The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-23
RAILR OADS AND WAR
By HOLLAND

 New York; August -(Special)-Presl-
 dent Fairfax Harrison of the Southern
 Railroad company, who is chairman or the railroads war board, has recently authorized a statement which contains an object lesson to which legislators and
 the people will pay heed after the exl-
 gencies of the war have ended.
 President Harrison has received re- ports which show that the railroads of the United States, acting almost as a sim gle unit, certainly in full cooperation and coordination. have been able to secure
 extraordinary results in the improve
 ment of freight car supplies. In three
 months the railroads war board by its cooperative methods reduced car short age so that upon August l, 1917, it was
 only one-fourth as great as on May l. 1917 This was accomplished in spite of the fact that the railroads handled in July an unprecedented amount of govern
 ment and commercial traffic.
 The government itself, therefore, through the aid given to it by the rail roads war board, has demonstrated that the principle advocated by railway man. agers based upon co-ordnation and CO., operation and in fact upon pooling, IS sound. If it be true that results Of this kind can be obtained through cooperation of the railroads of the United States in a few months. ai- , though that cooperation is perfected so as to aid the government, it must be true that reasonable cooperation and co-ordi- nation and reasonable pooling reguiated under government authority will in time of peace furnish the merchants and shlp- pers of the United States with facilities which they have not for a long time en- joyed.
 President Harrison says that it is the
 purpose of the railway managers of the
 United States acting with the approval and encouragement of the government to put each car to the greatest possible use,
 to have empty cars placed where they
 are most needed. to prevent overlapping
 and unnecessary service, and, in fact, to make the entire railway system of the United States the most effective trans portation agency in winning the war.
 But if efficiency of this kind can be thus secured to the great advantage of the gov ernment, there is, in the view of Frank Trumbull no reason why it might not also be secured under adequate govern ment regulation to the advantage of the business and commercial interests of the United States.
 The recent declaration of the extra div
 idend of 10 per cent upon the stock of, the Burlington Railway company has been spoken of as a fine vindication of the foresight and judgment which led James
 J. Hill in association with the late J. F.
 Morgan to secure control of the Burling- ton railway system But it is also vim dication of the really marvellous foresight of John M. Forbes, who in the mid -forties
 was the original promoter of the Burling ton railway system. When MT. Forbes tending westerly from Chicago which he expected would be an extension of the
 Michigan Central system, whose comple-
 tion was due to his energy and ability to
 secure in Boston the capital with which
 to complete the work he forecasted an
 inconceivably great development of the
 uncultivated and almost uninhabited
 country through which he planned the
 Burlington system to run. He believed
 that in due time trade and industry would
 follow the rails and to such an extent
 that the Burlington system would become