Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1915-11-08
BLUE SKY ALONG THE RAILROAD HORIZON

Mr.. B. f Bush, receiver of the Missouri Pacific sys-
tem recently delivered address before the Commercial
Club of ST. Louis on the question: why are certain
important western railroads in the hands of recevers
He drew an exceedingly gloomy picture sort of
charcoal SKETCH all black and with no light effects His
answer was somewhat "multtudiuOus," he giving so
many reasons each of which sufficient to supply the
answer to his question: that in the aggregate the
ming up-the astonishing thing was not that the rail
roads in the hands of receivers but that they
in existence
What Mr. Bush needs is to reverse his telescope apply
his eye to the smaller end and get larger view of the
situation
1t no doubt true that the railroads. particularly those
of the Central West in rather bad way 1t also
true that great deal of the recentegsatOn has appar
emily been designed for the destruction rather than the
regulation of railroads. 1t is true that wages and cost
of material have advanced and taxes have increased
abundanty 1t is true that while these things were hav
ing their effect the debit side of the ledger that rates
have been arbitrarily lowered perhaps he claims "be
yond the possibility of profit" and that as he further
says The railroads have been ground between the up
per and the neither mistones of public antagonsm and
economic circumstances"
If Mr. Bush had remembered that one milestone alone
can grind nothing that teeth good unless opposite
another he might have found bit of blue sky along
the eastern horizon of his picture for there is much evil
dence that public opinion is changing and the bitter
tagonism fading away The fact is being and more
recognized that production and transportation united
beyond all power of divorce Each without the other is
vaueess That is why the blue sky is appearing The
producer long ago knew that his existence depended
transportation and while the railroads knew that they
were dependent the producer entirely they had the
mistaken dea that in the division of the partnership
earnings transportation was entitled to all the profits
while production must be satisfied with board and
clothes They thought they had the producer where he
had to patronize them and so adopted the A the traffic
will stand policy in their dealings They watered Stocks
some of them and some they balooned with hot air. in
ated them to the bursting point and insisted the pro-
ducer pay rates that would yield good returns this
injected wind and water They took charge of the pro-
duceS politics too elected his United States senators for
him generally and ran things with high hand. The
story is too long to elaborate and besides everybody
knows it.
Then the producer driven to the wall began to fight
and after another he extracted the teeth of his old
time partner until he got him in condition that he could
not bite In doing this he used drastic MEANS and being
pretty well out of humOr probably carried his far from
painless dentistry too far The railroads realize this
latter fact and they also realize that it their
arrogance and bull headedness that caused them all the
trouble.
That is where the patch of blue sky shows up.
Production having given Transportation man's-sze
dose of its medicine realizes that it af
ford to wrong the railroads than it could to be wrOnged
by them. They each realize their nterdependence Pub
lie antagonsm is dying out, is practically dead; and
while there will be such legislation as will permit the rail
roads to fair returns their investments the latter
will never again be permitted to get away with the idea
that they own the public instead of serving it. The
pendulum has swung each way with unnecessary violence
but is rapidly settling down to its normal sweep. The
blue sky is in sight for both Production and Transpora
finn