that within the limits of reason it
will hereafter allow no statement to
go unchallenged that reflects on the
management or the integrity of its
officers.
In speaking thus Mr.. Rea was really
giving voice to a broader policy than
his words would indicate; a policy that
for some time past has been forming in
the minds and shaping in the acts of
progressive railway men all over the
country. 1t is a policy that does not
confne itself and concern itself merely
with the denunciation and refutal of
specific misstatements but one that
touches the whole range of railway re-
Iat,Or, chin f, tbo o,,bii~
For a variety of reasons, Indifferent,
bad and good, it was long the practice
of most railroad men to ignore or dis
regard most of the criticism, good, bad
and Indifferent, directed at them and
their roads. 1t was most unwise prac-
tice and why it obtained for so many
years is a good deal of mystery. But
it did persist over many decades and if
railway men gave thought to it and its
unwisdom they said little or nothing
about it and they certainly did little or
nothing about it. And they did not act
until that stern parent, Necessity, stirred
them to action.
OF course, it ought to be borne in
mind that during all this time the rail-
road men had a few other things to
think about. They were working to the
limit of the physical side OF the coun-
try's transportation problem and it was
a struggle to meet its daily increasing
needs. And their accomplishment stands
as a monument to American intelligence
and energy.
Meantime. during all the years that the
railway men had been silent or indif-
ferently talkative the fellows on the
other side had not been idle for a mo-
ment. In the press and on the platform,
in and out of season they kept ham,
mering away. Some OF their agitation
and attack was fair and justifable. some
of it was unfair and unjustihable. But
they had the stage all TO themselves
and the result was inevitable. "A tre-
mendous volume of adverse sentiment,
quite lopsided, was piled up and that
sentiment, with the power of a million
locomotives is making itself felt all over
the country. Its power is everywhere
felt and nowhere to greater extent than
in instrumentalities of the State created
by popular vote-instrumentaliti ju-
dicial in theory. prejudicial in fact.
The trend of several events culminate
in a desperate crisis to the transporta-
ton system of the country and when the
railway men turn to the people for as
sistance and relief what do they find?
An almost solid wall of adverse scnti-
ment, shortsighted in its vision, undis-
cerning in its knowledge and quite
stolid. For the lack of understanding
most of the railway men are themselves
to blame. THEY HAVE NEVER
TOLD THEIR STORY TO THE
1t is their fault that only
one side of the shield has been seen.
The way to the public ear and mind
has always been clear and most of the
railway men who have found and
travelled it have had a very agreeable
They have found the peo-
pie ready to listen and learn, quick in
and willing to help when
the appeal has been justly grounded.
This is the policy to which Mr.. Rea
gives voice and it is a policy that is
among the brethren of the rail
all over the country. In his experience
with the New Haven Howard Elliott
has found his chief support in the in
formed public sentiment of New Eng
land to which he has spoken with free
dom and candor. Out on the Pacific
Coast when recently the government
proposed the demerging of two railway
lines it was the people who made the
strongest plea in behalf of the railroad
executives. Other railway lines have
told their story to the people of their
territory and frankness has been met by
fairness.
And so it must be all over the coun-
try. There is much more to the trans
oortation problem than simply taking it
put of the hides of certain properties
md their shareholders and solution will