Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1915-01-02

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 dread 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, but rather
the out growth of conditions which
have been slowly but surely crystal
izing for 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 had a depressing
effect upon business conditions.
Again we have been passing through
period of industrial readjuStment
of changing from the loose meth
DDS which prevailed a dozen or so
years ago over TO policy of strict
government control of public service
corporations and sharp inquiry into
the conduct of all other large corpor-
ations- and, in trying to stamp out
the abuses of the past, the pendulum
has swung so far in the other direc-
tion 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 re-
ceivers upon the rocks of financial
wreck and ruin.
That the depressed financial condi-
ton of the railroads is largely respon-
sible for the great army of unemploy
ed was wildly demonstrated by a
prominent St. Louis newspaper the
other day wien it showed that nine
St. Louis manufacturing establish
plies employed 14,673 men one year
ago, whereas now they employ only
4 ,5O3, with a reduction in their pay
rolls amounting to 1858, 700 per month
or over seven million dollars per year
If the effect upon only nine enter
prises 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 a greater or less degree
throughout the country? Nearly all
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 already
ordered; the railroads are not placing
any new contracts, and unless they
receive speedy assistance from the
Interstate Commerce Commission
and the rate making authorities of
the different states the tendency will
be for labor conditions to grow grad
ually 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 wom-
en- 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 chef support of
the hundreds of thousands employed
in these great industries.
In view of these facts, is it not
plain to any thinking man that it is
of tremendous importance to the
whole country that the railroads be
permitted TO earn a reasonable in
come if the millions of American
laboring men are TO be kept profit
ably employedI
Does not any man know that if the
thousands who are hunting for work
in Chicago, ST. Louis, New Y ork,
Pittsburgh, Cleveland and other
large cities were protirably employed
that il would mean a higher price
for what the farmer has TO sell and
that it would be reflected in the re-
ceipts of every merchant and the out
put 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 railroads
upon a sound basis? Is not the
amount of passenger fare or freight
which the average farmer or other
citizen pays out during the year a
mere bagatelle when measured
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