The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-12-07
BITTER RAIL
FIGHT is ON
Interstate Commerce Com
mission Backed by the
Administration
CRISIS DEVELOPS
AS TO OWNERSHIP
The President May Send a
Special Message to
Congress

Washington, Dec. THE interstate
commerce commission, incidentally sup.
ported by the administration, has staged
in Congress, bitter fight between con.
servatives and radicals over the railroad
question. In its unexpected recommen-
dation that the railroads unity them
selves and conduct their operations
| throughout the war as one organization,
the commission has given evidence of its
recognition of crisis which must result
either In such plan as is outlined or in
government ownership. This crisis has
been approaching slowly, through the
extraordinary demands upon the rail-
roads and the hesitancy to, permit them
to increase their rates for several years
before the United States entered the war.
With the coming of the war the trans
portation systems practically broke
down because during the long regime of
unsympathetic and hampering legisla
ton, capital had avoided the railroad
field and the roads were unable to extend
their facilities. Some of the influences
operating against the roads, notably in
Congress, have been determined upon a
narrow and ungenerous policy toward
them for the purpose of forcing govern
ment ownership.
The same elements in Congress which
have led in this policy OF spoilatlon, as
it may be termed, will now unite to OPP
pose any loans to the railroads such as
the interstate commerce commission pro-
poses in addition to such increases of
freight rates as may be granted. As
these dispatches have pointed out before,
the railroad managers could not surren-
der their properties to system of uni
fication unless they were insured against
losses incident to the operation of such
system which would wreck many rail |
road properties. In Great Britain the
government reimburses the railroads for |
losses sustained through the exigencies |
of war, but in this country no such sys-
tenn has been adopted and legislation to
that end is necessary. Attacks upon the |
railroads for "selfshness" in this connec- |
ton fail to take in account that 10000 |
600 persons, instead of a small group of |
own the railroad properties of |
the country, that the failure of railroad |
dividends would impoverish thousands of
stock holders of the middle class and that
the railroad arrangements have no right
to wreck their properties in the alleged
public interest when such wreckage
means not only the ruin of the transpor-
tation system itself but of the men and
women who have invested their money
in it.
For these reasons railroad unifcation
md government loans to railroads 90
hand in hand This is the nub of the
Whole question of operating the railroads
o the best advantage for war purposes.
Congress either can force government
ownership at a time when it would add
to the burdens and embar-
assments of the officials charged with /.
he conduct of the war, or it can adopt
he businesslike policy of welding the
Dads temporarily into one powerful and :
Iexible instrument of war, which shall
lot lack for support during the war or
uffer destruction as result of nation /:
lization. The United States is losning !
hundreds of millions of dollars to build
p the railroads of Russia, France and :
Their European country belligerents, yet
here are men in both houses of the ,
american Congress who would vote I:
gainst loaning a dollar to sustain the J
ailroads at home, notwithstanding that
hould they fail the war would fail. Elk !.
city the same tests of patriotism as
ave been given before in Congress win
ow be repeated, with the railroad ques !.
ion as the issue. Fortunately no di. !
ision upon partisan lines need be expect |
4 upon this issue. Congress has formed ]
patriotic coalition for the conduct of !
he war which might well be emulated in !
Their parts of the national capital