The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-04-12
THAT s65,ooo,ooO GIFT.

THAT $65,0O0,000 GIFT.
D. ]. Hammond, of Troy, had
communication in the Contribute
Box" of yesterdays StarMirror il
which he criticized the editor for
recent editorial on government own
ership and control of public utilities
We welcome such fair and homes
criticism as that offered by Mr.. Ham
mond, who asked us to give botf
sides of the question. We will try tt
do so. Mr.. Hammond erred in his
communication in placing the rail;
road deficit at "$7 100000" 1t is
S750,000,000 for a single year, anc
that, too, after the war is ended. This
is the amount asked for the coming
year, not the past year.
There has probably been no more
enthusiastic advocate of government
ownership or control of public utili-
ties than the editor, who, for many
years, advocated the very measures
which have been recently tried and
found wanting. We believed that the
government should control the tele-
graph and cable lines as it does the
mail business and we favored control
of the express business and its con-
solidation with the post office. We
believed express could be handled
lc OF a lnyUnr
cost than the people were paying the
express companies. We believed that
telegraph and telephone business
could be handled by the post office
at greatly reduced cost to the con-
sumner and that better service would
be given and we advocated these
things in the various publications
with which we have been connected
in the past 25 years. We honestly
believed in the doctrine we preached.
But the government took over these
functions. First it took over the con-
troll of the grain market and we were
glad, for we believed that one of our
pet hobbies was about to be proven
a success. But it was flat failure.
The selling of wheat was surrounded
with miles and miles of red tape and
enormous expense and delay. But we
were not disillusioned. We still be-
ieved that government control was
the proper thing.
Then followed control of the rail-
roads, the telegraph, the telephone
and the express companies. Instead
of lowering the rates the government
raised the rates on every one of these.
Express rates, which we had regard
ed as entirely too high, were raised;
telephone and telegraph rates were
raised and freight rates were adj
vanced to such a height that, even
with the increase in express rates, 1t
was cheaper in some gases to ship
by express than by freight. Last
week the writer shipped from Ore
gon, more than 800 pounds of goods,
including grain and household goods
by express because it was cheaper
than the increased freight rates.
We saw freight, passenger, tele-
phone, telegraph and express rates
raised to meet advanced cost of OPP
Grafton and to offset this wages were
raised again and again. A Moscow
banker told the writer today that he
helped a railroad employe make out
his income tax report recently and
the man had earned $4,000 in 1918
and said: 81 could easily have made
So 500 but | did not want to work all
the time and laid off several times
during the year" Yet our magnani-
NOUS government has just given the
railroad employees, members of four
brotherhoods with 100000 votes that
will be needed in 1920, present OF
sos 100000 in the form of increased
wages.
We are forced to admit that our
Ireams of manay years, that govern
nent control of public utilities would
light most Of our wrongs, were
merely dreams from which we have
cen rudely awakened by the extrav-
gance, inexperience and desire to
Law politics, of the men at the head
f the departments which took con-
roI of these utilities. We believe
hat unless government control can
e separated from politics it VIII
rove worse than a failure and we
O not believe that officials elected
' the votes of the people will ever