The Washington times., 1914-04-02

The fact is the railroads cannot give US the
service we demand, pay the wages and taxes
they are paying, and live on the income to
which the Government is grudgingly holding
them down.
But the chaotic condition of the railroad
business is only little worse than that of
business generally throughout the country.
There is no snap and 60 to anything, and
everything is in blue funk. In view of these
conditions, what are our chances of having
good times? We hear the question all the
while. 1t is on everybody's lips. The answer
is vital. 1t affects our entire population, one
hundred million human souls. No one is be-
yond the sphere of its influence. Our ex-
penditures, our incomes, the scope of our un-
dertakings, the scale of our lIving-our
necessities, our comforts, our pleasures, our
luxuries, our savings, and our very future
all depend upon it.
We are temperamental, impressonable
people. When we have good times we hurl
ourselves on enterprise and sweep every
thing before U.S. When we have hard times
and feel the pinch of poverty and see idle
cars, idle factories, and idle labor, we get
lift of the blues, which makes US distrust our
institutions, distrust ourselves and look upon
life as one weary grind.
We have wallowed In the slough Of de-
spond since the beginning Of 1910, and today
our securities, battered and tattered, find lit
tie favor with European investors. Every
enterprise has felt the lack of confidence, the
lack of courage, and has perforce squared it.
self to that grim, ill-shapen thing-the thin
pocketbook.
But human nature, and particularly Ameri-
can human nature, cannot be kept down for
ever. We have had enough of the valley,
with its fogs and chills, and want to get away
from it all and once more look out on the
world from the sun-swept heights. And, too,
we want to hear the old, old story of what a
wonderful country we have, OF the vastness OF
our resources, the colossal measure of our
undertakings, the bulging Of values and the
song of opulence and wealth and riches-en-
thralling music to our ears.
Starving the railroads and hostility to
capital are responsible for our business de-
preston and industrial { stagnation. The
Government has overplayed its hand in hu-
initiating capital and breaking up our big en-
terprises. Its obvious worry lest some
body, somewhere, somehow, might make
dollar has been overdone. Continue
the policy of starving the railroads
and we shall continue to starve ourselves,
and shall have no good times. Let the rail
roads make decent living, and the wheels
of enterprise will leap into activity.
But Wall Street says good times are
here. Wall Street may be right and may be
wrong. Things have been deadly dull down
there for so long that every one clutches at
the very suggestion of hope. Hope in Wall
Street is perhaps father to the wish. 1t
looks to me as if it were in this instance.
Wall Street is amazingly elastic in its con-
clusions When it comes to shifting its opin-
ions, it puts lightning change artist out of
the running.
am not writing as pessimist. l am
an optimist through and through, but optim-
ism must take cognizance of facts. And what
are the facts on which to base the hope for
business activity, with our new low tariff,
unless we get gigantic impetus from some
source or other?
1t is clear that with our high wage We
cannot get this impetus from such exports
as come into competition with the products
of the low wage of the rest of the world.
And if not from exports, whence shall we
get the quickening influence? The new cur
rency law won't bring it. The new currency
law will perhaps make money easier, but
money is already easier than need be, both
at home and abroad.
The lower price of money will no doubt
benefit the farmer and perhaps stimulate him
to wider activities. This will be good in it.
self, and may have some effect in lowering