The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-02-20

vania-in the fact that it's owners live along the line of the road.
 There are some 25.000 stockhold- CTS of the New Haven Road. Some of you I have no doubt are stock
 holders. and there are probably an equal number of bondh oIders. So you 1 have possibly 80 GOO individuals Inter
 ested directly for their daily bread and butter in the success or failure of this great manufacturing institu- ton. Counting those that are de- pendent upon them, there Is perhaps a total of 800, 900 people, a very sub- stantia1 proportion of the community
 of New England. Now. as have said, the railroad and the business that you
 represent depend very much upon one
 another: and what is true here is true all over the United States, and you l and the railroads depend also on agri- culture, because, unless that Succeeds. your business will not succeed; and the census figures show that there are
 about $41, 900, 100000 of va1ue in agrd-
 culture. about S 8, ,50o, o0 900 in man
 ufaeturing, and nearly the same
 amount in railroads-three great. i'm portant classes of business of the United States
 s.I am an optimist on the United States, and in spite of the clouds that
 hang over New England Just now. l am an ortin1ist on New England. (Ap- plause.) AgriculturaI values in the United States in ten years have shown an increase of something over 100 per cent; misunderstanding business has shown an increase Of over lO5 per cent. a very extraordinary and mar velous growth. To serve agriculture and raanufactugirlg, as Governor Bald win; has sa1d, you must have trans portation; and yet with the growth of % per cent. in agricultural value and 105 per cent in manufactur1ng value, the railroad values in the ten years have increased only 42 per cent, and that indicates that the transportation machinery is not increasing-has not increased-as fast as the two great forms of business that need adequate
 transportation for their continued ex-
 pansion. It is probably true that the 42 per cent. increase, coupled with and the adoption of better methods.
 have kept pace with the demands
 placed upon the carriers to serve you
 ssBut the fact today is the increase
 in transportation machinery Is not enough to keep pace with the further
 increase in agriculture and in n1anu- featuring Why this is so is a long story and every man has a. different reason perhaps for it Men engaged in business of course have various reasons, princi pally to make their Hv- ing, and to make money, and in the
 long run. unless the great agricultural business the great manufacturing
 business are so balanced up that each one can make a living. and can make
 some money, they will not engage in
 that particular business.
 There has been a tendency in the
 last twenty years@and quite a. mark ed tendency in the last hve-towards stfls wofk of various foFces te-sso
 narrow the margin between what the railroad collects for the service it per
 forms and what it must pay to Hlanu-
 facture that service, that investors are
 somewhat nervous, and this is having a tendency to check an expansion that is so necessary for each one of you. and for every one who is an optin1ist on the United States or on New Eng
 land One must realize when he thinks of it that this great transpor- tation machine must be Kept ade- ql1ate. if we are to grow.
 s.Tf1e census showed for 1910 that something over 12 per cent. was re- turned to manufacturers: for 1912 the average return on railroad stocks was AIS Der cent-,s and 34 per cent. of the railroad stocks paid no return at all.
 This, 7too, is having it's effect. Things work slowly, but they do work, and we have approached period for rail roads, as a whole, when there is fear | on the part of boards of directors, and fear on the part of stockholders. about the results and the safety of their investment For the six months ending December 31, last, some of the large railroads near here, and i'm portant to this community in bringing 1 in materials and taking out of finish 1 ed products, show some very serious decreases i'm the balance left after paying interest and taxes. Sad to relate, the New Haven is the worst l of all of them The decrease in six
 months on the New Haven was over ] S. coo, GOO: on the Baltimore & Ohio, l $1, FOG, ,O00; on the Jersey Central, $300.-
 900; on the Erie, s1, ,00O; on the New
 York Central $2, 300, 900, and on the
 Pennsylvania nearly $1, 200, ,000-very large sums of money, and creating
 very serious conditions for the re- sponsibIe directors and officers.
 t>Now the expansion of facilities and
 the improvement of facilities is some
 thing that we all want. Nothing
 pIeases railroad officer or railroad empIoye more than to feel that he can
 make his piece of machinery as nearly
 perfect as the human mind can make 1 it: but if cannot be done without
 money, and we can only get the | money in two ways: one is to earn | it through the services we perform | and one is to borrow it ;and the ! things that this community want, and
 that all New England want, mean
 large sums of money. You here are
 interested, in addition to your form l of business, in the passenger question
 You are pleased, and no doubt speak
 with pride at times of the etlectric
 service that is to cone-I hope before
 long@aH the way between New York and New Haven; and yet to produce l that sort of service, and to go on
 with that kind of improvement, means | an enormous sum os money.
 "It is practically 75 miles from New
 York to New Haven; there are two,
 three, four tracks, and many sidings
 and yards in that 75 miles; there are
 470 miles of single track, and the
 identification of just that small piece
 Of the New Haven property, before it ! is finished. will have cost considerably
 more than $21, COG, 900, or over $45 COG