The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-17
HOW RAILROADS
 REACH EVERYONE
By HoLLAND


 Some weeks ago a carefully prepared
 estimate for the dumber of individuals in the United States who are directly , or indirectly Interested in the railway properties oG the country fixed the num- Der at 5o,0o0,00o. Many of these are in- dividual shareholders. Many of the
 large Corporations, including insurance companies and savings banks, have in
 vested some part of their resources in railway securities. These investments
 represent money put into the savings banks or paid for insurance premiums by a great number of individuals.
 | If that estimate be correct, then nearly one-half of the entire population of the United States is or should be concerned over the attitude which Con- gress and the government at Washing ton will take toward the railway situa- tion. No other single industry although 1t rfay, as the steel industry does, com prise many individual groups, compares in the number of persons interested in / 1t, with the number which it is as sumed, represents that part of our population which directly or indirectly is interested in the railroads
 Therefore, whatever attitude may be taken by the President or by Congress toward the railroad situation affects ] larger number of people than any other controlling action the government could 1 take, even the stupendous and at pres ent exceptional or emergency work of providing the munitions for war.
 Railway managers in New York do not care to speak for publication of the pre- sumptive authorization by Congress whereby the President can assume and direct through highly competent subor- I dinates the operation of American rail- roads. One detail associated with this | proposition refers to the actual and recognized individual authorities who { under the President will assume com plete control of the American railroads. ] Occasionally it is said that each mem 1 Der of the railway war board at Wash ington. including Daniel Willard, who is
 an exofficio member of that board, is as competent as any living railway man
 ager to undertake this colossal task. But 1 it is frequently said that the late E. H.. Hartman, were he living, would be tperhaps the ideal supreme director and controller, although the name of James J. Hill is also mentioned,
 While MT Hartman was, in spec tacular and wonderfully rapid way, building up the Union Pacific railroad he was believed to contemplate a na- tion-wide consolidation of American railroads. He looked at the proposition from the same viewpoint as the one he took when he was building up the Union Pacific. He believed that consolidation
 would, if supplemented by competent government supervision, result in the highest possible efficiency of the rail-
 roads and ultimately would reduce greatly the cost of Transportation. and therefore the rates necessary to charge in order to gain resa sasonable earning He had faith in coordination, being con virced that for the railroads of the United States, this policy in the long ! run is far better than competition. He knew how to bring about coordination ! provided only public sentiment sup ported him. He did venture into the eastern railway field, having done that as the first step toward a true trans
 continental coordination of the rail-
 roads. But he soon ran against the impossible snag of public opinion and was compelled to abandon or at least to postpone his purpose What MT. Harri-
 mar had in mind the government is seeking to secure.
 When Ei. H. Hartman was uphulding the Union Pacific railroad triumphing at last where many others had failed, Mir. 1 McAdoo, now Secretary of the Treasury, l was progressing with a work which was unique, and was in a considerable meas
 ure his original conception. It is true
 that 1t involved a railway system de- l signed for no other purpose than trans portating passengers from Manhattan under the Hudson river to New Jersey even as far as Newark. There is no
 doubt that MT. McAdoo after having ob-
 tained the cordial cooperation of the
 late A. J Cassatt, then president of the
 Pennsylvania Railroad company, gained
 a peculiar, even unique. personal triumph 1 not only in the field of engineering but | also in that of reasonable and conve-
 nient passenger transportation. He con l templated the extension of his tubes to 1 the Grand Central station in New York