Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-12-23
HOW CAN WE LET co OF THE
MAD BULL OF PATERNALlSM? !?
This Is the Big Question Before Congress
in Dealing With the War Control OF
Railroads and Otner Things

Ilt senate mas pdSSSu Jne CullHllllS bllA'
which arranges for one plan of regula-
ton of the roads under their resumed
private control, and the House has passed
the Esch bill, containing a different plan.
Each bill makes some attempt to reim
burse the railrc ads for the losses which
they have sustained under government
operation. Unless suitable financial pro-
visions are made in the bill finally passed,
many of the roads which were solvent
when the government took them over
will go into the hands of receivers.
Yet labor organizations and organza
tions of farmers are asking the govern
mcnt to continue to operate the roads for
two more yeas in order that the expert
ment Of government operation may have
a fair test.
The rest of us believe that it has had
a fair test and that it has failed. With
supreme control over wages and freight
and passenger rates the general director
of railroads has accumulated a stag
gering deficit. The service given to the
public has deteriorated and no one who
uses the roads is satisfied Trains have
been put on and taken off without APP
parent regard to the demands of the
traffic. All this has happened because
no one has been responsible for earning
dividends.
Paternalism in TRANSPORTATION has pro-
duced the kind of results which it always
produces.
We are experiencing similar results
from a paternalistic policy in dealing
with sugar and coal.
We cannot get coal when we need it.
We cannot get sugar for our food and
we have to stand in the overcrowded
trains, not only those used by commuters,
but those which ply between this city
and New York
We got into this mess because Of the
war. Things had to be done and had to
be done quickly and the government took
the short cut, without serious thought
of the consequences. Indeed, it is doubt
full if it had considered the consequences
whether it would have done differently.
When a nation is at war everything must
be subordinated to military necessity.
But the government today is like the
man in the pasture who caught a mad
bull by the tail and is afraid to let go
for fear of the consequences.
But without any metaphors, paternal-
ism is mad bull. The whole bust
ness of the country is in dread of what
it will do next
Precedents have been set which are
likely to curse us for a long time in the
future. We have fixed the prices for coal
and wheat and sugar The grangers two
years ago began to discuss the wisdom
OF continuing the policy in time of peace.
SO far as it applied to the products Of
the farms. For years they and the cot
ton planters have wanted the govern
ment to valorize their crops in order to
remove all risks from farming and cot
ton planting and to insure to the plant
ers and the farmers a definite return
Now the railroad owners are asking the
government to guarantee to them such a
return on the value of their property as
will give them a good profit And there
are people who think so loosely that
thew are unable to see the difference.
The railroad is public highway
operated by private capital under gov
| ernment regulation as TO rates charged
! This is necessary because there must be
uniformity of rate for the same service
and because the railroads must be open
| to all on the same conditions. There is
an obligation on the part Of the gov
ernment to protect the money invested
| in railroads in order that these highways
| may be maintaineL at the highest rate
| of efficiency.
But the government in normal times
! has absolutely nothing to do with the
regulation or control of farming or
! planting. The prices for farm products
| are fixed by the operation of the good
old-fashioned law of supply and demand
When the supply is plentiful the price is
low and when the supply is short the
price is high. The farmer is rewarded
for his industry, efficiency and foresight
in the same way as the manufacturer is
rewarded.
The government cannot go into the
business of regulating prices save or
those things supplied by public service
corporations without producing endless
complications. The first development OF
such a policy would be a widespread in
sistence that there should be limit tc
profits, or to the rewards now open tC
men of courage and initiative who art
willing to risk their capital on the chance
of reaping large returns. There ar,
those, we know, who insist that it is {
moral crime for man to do more than ;
certain amount of business. Mr.. BryaI
few years ago was insisting that it wa
impossible to accumulate fortune O
81 900 900 without dishonesty, and he wa
saying at the same time that $4,000
year was income big enough for any one
America has been transformed from
virgin wilderness to the richest countr,
on the globe because men were willing t
invest heavily and wait for their profit
to come out of the development of re-