Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1915-04-12

to all these requirements must of ne
cessity be maintained consistently at
a high standard; these standards
must be advanced to fit the advanc-
ing standards in all business, and it
must reach out with energy in an
ticipation of the growth of business
and the extension of business into
new fields. That is to say, the pub
lie interest puts upon transportation
the obligation OF service. The public
! interest demands, and with increas-
ing insistence, that the transporta-
.tion companies serving it shall be the
best in the world, because serving the
most active-minded, energetic, rest
less and most insistent people in the
world.
Wherever civilization exists the 60
ahead spirit Of the American people
is proverbial. Like every other prov
erb, this one has it's exception. That
exception is transportation. Ameri-
can transportation has lost its mo-
mentum. The go-ahead spirit which
animated it and made it one of the
American characteristics has been
crushed. The finest thoroughbred,
spirited and eager in the hands of
him who understands, becomes droop-
ing and dispirited under stupid abuse
and cudglinG. 1t has we'll been said
that a nation never stands still; it
goes either forward or backward;
that an individual never stands still,
but either makes progress or lags
behind. So with business. Inevit-
ably so with transportation, and
transportation is not going forward.
The American flag is disappearing
from the seas. Within the ten years
ending with the close of 1913 the
tonnage moved in the United States
grew by rs per cent, the tonnage of
Lperishables by 106 per cent, while
during that period railroad construc-
tion increased but II per cent, and
with the opening of this year had
slowed down almost to a dead stop.
Today railroad construction in the
United States has ceased, except to
finish few odds and ends.
Repression of Railroad Energy.
AS to the railroads we have. they
are under the heavy hand of repres-
sion. The public attitude with re-
spect to them has very little to do
with the public interest. The kind
of interest on the part of the public
which is aroused by the platitudes
and prejudices voiced from ten thou
tsand political platforms is at variance
with what is really to the public in
terost These harangues which find
widest circulation prate about a very
few phases OF the transportation
question, and minor topics are mag
nified for the popular eye to look like
the big things. Such topics as dis
elimination, watered stock and over
capitalization, and Influence upon
politics, have the changes rung upon
them until the popular imagination
Is stirred into the belief that the
most useful agency ever placed at
the service of man, for the widening
of civilization and the interchange of
products and manufactures, has by
some mysterious process become a
serious menace, placing in jeopardy
the public interest. The fact Is ig-
nored that regulation was established
more than a quarter of century
since and has constantly been in ac-
tive operation from that time. This
regulation was established primarily
to suppress practices savoring of dis
elimination which had developed
from free and unfettered competition.
Up to that time competition prevailed
in the transportation business with
the same freedom with which II pre-
vailed in all Industrial and CONNER
cial lines OF activity. Railroads
sought business as any merchant
sought it. The railroad went after
business upon the principle of cap
turing the customer and upon the
many different terms necessary to
accomplish that purpose, Every rail-
road tried to get the better of every
competing railroad, every shippei
tried to get the better of every other
shipper. The shipper played upon
the jealousies and competitive fears
of the railroads, the railroads worked
upon the cupidity of the shippers.
The pressure of competition as be-