Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1914-10-01
CRAVE CRISIS CONFRONTS AMERICAN RAILROADS.
War Has Closed Financial Markets Of Europe to Them Indefinitely.

dollars worth of new improvements or
betterments into consideration. These
are obligations which were incurred in
the past and which must be met as
they fall due if the transportation
companies are to be preserved from
wholesale receiverships and ruin.
Manifestly, therefore, American in
vestors. bigsand little, will have to
come to the rescue-and before they
will consent to do this American rail-
road securities will have to be re-es-
tablished as a sound, respected and
paying investment-and this, on the
present basis of railroad earnings is
impossible. Believing, therefore, that
the impending crisis demands that the
railroads frankly and openly lay this
whole complicated problem before the
~people-that they have a heart-to-
heart talk with the farmer, the mer-
chant and the banker on the entire
railroad question, the careful attention
of the reader is invited to a series of
articles which will appear in this news
paper during the next few weeks.
All that is asked is that you read with
an open mind the facts and fignres
presented, which are largely taken
from the records of the Bureau of
Railway Economics at Washington,
D. @. The rest will be cheerfully left
to your sense of what is right and
fair.
Farmers vitality Concerned
Especially is it to be hoped that
farmers whose market facilities and
land values are SO vitality affected by
the railroads will follow these articles
carefully for Agriculture is the Ma
toms greatest industry andits success
is largely dependent upon adequate
and efficient transportation facilities.
In fact, every interest in the land,
whatever its character, is inseparably
interviewer with the railroad problem
and it therefore deserves the sober
thought of all thinking citizens. The
morning after war was declared, Con-
gress suddenly awoke to the fact that
we we're without a merchant marine
in which to send American wheat and
other merchandise across the seas.
How much greater would the calamity
have been had there been a serious
breakdown in our railroads which
would have prevented them from de-
livering the farmers products at our
ocean ports?
We believe every intelligent citizen
will agree that Agriculture, Com
merce, and Industry cannot get along
without the railroads. On the other
hand, the railroads cannot get along
without the patronage-and what il
equally essential, the good will of the
people. That some of those who have
been entrusted with railroad manage
ment in the past are somewhat re-
sponsible for the apparent gulf be-
tween the public and the transPorta-
ton companies is perhaps true. Busy
and harasse ed by the herculean tasks
entrusted to their care, there has
been too little contact between then
and the people. Again, it is undoubted-
true that the world OF railroad finance
as well as other lines Of industrial
activity has had its share of in
~inexcusable abuses-but just as the
public does not hold the banking
world or the ministry responsible al
a whole for the shortcomings of al
occasional black sheep, so the hun
dreds of honest railroad officiall
throughout the country should not be
condemned because Of the misdeedt
Of the few.
Who Owns the Railroads
In this connection; itImay be saiC
that the railroad world is encumberet
with a lot Of phantoms which exis
only in the popular fancy. For in
stance, because there have been SONS
half dozen So called railroad magnatel
whose names have figured appointment.
" in Wall Street, many people have