The Washington herald., 1917-11-20
The Alternative to Government Ownership.

The Herald reprints the following editorial from
yesterdays New York Times because of its tmeiness
and the splendid manner in which handles the rail-
road situation:
"Mr VanderIip sees further into the railway ques-
ten than those who think that the railways trouble is
a matter of rates. Government ownership might make
the railways solvent but government ownership would
be satisfactory than government regulation, II
government management should attempt to do incon-
Sistent things at the same time. As Mr.. Vanderlip
points out regulation and competition not consist
ent with each other The railways are directed to com
pete and forbidden to compete Under the compulson
of they giving demonstration of what they can
do if they allowed to do what they know ought to
be DONE but what the law forbids them to do. They
combining heinously They are competing not at
all. They are carrying more traffic than was ever
moved on wheels before anywhere and they are doing
at the lowest rates In history and paying the highest
costs. What business show better record of
patriotism and efficiency? What government railway
has any such record?
properties scandalouS prosperous, is such high rates
and such low wages rule government railways.
1t has been calculated that government ownership rates
would enable our railways to pay 40 per cent dividends
The payment of dividends is a means to end, the
end that capital may be attracted to railway investments
The service of business is important than the pay
ment of dividends. The solution of the railway prob
lem which should make the railways profitable at the
cost OF the taxpayers the reduction of the efficiency
OF the railways to the standards of government rail-
ways, would be unsatisfactory than the present
basis.
mo authority railways regards our railways in
the same temper our regulators. Countless foreign
observers have told that railways better
than theirs and they study ways for the sake of
adopting them Not so our regulators. They in
durable optimstS about their abilities, and incur
able pesSmists about railways competency learn
what it, is sought to teach them. Well the record is
before the country The regulators have had it all their
own way for generation What have they settled in
the way of what they undertook to do? They have
corrected abuses of conduct and entitled recog
milton and praise for that But what have they done
in he Of he Of
ants of commerce Has the long and short haul ques
ton been settled 1t has been decided both ways, and
Oftense has been given alternately in each direction
The subject will be brought before Congress at the first
opportunity with intent to take away from the COM
mission the plenay discretion given to it to deal with
the matter after the disposition of Congress had failed
Were receivershps ever more numerous? Has the re-
ation of interstate and intrastate commerce been
tied in thirty years. On the contrary, political ques
ton has been piled the economic question Has the
relation of water and land carriers been settled by the
generation of regulation? On the contrary, there is
danger of uneconomic competition between them at the
first relaxation of the congestion which makes both of
them necessary now.
All conflicts of interests not to be settled by
government ownership The railway question is stuffed
with local questions than the tariff. 1t is
much matter of competition between the railways
matter of competition of section with section of
ket with market, of commodity with another,
with substitute Settlement of these and such rival
ries by power is not an economic settlement. The
sitting OF complaint is not the administering of
remedy The bestowal of prosperity by edct, the de-
of stagnation by those without responsibility ex-
cept in their official places is not the settlement of the
railway question. 1t has been settled within human
limitations, far it is matter of conduct as to
what ought to be done There is no Ought" in
economic affairs The management of railways, con-
duct aside is matter of discretion, varying with con-
dtions and admitting of many settlements The regu-
ators have sought the permanent settlement They
have thought that they Judges appointed to move
the mountain towns to the coast the towns
the midcontinent They have thought that their
function to settle how great profits should be rather
than to impose reasonable rates and allow the profits
to be regulated by efficiency The profits problem is
in its worst condition The relation of the weak roads
to the strong roads so muddled. Govern
ment ownership is indeed refuge for the regulators
1t is another promise by those who gave government
regulation of the sort enjoying. What of
government management would they give?/