Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1914-04-24

" lHtp VI lifitIltN+
All but one says, the fear Of business
legislation | have already limited ~
h. fact that this legislation il il had
been desired Ia have il hasty or rash
might well have been enacted long ago.
Almost Immediately after the Presidents
message upon the subject. certain meas
urcs were introduced into both houses.
Three months have gone. They have
been spent in discussion. business men
have been given an opportunity 20 state
their views. Time has been taken Ia hear
from the country. Furthermore. ID will
! am sure be judged by its fruits. and the
present one has produced several great
legislative enactments.
But | confess To amusement nj learn.
ing in some quarters that business does
not demand further legislation. for
therein business shows that sense Of dc.
tachment from the general veal which
has been its bane. ID may well bv that
the public demands that which business
does not seek. The point il both that
business must rcmembcd that it's voice
is not the only one that il Ia he heard.
But IL il true that our whole outlook
Is affected by the absence from our mar.
kets of our largest purchasers aud our
largest employers. | say absence. mean
ing that our railroad companies are
sharply economizing because. as they
claim. their revenues i'm relation To their
necessary expenditures are such that
they can not do otherwise. | shall not
enter upon a discussion Of the question
now pending before a tribunal which is
abundantly competent 10 deal with them
and no inference may he drawn from
what ! say as 10 the merits Of those
questions. | think / am justified rs a
business man i'm saying that | earnestly
hope the decision will he reached with
the least possible delay. II IL not too
mrs h 10 say that the prosperity of the
nation y bound up in and intertwined
with the prosperity Of its railway sys
tenn. The railway, il interpret public
opinion correctly. must be a railway and
little il anything else. IL j. not. for OK
ample. to be- the pivot on which financial
operations turn, profitable indeed to
those who turn them. but not causing
the railway 10 serve the people better.
IL must in fairness be admitted that the
railway men Of today are suffering
from the sins of the fathers which are
being visited upon the children to the
third and fourth generations.
The process Of characterization il
still going on. The big fellows are
ccasing To " the railways and the lit.
tie fellows day by day, are coimng to
take their place.
II am inclined to think that when the
matter shall have been wrought out 10
it, full analysis with ample lapse Of
time the statement Of Mr.. Brandeis. for
which he has been so much ridiculed.
may not prove 10 have been so far wrong.
and 1 do not recall i'm this connection
that he said how soon the suggested re-
very well that the leading advocates of
>ocallcd scientific management told me
that to put "A modern industry Of large
size upon the most scientific basis would
mean five years of continuous work, and
! suspect az least this time il necessary
- "VAN 49, kf'ht ldltWdNs
Meanwhile justice and common sense
require any truthful man to concede that
when the worst J. said respecting our
railway managers il il none The less true
that they have 81 wrought as To- give
America the lowest freight rates IN the
world.
II hope, and think | may So ~ licrc
that the day of opposition is giving way
10 the day ~ comprehension. | do not
mean that law II To be- less strong or the
insistence upon obedience a. law less
firm. but that there j. coming into the
minds Of all a greater sense Of their e.
~sential relationship. and that we shall
turn ere long from the Industrial and
transportation contests which have so
engrosscd US to other questions Of equal
or greater Importance, and shall come to
wonder ere many years pass that We did
not sooner see how much easier, better,