Arizona republican., 1919-04-30
The Confessio

And what a mess they have made of it! It has long been understood that the railroads cannot De turned back to the private without financial aid given them by congress to them from bank ruptcy Now comes Burleson wanting to give back the telephone the telegraph wires confessing at the same time that they too must have aid to save them from bankruptcy. All this wreck of the rail- road properties has been accomplished in less than two years and it has taken Burleson less than one year to throw the telegraph and telephone companies upon the rocks.
 When in November, 1917 the government took over the roads, most of them in a prosperous state Some of them were not, but no doubt they would have pulled through. Now after year and six months of government mismanagement there is probably not one them that could stand alone even with the high freight and passenger rates the gov ernment has imposed, even with the limited and inadequate service which government is now giv- ing for those exorbitant and unheard of rates.
 At the time the telegraph and telephone wires were taken over all Of them in strong financial position. There was popular impression that the position was entirely too strong; that the private companies were robbing the public Yet their rates were reasonable and low compared with those the government has found it necessary to impose. And yet in months the government has so fixed them that it is admitted by Burleson that the private owners must have financial aid from congress.
 So the people. after having been mucted during government management these utilities for higher rates than were ever known for than a billion dollars to make up deficits government has piled I'D in the management, must submit to taxation for the repair of these wrecks. How long this will have to be kept up after the utilities have been restored to their owners what the amount of the aid that will have to be given the private owners, only be conjectured.
 All this is a matter of record. It is nowhere dis puted and there nothing reasonable to offer in the way of explanation or attenuation It is record Of the grossest mismanagement, of the most glaring incompetence It forever damns either notion of government ownership the national democratic party or both.
 What an accounting there must be of the steward ship during the great war. What disclosure Of colossal bunders from the beginning, throughout and in the aftermath The wasted billions!
 We cannot blame the administration for all of it.. Inexperence, which would have been weakness of any administration partly at fault. But expert ence which is supposed teach, usually comes to human aid. It appears not to have done in this case.
 Many Of the policies adopted at the beginning of the war probably would have been adopted by publican administration. Indeed they adopted with the of republican statesmen But it 1nained the present administration plunge along bndy when these policies found be wrong and runous Whenever one was abandoned, it was slowly in grudging obedience to public opinion, and at the urgent demand of the opposition.
 was resolved, and believe sincerely, at the beginning of the war that there should be prof iteering Yet in all the history of wars there had been no such great and gross profiteerpg as was Ma ucedsi in America. The consumer has aeeu bled