Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-07-24

Not within the memory of the pres
ent generation has there ever occurred
so Scathing an arraignment of proml-
nent men by a government investi-
eating body as the bombshell proved
| to be which the Interstate Commerce
Commission hurled last week into the
camp of the New Haven board of
directors which presided over the
affairs of the road while Mellen was
the proud and dominant cock of the
| rooSt. The commission charged these
directors with being guilty of almost
every known offense in finance
rcpugnant to upright dealings from
gross maladministration of great
| trust to. the petty ways of a ward
heeler bribing legislators. The i'm
preston the commissions report of its
| investigation of this one-time premier
! New England road left on the public
| mind could not have been worse than
| if there was found beneath the robe of
a saint the black and sinister figure of
| Lucifer.
The sins of the Mckinley generation
of hothouse financiers are now being
visited upon the present generation.
| The broad license then allowed to our
| buccaneering promoters of overcapl-
| tGliZed trusts is now reaping its Whirl-
wind. A time had to come when a
| full accounting had to be made to the
people for the millions raised to put
such deals through, and the reckoning
| has shown a monumental deficit not
| only on the side of profit but also in
| character of some of our eminent
| fnanciers. Our financial heroes like
Morgan, Mellen, Yoakum, Moores, Reid
and others have turned out men of
straw and the people have come to the
! conclusion that they have been truck
| ling to false gods: even to men who
| in the scale of human character were
as thoughtless of the rights of others
4, a hi igf 81
of the old Erie a byword of piratical
| financing.
While we are cleaning the mire out
| of our Angean stables there should be
no pause until the job has been thor
| oughly done because of some tender
| fear that it is not doing general busi-
ness any good. The work that is now
going on should have been finished in
| 1907, but it was covered up then. The
panic in that year was the first symp-
| tom to show itself, indicating that the
| financial structures we had built up
with the advent of the great period of
prosperity that followed the Spanish
American War were faulty. The bill
| lions of dollars of watered capital
| ization with which we loaded up our
railroads and industrial corporations
| had settled to their foundations, but
these foundations were found far from
| strong enough to bear the weight, and
| tcppled to earth, bringing down in
their crash myriads of fortunes, small
and large, of American and European
| investors.
There is but one way to get back to
sound financing and that is by thor
| oughly cleaning up the ruins So let
the work proceed, for it cannot help
| but lead to much healthier conditions,
and this is the omega toward which
all honest men should turn their faces
| even though in doing the work tenn
porary suffering must be endured;
| otherwise we shall have to contend
with the recurrence of problems we
| are now trying to solve. In face of the
New Haven investigation Wall Street
will hardly dare to further assail the
good intentions of President Wilson to
make bad big business change its
methods There are to be other probes.
| The Rock Island financing, also the
| Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal and the
| New York Central are still awaiting
"X-raying" by the Interstate Com
merce Commission.
From what reports have leaked out
| from Washington it will possibly be a
| week yet before the commerce COM
mission will render its decision on
whether the railroads are to get a rate
| increase or not. Confidence Is not
running as high now as it did a few
weeks ago that the roads will get all
li'Cy nave dShSu IOI, but Only do Hlutll
as the commission can consistently
give, and that it will not amount to
more than the evidence has shown
| the roads to have lost through in
crease in wages and cost of material.
This as figured will not come to more
than SIS, 100000, or a third of what
! the railroads wanted. so If reduced to
| figures the rate increase will average
aout 1 2-3 per cent. On the other
hand the Interstate Commerce Com
mission is expected to point out to the
railroads how they can materially in
crease their net incomes by roofing
out excessive charges that high financ-
ing has needlessly fastened upon them.
Although no receivership has been
announced for any of the Gould roads,
the week has seen the unusual de-
velopment of the formation of pro-
tective committees, which is taken to
mean that the insiders have full
knowledge of what is about to happen
and have made arrangements to be in
the field long before independent COM
mitees have had time to form. Who