Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-09-10
RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION

Secretary McAdoo, in his capacity as director gem
eral of railroads. has filed with the president his report
on the Federal Railroad Administration for the first
seven months Of its existence. The story which he tells
is an impressive one. for it deals with the handling by
one organization of the entire transportation business of
the country during a period when the demands on the
system were at their greatest, and when, before those
immense preliminary work of uniting into one great sy-
tenn hundreds of smaller ones, and to do this while re
work of the country was going forward, with as little in
terruptton as was possible with the current work.
Aside from the magnitude of the totals represented
in the report, it is to be noted that, after all, the chief
benefits that have been derived, or that have been MADE
possible, are such as might have been attained without
government interference at all, had W. adopted a sensi-
BILE attitude toward the railroads in the past, and those
benefits, moreover. would have been enjoyed during Our
period of peace, as a regular and permanent part of our
system, and not merely as the result of a war emergency.
The government took over the railroads in order
to secure the harmonious cooperation of the roads. one
with the other, in the service of the public. In the past
we have objected most. strenuously to anything like har-
mony or cooperation among the railroads We insisted
that they should fight eachsother. In the early days they
did fight, and very vigorously. When the fighting had
reached the point where its mutual destructiveness was
apparent, the railroads undertook to abandon it. In some
cases these efforts in the, direction of harmonizing things
were accompanied Dy euCrCS TO grab and mOnOpO1Ze, In
order to avoid this evil we overlooked entirely the fact
that 1t was not necessary to destroy the good, and we
attempted by law to forcetthe continuance of a policy of
destructive competition which, if continued, would have
been destructive alike to the railroads and the country.
In recent years there has been some progress in the
direction of railroad cooperation under the close super
vision Of the government. Had the war not interviewed
we might in time have Preached a basis where we would
have recognized the entire transportation business of the
country as essentially one, to be- conducted according to
fixed rules, each of its. own part to be adjusted so as to
work tremendously with all the rest. We would probab-,
ly have done that, but 1T would have taken us a. long time.
Another principle, the recognition we seem to have
reached by a short cut, is that if the railroads are to
operate trains, and carry goods, and pay wages, and build
extensions, they must receive from the people who travel
on them and ship over them enough money to meet their
bills, and that they must be able to make reasonable
profits in order to maintain their credit. In the past our
attitude might be supposed to be based on the belief that
the railroads derived their revenues out of the air. We
took over the roads ourselves, and we found quite speed
lily that if we were going to pay expenses we must have
rates that would enable us to do so, and that If we IN
creased our expenses we must boost our rates. We have
done both, without much grumbling. IN the past, when
the railroads themselves limited at the necessity Of ad-
vances, their requests were met with loud and emphatic
protests.