The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-06-02
Railway Rescue Plans Grow More
Promising.

Promising. '
Chairman CUMMINs of the Senate
Committee on Interstate Commerce
has problem to solve as important
and at the same time as difficult as
any problem Of peace that ever faced
the country.
1t is easier to plan railway than
to build one. Any cheerful idiot will
try 1t. 1t would be easier to build
several railroads than to rescue the
existing railway system from the
plight to which 1t has been brought
by the dreadful Interstate Commerce
Commission before the war and after
ward by preposterous Government op-
Grafton OF Senator CUMMINs, en-
gagged on this colossal job, 1t Is a
pleasure to say that as he makes
progress with his plans they give
more and more promise of eventually
hitting the mark.
The latest development Of Senator
CUMMINGS general programme con-
templates a new railway authority-a
Department of Transportation-which
in this situation Is imperatively
necessary. The first step must be to
hamstring the old Interstate Com
merce Commission. The railroads
never can be saved through the old
commission or anything like 1t. Pri-
vate capital, without which the roads
cannot be built up to their previous
usefulness, never will go into railroads
as long as they nre under the fatal
shadow Of the Interstate Commerce
Commission. The American people
will never give political support to
any policy that proposes to continue
the possibility OF the laundering, the
mischief and the destruction so long
and so terrlfically wrought by the In,
terstate Commerce Commission.
In aiming to establish an authority
which can and will care for the physi.
cal preservation of the roads and thus
care for the requirements of the pub
lie dependent upon the efficiency OF
those roads Mr.. CUMMINs shows thai
before he is through with this gigan'
tic task he can, II he will, overcome
a fundamental weakness which still
remains in his plans. This is the
provision that a railway system shall
get guaranteed minimum dividend
whether its management Is good ~
bad, whether 1t deserves 1t or does
not deserve 1t, while a system that Is
well managed, that has rich returns
because it earns them in the truest
sense-by perfect equipment, splendid
organization, work, efficiency ant
brains-shall not receive more than
per cent. no matter how much higher
its earnings are. Such a scheme, al
we have said before, would not merely
kill Incentive; it would prevent the
extension and enlargement of trans
portation trackage and facilities neces
sary to keep up with the growth Of
the country.
Every business that continues to b.
successful finds It necessary to plougl
in a great part of Its earnings. Whethe
all these earnings are paid out in divi
dends or whether all Of them beyond
a fixed dividend are paid out as take!
or distributed as bonuses or sepa
rated in any other way from the prop
erty itself the business cannot grow
as it ought to grow, the property can
not remain sound as 1t ought to re
main sound.
In the long run the finances of tn,
railways must go from bad to worse
the service rendered to the publ,
must become less and less effective
the tax burdens upon the public mus
become more and more CALLING 1
every time a system needs to build ,
thousand miles more OF track 1t ha
TO go to the United States Treasur!
for the money. This Is exactly wha
taking its surplus earnings away from
II means.
Railway managers, the railway ranl
and file, will work their heads Off /
the results 20 into lettering and ex
tending the very roads to which the.
are devoting their talents and thei
energies. They will not do this. the.
will never think of doing 1t, If tn
surplus earnings that they produc
are skinned ofr-the cream Of tn
milk-to flow into the impersonal pub
lie treasury or to be taken ava,
from the producer to help support
distant system of mere travellin
junk.
To make his plan the success 1
now appears to be capable Of beeom