Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-12-27
RAILROADS HAMSTRUNG BY
CONGRESSIONAL BoLSHEVlKS
There is No Hope for Business Until the
Old Hostility to Capital Invested In
TRANSPORTATION Is Abandoned

TINE solution of the whole railroad
l. problem centers around the protec-
tion of the right of the public to con
tinuous and efficient service from the
transportation corporations
President Wilson has not touched upon
this phase of the question in his procla-
nation ordering the return of the roads
to their owners on March /. If he refers
to it at all it will be in a special COM
muncation to Congress while that body
is trying to agree on new plan for
railroad regulation and on what the gov
ernment is to do to reimburse the rail
roads for the losses sustained during the
period of public control and operation.
Railroads are not private corporations
in the sense that corporation manufac-
turing shoes or hats or clothing or type
| writer's is private. The railroad is
public highway in fact and in law. The
courts have held that the owners of the
| roads are trustees of the people to whom
! is committed the task of operating the
roads i'll such a way as to give the same
! service to every one on the same terms.
Government has had to interfere in
! order to secure uniformity of service and
uniformity of charges SO that there might
! not be discrimination in favor of any one.
But the interference has not been in
| telligent. Rates have been fixed SO low
that it became impossible years ago for
the railroads to secure the capital needed
for extensions and improvements. 1t
would be about as easy today for the
railroads to float loan as for the soviet
! government of Russia to sell an issue
of bonds in the American market.
/ The Bolsheviki have been little more
hostile to all capital than our own Con-
| gress has been to capital invested in
the railroads A billion dollars year is
needed for the next five years to provide
| the improvements and new equipment
| required by the roads if they are to give
| the country the service that its business
| demands. But to ask for it under present
| conditions would be like asking sane men
| to throw their money into the fire.
Congress has two months more in
which to undo the evils of the past and
to reimburse the railroads for the losses
sustained under government operation.
! If it acts intelligently and without preju-
which has been stalking up and down the
| land ever since the signing of the armi-
stice.
! The railroad payrolls have been in
| creased by the government more than
| $1,O00,000,000 year, according to Judge
| Lovett, of the Union Pacific system, and
! the rates have been increased barely
enough to cover this item. The increased
cost of fuel and material equipment has
not been provided for in any way, and
the government is insisting that the roads
owe it large sums for equipment bought
during the war.
! Several of the brotherhoods whose
members are employed by the roads are
! planning TO demand a further increase
! in wages before March /, while the gov
ernment remains in control and while
! the threat of political reprisals against
| the party in control of the executive de-
| partments can be used with some hope
of success. If these increases are granted
the railroads will be in a very serious
condition when their owners get posses
sen of them.
There is no way out save through
further increase in rates which the pub
| lie will have to pay. And in addition to
the further increase in rates, the public
will be burdened with the payment of
| S613,000000 which Secretary Glass has
asked to be appropriated this year out of
the national revenues to pay the deficit
| that is accumulating under government
operation.
1t has been estimated that the total
deficit will amount to $1,500 100000. If
an attempt is made to pay this out of
the ordinary revenues at once, the ma
tional budget will be so large as to be
beyond the ability Of Congress to pro-
vide for. If reconstruction bond issue
were made to cover this sum the tax
payer would be temporarily relieved, for
| the payment of the debt would be spread
over long period of years. Men inter
ested in the railroads would doubtless
buy the bonds and accept the govern
ment's promise to pay, while they would
use the money thus supplied for the de-
velopment of the roads.
This is not a matter to which, as we
have said many times before, the man
in the street can be Indifferent. The
railroads are not owned by a group of
rich men with ineXhaustible resources.
They are owned largely by the holders
of life and fire insurance policies and by
the depostors in savings banks. This
means by the plain people of moderate
means. If the railroads are bankrupted
the value of the savings bank deposits
and of the insurance policies is seriously
impaired.
This property must be protected, not
only against the folly of Congress but
against the unreasonable demands of the
men who work on the railroads. But
whenever some congressman think of a
railroad they think of what used to be