Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-09-07
PROFITS NO OBJECT
IN ROAD OPERATION
Continued from First Pase.)

them. Not rs per cent will be de.
ivered at the end OF the year and
therefore existing motive power must
be utilized over and over again.
Gen. Pershing- has needed more mo-
tive power. AS the French and Brit
ish and Americans have pushed the
Germans back toward the Rhine,
more locomotives and cars were re-
Quested to cover the increased areas
under allied control.
1t is not an uncommon thing to See
Mr.. McAdoo's locomotives going over
seas instead Of on our domestic rail-
roads. No one complainsIt is the
fortune and need OF war.
MT. McAdoo Content.
The financial statements do not re-
cord it, but the war program bene-
fits by it. Mr.. McAdoo is satisfied
and even happy about it.
He would like more motive power.
But If steel and other limiting fac
tors make it impossible he endeavors
to do the best he can with available
locomotives and cars.
1t was something, in Mr.. McAdoo's
opinion, to untangle the congested
situation which he encountered when
the government took the railroads
That disentangling process. cost
money, and wouldn't show on paper.
either.
To meet the high cost of living, to
keep labor hard at worn and to COM
pete with the high wages given in
other industries. Mr.. McAdoo had to
give his men more money. He put
133.000,000 of back pay into his June
account alone.
Private managers would have dis
tributed it. perhaps. and made the
monthly statements look better. Mr.
McAdoo insists that he isn't trying to
make a paper showing-he is trying
to run the railroads and help win the
war.
AS for passenger travel, although
the government, by increasing the
rates, has tried to repress it, people
continue to use the trains for jour-
neys unprecedented in aggregate
length. The director general doesn't
lie by cutting down schedules.
He has been hopeful that to meet
the increased travel there might be
increased facilities, as the govern
ment Is anxious to get the revenue as
well as satisfy the public. provided it
war needs. But the war program
prevents any such return to normal
even in parts of the country not with
in the Industrial areaE
For the limiting factor is motive
power. Labor and steel to get more
luOllVc po"S I Oh 2 d. a III
Better Time Made.
am informed by the director gen.
eral, moreover, that the percentage of
trains running on time to their des-
tinations is probably greater today
than it has been at any similar sea-
son of weather in the past four years.
Many letters have been received by
him indicating that freight shipments
are moving fast and evenly.
If the comparison of expenses with
earningsis unfavorable under govern
ment control today, it would have
been, in Mr.. McAdoo's opinion. infinite
ly worse under private management
since the problems could not have
been met even so economically. But
the real benefits of consolidation have
not yet begun to appear.
Mr. McAdoo's suggestion to the ex-
perts is that they suspend judgment.
In the meantime. he is devoting him
self to the single purpose of making
the railroads move Americas output
of supplies and troops, SO that Mar
shall Foch can hasten the day when
the question of government control
can take it's place alongside of SO
many other academic problems with
which statisticians and politicians and
analysts can cheerfully wrestle in the
diverting hours of peace.