Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-06-10
To Railroad Stock and Bond Owners
and All Public Spirited Citizens

VOU undoubtedly have been watching the huge
profits and extraordinary dividends that every in
dusry in this country has been earning and
paying to its stockholders the past three years.
AS railroad securityholders and as thinking men.
must have been wondering why the oil stocks, steel
stocks, sugar stocks, meat packing and stocks cf all
other American industries have been steadily advancing
marketwise by leaps and bounds while railroad stocks
and bOnds although gilt-edge and representing the
most important and most useful and essential industry
in the country, have gone backward rather than
forward.
Railroad properties capitalized at SlSOO00 100000
represent money investment of fully S2OOO0O O0OO00
BY reason of recent property value mutations the
world over, these properties. in common with all
Others have doubled in real value and measured by
the present standard of money worth today more
than S40,0O0OO000O. Yet in the open market they are
selling today around $l2OOOOOO000 $S,OO0,O0OO0O
less than the invested capital and about 300 lower
than they selling in the market ten years
ago. We may well ask why?
The explanation is Cd the railroads have been in
the control of people who neither owned the secur-
ties, possess the public confidence; and (2) a
great misunderstanding exists in the minds of the
public respecting the ownership and capitalization
of the railroads.
Popular opinion has it that the railroads
capitalized. Although this might have been true
twenty years ago, it is not the case today AS matter
of fact the ma jority of the railroads today
largely under-capItallZed.
The public has been led to believe that the rail
roads are owned by the great fnanciers. This too
might have been true twenty years ago, but is not
true today The fact is, the securities are owned by
millions of men and women in medium circumstances
"
and savings banks. If the public were made aware
of these truths there would be decided change of
attitude toward the railroads. because the American
people after all just and will insist upon square
deal for all citizens alike, whether they be railroad
stockholders or industrial stockholders.
You are aware that the railroads were taken
under government control basis that scarcely
lust or equitable But federal control
measure and, on the whole, acceptable than
were the conditions under which the railroads
being managed and operated prior to government
control.
Now the is the question of abandonment
of government operation has come up for consdera
ton Certain interests using every within
their great power to mould public opinion to the sup
port of return of the railroads to the former regime
of management.
We are face to face with the most critical period
in the history of American railroads Nothing could
be more damaging to the interests of securtyhOders
and the public in general than that the railroads
should be handed back to the interests which
formerly controlled and mismanaged them, and which
are sure to control and msmanage them again if
those who are urging the government to relnqush
the roads at once have their way.
The Citizens National Railroads League has been
organized to present to the public the truth about the
railroads. The Investors Protective Association of
CITIZENS NATIONAL
NATHAN L. 4
All remttances she