Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1915-01-14
RUHS & CARTER
FARMERS VITALITY CON.
CERNED IN RAILROADS
What The European War Means To
The American Farmer.

The American Farmer.
That every city of any size in the
country is full of thousands of idle
men at the present moment is fact
well known to every reader of news
papers--for hardly day passes that
the press is not full of comment
about the hungry thousands who
stand in the bread line" and patron
ize the free soup houses" in every
large center of population. Nor is
this state of affairs due to the policy
of any particular political party, but
rather the outgrowth of conditions
which have been slowly but surely
crystalliZing for a number of years.
In the first place, the Corn Belt--the
great bread basket of the Nation
has had series of slim crops in
most sections and this naturally has
had a depressing effect upon bust
ness conditions. Again, we have
been passing through period of in
dustrial adjustment - of changing
| from the loose methods which pre-
vailed dozen or so years ago over
to policy of strict government con-
/, troll of public service corporations and
sharp inquiry into the conduct of
all other large corporations-and, in
trying to stamp out the abuses of
the past, the pendulum has swung so
/ far in the other direction that so far
as the railroads are concerned, at
least, it threatens to precipitate the
most of them which are not already
in the hands of receivers upon the
rocks of financial wreck and ruin.
That the depressed financial con-
4 dition of the railroads is largely re-
sponsible for the great army of un-
employed was wildly demonstrated
by prominent st. Louis newspaper
recently when it showed that nine
st. Louis manufacturing establish
ments which deal in railroad sup
plies employed 1853 men one year
ago, whereas now they employ only
1903, with reduction in their pay
rolls amounting to $58S,700 per
month, or over seven million dollars
year. If the effect upon only nine
| enterprises is as far reaching as this,
what would the figures show If they
were available for similar industries
and the hundreds of other enterprises
affected in greater or less degree
throughout the country? Nearly all
of these concerns have on hand hun
dreds of thousands of dollars worth
of finished equipment which was or
dered by the railroads year or so
ago, but which they have not been
able to pay for; in the meantime,
not being able to pay for goods al
ready ordered, the railroads are not
placing any new contracts, and un-
less they receive speedy assistance
! from a Nationwide standpoint the
tendency will be for labor conditions
to grow worse rather than better.
In last weeks article we referred
to the fact that the railroads are the
largest employers of labor in the
United States and that during the
last fiscal year they paid out over
thirteen hundred million dollars in
wages to the army of men and wo-
men who conduct their business. We
also referred to the fact that they
paid out almost thousand million
dollars for steel, coal, lumber and
other supplies of which they are the
largest consumers in the country,
and therefore the chief support of
the hundreds of thousands employed
in these great industries.
. In view. of these facts, is il not
plain to any thinking man that it is
of tremendous importance to the
whole country that the railroads be
permitted to earn reasonable in
come If the millions of American
laboring men are to be kept profit
ably employed? 0
Does not any man know that IL
the thousands who are this moment
hunting for work in Chicago, St.
Louis, New York, Pittsburgh, Cleve-
land and other large cities were
profitaSly employed that it would
mean higher price for what the
farmer has to sell and that 1t would
be reflected in the receipts of every
merchant and the output of every
factory in the Nation?
In view of such serious state of
affairs, can the average farmer or
business man afford to oppose the
small increase in rates which is nee
essary to once more put the rail-
roads upon a sound basis? Is not
the amount of passenger fare or
freight which the average farmer or
other citizen pays out during the