The Washington herald., 1917-12-22

The tall, gaunt from Of Clifford
Thorne. of Iowa, was seen lettering
about the Capitol this week, and at
sight of him many members who
hadn't thought about gross" and
net" earnings, and ''replacements"
and maintenance and overheard"
for several weeks, instantly began to
talk about those very interesting
little subjects.
Just now Mr.. Throne is not firmly
convinced-and he never has been
that the railroads of the country are
at all poverty stricken. He has been
an insistent battler against rate
raisers. and IL he could. SO some of
the members think. he would have the
railroad companies pay back back to
the people in taxation millions Of
dollars he thinks they have taken
from the people.
The one absorbing question Of what
constitutes a fair rate of earning on
railroad investment Is the turn Of
the subject that Mr.. Throne likes
best to discuss. It is a matter of i'm
portance, too, 1t may well realized
by the public The principal dis
agreement between the railroads and
Mr.. Throne, however, has been based
on the investment allowances rather
than the rate of return. Mr.. Throne
contends that many items which the
railroads like to include in their in
vestments should properly be elected
therefrom-and quite as promptly as
properly.
Let me name the size Of the rail-
road investment and care not par
ticularly what the rate of return is"
he Is alleged to have said one night
when the subject had been milled un-
til well past midnight at q local
hotel.
Members are not sure what the eff
feet has been Of Mr.. Thorne's con-
tinual assault upon the railroads. They
are not convinced, by any means, that
he has attained any considerable fol-
lowing nor are they obsessed with the
belief that his has been Just fight.
Congress believes that rate Of re-
turn" is more or less of an arbitrary
term, but that after all It can be
fixed with some reasonable certainty
when one takes into careful consid-
Grafton the entire line of banking op-
erations Of the country. For instance,
so some Of the members think, an
s per cent net return upon the fair
investment of a railroad is not ex-
cessive. 1t is not unreasonable. They
believe that men who band together
and put their money in railroads and
operate them for the public good-as
all roads must be operated now-are
entitled to that rate and that 1t Is
not more than they are entitled to
make. The rate of return fiuctuates
between 1 and 10 per cent on various
classes OF ordinary Investments, and
on money subjected to deposit in the
bank. Some make as high as per
cent on the latter investment-and
that is all deposits are. in the long
run.
Yet some public service commissions,
In the States, have insisted that after
Investment values were scaled down
to the bottom dollar-and perhaps aft
er the public utilities, in fact, were
subjected to worse than that, earnings
at the rate of more than per cent
were objected to by the commissions.
But before we get into any hot wa
ter over this discussion It might be
well to remember that things are
changing rapidly these days, and we
may yet see radical steps taken which
will alter our entire view. as a peo-
pie, OF puoic service CORPORATIONS.
We welcome Col George Harvey to
the city with his new weekly paper
He ard STEADY" Kirby, former New
York World man, will make a success
of It, we know. There are many
things here to amuse and entertain
and to make people feel serious, too.
Congress faces a new duty now
the duty of catering to and satisfying
another famed editor. We suppose at
the outset Congress should try to
achieve this end. but We know that
ere It has long been at the task it
will give 1t up as hopeless. This fore
cast, however, should not discourage
1t from making the attempt.
Over I'm Hawaii--where they wear
,em higher so members OF the Con-
greE1ional delegation say-they have
ins@ Surated the plan Of making corr