Arizona republican., 1917-12-28
Government Direction of Railway.

We not to regard the taking over of the rail- roads of this country today step toward govern hent ownership or even permanent government man. Sgement or direction. It may turn out to be step fin an opposite direction. The result of it may be such that for years to the demand for govern ment ownership which has for some years been more insistent will be sfed It is not at all probable that the average management of the roads will be any better so far as the public is concerned than it has been in the past. The public that part of the public which has business with the roads may not be we'll satisfied with the government direction of them 1t has been with the private management of them. The needs of the public will be subordinated to the needs of the government so that the public must prepare itself for inconveniences.
 The government had already taken control of the railroads to considerable extent through the priority board and other agencies. These agencies aside thc priority board had succeeded only in producing confusion and lowering the efficiency of the roads, Small whose experience in directing transporta- ton had been limited to seeing that moved 10 the pos became a serious annoyance to railway arrangements with the result that the roads were getting along than if they had been left to their devices. What was needed not the telling of the railroads what do but the compelling of con- rerted action in the doing of it. That is what the taking of the roads today means, and nothing 
 There will not be a multitude of new, remunera- live jobs for those who know nothing but politics. If the government accompishes what it expects to complish the work will be done only by trained rail- road They cannot be hampered by supernum- Rrares. There will not be in the railway offices for those who would have nothing do but draw salaries.
 Not only does the government expect to provide itself with better service than it has had but is bound to that the yearly profits of the do not fall below those of an average pre-war year and that the properties of the railway companies do deteriorate under government direction It will be perceived that the government has undertaken task In the performance of which cannot carry any dead wood.
 Railway workers that is the sighted 1nes do not as a rule favor government ownership of .he railways. They have in mind that government employees in the mass are not usually extravagany paid. The most common instrument in improving attempting to improve wage conditions in private employment is the strike, with the attendant nstru- nents-the boycott the picket These instruments would not be available or permissible against the government The government could not recognize closed shops and those other things believed by organized labor to be essential
 This is not experiment in government man. agement of the railways, preliminary to a further experiment in government ownership. It would be the worst possible time to enter upon such experiment. It is such time the wisest and most earryt ad vocates of government ownership would not choose. It is impossible that the public will be satisfied with the result The government itself, just is the most important of the roads and the chief aim is to satisfy the government nearly as possible. 1t is inevitable, therefore that there will be dis elimination against the public and there is nothing else that has embttered the public against the railroads in private management discrimination.
 We do not mean that the management of the railroads under the government will embitter the public; it will certainly not embtter the patriotic part of the public We think that the patriotism of the country will recognize the greater need of the government and that it will be reconciled to the in- convenences it will suffer. That will be a part of the sacrifice which the public will willingly make What mean is, simply that the memory of these inconveniences long after the necessity for them ha passed away will not be sweet of government management The people then, we think, will be con- let the railway companies their properties in their way. of course, under judicous govern ment control, such as has been exercised for the last ten years.