Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-07-15
RAILROADS MUST
MOVE PROMPTLY
Extensive improvements Nee
essary in Car and Road
Equipment

Activity is necessary on the part of
railroads to prevent a serious conges-
ton, according to the Manufacturers
Record, of Baltimore, Md. Immediate
steps must be taken to provide equip
ment and other facilities. The Record
says:
with the biggest wheat crop on rec
ord and the greatest vacuum ever
known in the worlds food supply, the
natural movement from the bursting
granaries of the west to fill the might
vacuum in Europe will cause a de-
mand for transportation this fall and
winter far beyond railroad and ocean
facilities.
This will be especially true with
our railroads. They are unequal to the
handling adequately of the business
that is now offered them. Builders and
contractors are already complaining of
the serious delay in transportation of
lumber and of other materials. Every
where the evidence is growing that the
railroads are going to fall farther and
farther behind in meeting the require
ments of the next IL months. Trade
revival. already under way, will soon
be hampered seriously by inadequate
railroad facilities, and as the enormous
wheat crop begins to move to the sea-
Europe, CONCESSION of traffic is newt
able.
Winter Congestion
should the coming winter prove a
severe one, traffic congestion may be-
come almost as bad as it was two win
ters ago. The outcry for more
dwellings is heard throughout the land,
but soon the outcry for more cars and
locomotives will be more intense than
is the demand for dwellings. Traffic
will be congested in all parts of the
country passenger trains will again be
several hours behind schedule time,
building operations will be halted be-
cause material cannot be delivered
promptly, and thousands of people will
suffer from cold because of a lack of
coal, and the railroads will not be able
to deliver the coal promptly during the
coming winter even If the supply were
fully adequate to the needs of the coun-
| try. Every man needing a ton of coal
for next winter should get it into his
house as quickly as possible, whether
1t be for heating or for steam purposes.
1t will be too late next winter to cry
| for coal, for the demand on the mines
will exceed the output and the demand
for transportation will be greater than
the railroads can possibly provide.
Danger Ahead
1--WE have never had such a wheat
crop as that of this year. We have
never faced such a situation as that
of Europe, where hundreds of millions
of people have for four years been liv-
ing on scant fare, and where the first
effort OF the continent win be to find
! foodstuffs.
"a starving body is as good a DEVILS
workshop as an idle brain, and the
devil is busy in Europe with starving
bodies, which stimulate the brain to dc
the wrong thing.
| "Bolshevism fattens on starving bod
les. 1t will grow apace unless Europe
be fed and put to work.
| Notwithstanding this situation, the
Railroad Administration is making com.
paratively little progress toward in
creaslng transportation facilities. In
place OF a few hundred thousand tons
of steel rails, millions of tons are
needed. Instead of a few thousand cars
and locomotives, hundreds of thousand.
of cars. and many hundreds of locomo.
tives beyond the present supply will
be needed this fall and winter.
Railroads Inactive
"But the railroads are doing almos
nothing to meet so serious q situation
one fraught with danger to the business
interests of the country and far be
yond the danger to business INTEREST,"
ls the danger of our national life oi
the Belshevistic spirit created by condl
tions of this kind
Every days delay in enlarging oul
transportation facilities costs the coun.
try far more than II would have cost
us to buy every ton of rails that wal
needed and every car and locomotive
required even II we had had to pay very
] much higher prices than those nov
ruling"