The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-17

hands of some needy widows and
 orphans; but if is unlikely that any
 railroad will claim that such element
 predominates numerically among It's
 stockholders or wields a controlling in
 fiuence when officers are elected or pol
 icies formulated Literally. their claims about the widow and orphan are. doubtless, true. Nearly. or quite all, the Wall street magnates possessing $1o,- coo, ,000 or more are orphans and some half dozen women whose fortunes are counted in eight figures are widows whose husbands made their money In sallroads and whose Investments nat urally remain in such enterprises. Does 1t sound too much like anarchy to sus- gest the unfairness of laying heavier taxes on the people in times like these { ? make overflowing the coffers or such widows" and "orphansr
 In opening the railroads case before the interstate commerce commission, Chair- man Willard of the Baltimore and Ohio
 Railroad company said, referring to the railroad earnings: '"rhe income applicable to interest dividends and surplus. during the fiscal year just closed was s265,Too,ooo
 or 4.06 per cent upon the total capital op- legations, this return also being lower than any in 10 years
 In response for the shippers Chairman Thorne of the Iowa railroad commission
 
 country over, have given their side to the public and have painted the present and immediate past, in dead black colors While they have told the truth. they have not told all the truth. The per ton rate | of 7.29 the country over is the same to- | day as it was 16 years ago. Their earnings l in general are s400,000,0O0 greater this year 1 than they were l6 years ago.
 '"There has been a national cry that l the railroads throughout the country. l through lack of money. have been forced 1 to curtail, and indeed in some cases to | stop the buying of supplies In spite of l this plaint, for the year 1913 they pur- 1 chased over $67 100000 worth more of sup plies than in any previous year. For the year ending July, 1914 there was bought 1 by the railways $9000,000 worth of supplies
 more than in any like period'-$14S, 900 | more in last two years.
 The matter of gross revenue of many carriers and the question of work Tor | many thousand employees, now out Of | work. could be solved by slight reduction | in many rates, where now ''all the traffic | will bear" does not leave enough profit l for the shippers to warrant him handling | the business. To illustrate: A certain printing establishment in this city has been accustomed to save waste and cut tings for shipments to an eastern paper factory, the accumulations running to two or tHTee cdIS per year. Y UT iidny years the rate charged on this move
 ment allowed shipper a slight profit and judging from long continuance yielded the carriers reasonable returns. About one year ago. however the railroad raised the rate to prohibitive figure, and not n pound has moved since-the entire lot go- ing into trash wagons
 A slight reduction in rates on lumber for example, would permit shipment of many thousand carloads now allowed to waste in the woods and around mills; or, at best that is only used locally on a comparatively short haul. If the railroads would put in 15c rate on lumber to Gin cinnati and corresponding reduction to other consuming centers. the business could still be handled at profit and the sawmills alone would furnish suf- ficient additional tonnage to put every idle train crew in Alabama back to regu- lar work. The application is pertinent to many other commodities, and, conversely. a raise in rates will curtail the volume of traffic to degree that may destroy