The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1915-01-07

foremen from $1.51 to $1.83, or FL
per cent! trackmen from $1.15 to
$1.52, or 80 per cent; telegraph oper
ators and dispatchers from 1923 to
$2.65, or IL per cent. This means
general average increase in wages of
80 29-100ths per cent-and all other
classes of railroad operatives and en-
ployees in more or less similar de-
gree. While these advances have
proven a great boon to the nearly two
million men employed in the railway
service and increased their capacity
to buy from merchants and farmers,
they have exacted many millions an
nually from the railroads themselves
all of which made the general pub
lie richer, but the railroads poorer.
In 1900 the railroads paid $1.44 per
ton for coal. Now they pay $1.S1.
Then they paid CSC for ties. Now
they pay SIC.
OTHER INCREASED COSTS.
But there are many other items
which have enormously increased the
cost of railroad operation which we
cannot go into because of lack of
space. The public is constantly de-
handing a more efficient and safer
service, and hence the railroads have
had to spend vast sums in installing
block signals, steel passenger cars,
doing away with grade crossings,
Strengthening lines, heavier locomo-
tives, better roadbeds, and supplying
many other precautions protecting
both their operatives and the public
all things very necessary, yet very
costly. So, too, numerous states
have passed 'Full Crew. laws which,
without benefitting the public, have
compelled the railroads to pay toll
of millions to useless employees.
Now, while labor, farm products,
merchandise and manufactures and
supplies of all kinds have steadily in
creased in price, the railroads, as
stated before, have been compelled to
reduce their rates in the face of this
avalanche of ever advancing cost of
operation-and that all but the most
powerful lines find themselves in an
exceedingly critical condition is not
to be wondered at. The farmer, the
merchant, the manufacturer and the
laborer justly insist that they. would
not be able to get along on the prices
they have received ten or fifteen
years ago. How, then, can the.
railroads, which are the largest en-
ployers of labor and buyers of mater=
ial in the United States, be expected
to exist on less than they received ten
or fifteen years ago? In view of these
facts, it is no wonder that President
Wilson and other patriotic students
of the situation are speaking words
of kindly admonition to the Ameri-
can public, to the end that the rail-
roads, through whose giantsArteries
flow the very life blood of the nation
may not be wrecked and destroyed.
THE PUBLIC AND THE MANAGER.
On the one hand, for the last twen-
ty-fve years the public has demand
ed the best and highest efficiency in
service and lower rates in one and
the same breath On the other hand
stand the thousands of men and wo-
in railroad securities and who, in
common with the farmer, the manu-
facturer and the merchant, believe
they are entitled to fair profit.
Then come the hundreds of thousands
of employees who are continually
clamoring for an increase in wages,
as we'll as the cost Of all manner of
railroad supplies which is constantly
advancing-and between them, as ar
biters, stand the managers of the
roadside big hired men, strug-
Cling with might and main to recon-
cile all these conflicting interests in
the face of reduced rates upon every
hand. That they have at last reach
ed a point where they can continue
the unequal struggle no longer
should not be a matter of wonder
and in face of the harsh and un-
friendly criticism which has descend
ed upon their heads from every quar-
ter they find themselves in the men
tai attitude of the fiddler in the West
ern mining camp, when he yelled,
please don't shoot boys, I'm doing
the best l can paid adv. To be
continued next week.
Common Sense in Obituaries.
How grand it is for the newspaper