The labor standard., 1919-09-01
s<SEVEN TESTS OF
 RAILROAD MERIT''
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 and private ownership in moving
 freight and passengers? In applying
 this standard, MT. Lewis shows al
 length by statistical tables, that or
 dividing the number of employees into the work done, that is, into the num-
 carried and giving due consideration 1 to the factor of distance hauled, the
 worker has. proved highly efficient
 comparatively in six public-owner-
 the United States and Great Britain
 This is not due to a greater skill of
 the individual but to the system of
 unifcation in these countries.
 The efficiency of private ownership
 in safeguarding human life is notori-
 ously low. Wrecks, accidents, and
 poor safety devices or none make the
 toll of preventable deaths and injuries
 each year a frightful one. Our boast
 ed privately-owned railways may have
 larger cars and may travel over the roads with greater speed than others,
 but they rank sixteenth in life and limb conservation. Belgium had be- fore the war but one employe killed 
 ways, of this country in the same period killed one out of every group of 421. Belgium showed but one in- jured among each 113 employees, the
 United States, one among each 19. Both Norway and Austria show five times the efficiency of the United States in life conservation.
 In contrast, as soon as our roads were taken over by the Railroad Ad- ministration in order to make them function somewhat effectively to win the war, the humane work began both of compensating employees for acci- dents and for decreasing accidents to minimum Remarkable success in first three months of this year, 569 fewer persons were killed ir railway accidents than in the same period in 1918 and the total number of accidents decreased 9,7o9: If we had public annual transportation carnage to be reduced to the lowest possible mini mum. We cannot expect it under pri- vate ownership.
 TEST FOUR. What is the relative efficiency of public and private own ership with respect to the movement of potential freight traffic? In this particular only does the lengthy inves- tigation alluded to show a balance at all favorable to our privately-owned roads. In the normal times of 1913, but not in hard times, the American railways move about 12 tons of freight per capita, a rate exceeded only by two public-ownership systems, West Australia and Prussia.
 But the freight rates of America are comparatively much more in- volved. They now number some three trillions and the volumes needed to re- cord them would fill library In the three years between 1906 and 1909 about three million pages of rates were filed, so that only trained ex- perts could with great difficulty quote rates. Government ownership would do for this what it has done for the post and present express them into a small volume easily used by the ordinary man. >S[
 With respect to fast freight ex- press, "pick up", and delivery. our roads are, in brief, far behind. Gov ernment ownership puts the emphasis on service, and it could offer to the people almost incalculable and advantages which private ownership will probably never 
 TEST FIVE. What is the relative efficiency of public and private own ership with respect to moving poten- tial passenger traffic? MT. Lewis country are such as to keep down the of the people of this coun- try. Practically all other countries have cheaper rates, and rates more just to the average man. The United States ranks thirty second among 34 railway systems compared in this re- spect.
 Our country stands sixteenth in list of twenty three systems exam ined in the annual number of journeys per capita of population-that is, in actual transportation service to the people. A large part of Australia has encouraged travel to such an extent that the average person takes eight times as many rides a year as the av- craze American. After examining the various tables setting forth the facts we must conclude that American rail ways, because of their large and un- fair rates, have failed lamentably to discharge we'll the potential passenger function, just as private telegraph, telephone, and express systems have failed to encourage by good service and low costs the potentialities of trade and communication which our democracy greatly needs developed for the welfare of the whole people.
 TEST SIX. What is it's efficiency in securing desirable railway develop ment, including extensions and proper coordination with waterways, in act ing as preventive of industrial de- pressions, and in it's ease and justice of management?
 Private enterprise built the railways of the United States, England, part of France, and of several other coun- tries. This was a great achievement. We can, however, make a valid and criticism of the enor- nous social waste and injury to the public of such unsystematic, and rather haphazard railway building as we have had. Roads have been built to be bought out; they have been con-