Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1915-01-28

enterprises which are able to ad-
vance their prices to meet the ex-
igencies of the hour. The railroads
are bound hand and. foot and can
charge no more than the law says.
Suppose that through some statute
the State of Iowa should say to the
| farmer, that regardless of the cost
of production or the volume of yield
he shall sell his corn at not to ex-
coed SO cents per bushel? Or sup
pose that through some similar man
date it should say to Iowa grocers
that they shall sell 25 pounds of
granulated sugar for one dollar? OF
course, these suggestions are rad
ical and yet, is this not in sub
stance what the State of Iowa is
forcing upon her railroads when it
names the rates they may charge
without taking the increased cost of
labor, fuel, taxes, ETC., into consid-
GRAFTON? Is it not equally as unfair
Is there anything about a railroad
which places it ABOVE the inexor-
able law of cause and effect? Well
might they exclaim with Shylock in
his pathetic defence of the Jew, "If
you prick US, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If
you poison us, do we not die?"
In this connection we wish to di-
gress for a moment to quote some
statistics which should have had a
place in a former article. 1t costs an
average of mills per mile to haul a
ton of freight in the United States,
whereas, in England it costs 2.33
cents, in Germany 1.42 cents, and in
France 1.41 cents. In the United
States the average wages paid to rail-
road employees are 1928 per day,
in England s1.15, and in Germany
and France not over 81 per day. The
English railroads are capitalized at
$265,000 per mile, in France at
$4,000 per mile, in Germany at
$114,1S5 while in the United States
the stock and bond capitalization
averages only $4,000 per mile. In
view of this remarkable comparison,
do American railroads deserve the
wholesale denunciation which has
been heaped upon them?
Facing Grave Problems
PROFESSIONALLY we are facing some
of the gravest pro blems that ever
confronted us as Nation-and
these problems grow largely out of
a war which is wit bout precedent in
history. True with rapidly increas-
ing cost of operation on the one hand
and reduced rates on the other, ii
was merely a mater of time until
the railroad question was bound to
become pressing-but the great trag-
edy across the seas has suddenly re-
solved into an acute crisis problem
which might otherwise have been
solved gradually and without any
far-reaching Industrial disturbance.
The United States is a heavy debt
or Nation. During the average year
our balance of trade against the rest
OF the world amC UNITS to approx
mately $500,000,000, but on top of
this we always owe approximately an
other $500,000,000 which hereto
fore we have been able to stand off
by selling Europe industrial securi-
ties to that amount. Now, however,
the great warning countries have
served notice that they not only ex-
pect us to pay our debts above Our
trade balances in gold, but that in
addition they look to us to buy back
from them hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of American securities
which are now held abroad. 1t was
to deliver this grim message that
Sir George Paish, of the English Ex-
chequer, paid his recent visit to the
United States and when he got
through making his statement to a
group of big New York bankers, an
old veteran financier who has sur
vived many a financial storm re-
marked to his profoundly silent au-
ditors, THE Sheriff, with a writ, is
on the doorstep"
In the present instant, the rail-
road crisis is of tremendous import
ance because in II is involved the
still greater problem of the integrity
and safety of the whole superstruc-
ture of American business. That we
cannot shove it asi lie by broadside
of demagogic platii udes or minimize
1t by employing tie strategy of an
ostrich is apparent 70 every man who