The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-10-20
Wide Railway Wreckage Unless the
Government Saves the Roads.

saves TIC hOduSs
The wreckage of railway earnings
under Government operation cannot
he better described than by simple
comparison in plain arithmetic.
There always have been railroads
which in seasons of general adversely
have been able to make both ends
meet. There always have been roads
which, desperately poor in bad times,
could not become prosperous in good
times. The property deeply mired
through the years need not be used
to show the desperate plight of the
American railway system as a whole.
The property exceptionally favored
can be ignored. Extremes of high and
low condition dismissed from consid-
GRAFTON, the story is fairly told by
the financial decline of the general
and vast trackage which threads the
wide country and every day does a
transportation business which is the
prodigy of the world.
Before the present financial desti-
tuition no railroad man ever would
have regarded the year of 1915 as Of
golden performance or promise. The
Interstate Commerce Commission still
was infatuated with it's mad policy of
starving the railroads. Traffic rates
were held rigidly down. Coal and
bther supplies were steadily working
up. Equipment was soaring. Labor
was driving harder and harder bar
gains. Construction was not yet pro-
hibitive, but IL was burdensome. OPP
Grating expenses were grinding at the
gross revenues.
Yet In 1916-with only one year
intervening between it and Govern
ment operation-the great bulk OF
American railroads, weaving the coun-
try from end TO end, serving Its vast
population, industry and business,
were in paradise as compared with
this second year of Government op-
Grafton in 1919, with its multiplied
passenger rates and its heavily in
creased freight charges costing the
American people not merely tens of
millions of dollars, but hundreds,
many hundreds, of millions of dollars
more a year.
Take examples here, there and
everywhere, with the rarely rich and
the tragically poor omitted:
In the whole year of 1916 the Bal
timore and Ohio transportation bill
against the public, expressed by Its
operating revenues at Sill, OO0, 900,
was not greatly in excess of its gross
revenues for only the first eight
months of this year of 1919-S1O9,-
100000. But for the twelve months
of 1916 the net revenues-with which
10 meet interest, provide sinking fund
requirements for the discharge of
debt, pay dividends and put surplus
into betterments anu Improvements
were more than $50, 100000. This was
an average Of $2,T00,000 a month. In
the first eight months of 1919 the net
revenues were $3.50, OOO-a monthly
average of about $4,000.
In 1916 with S4S,0OOOO0 of gross
the net revenues OF the Chesapeake
and Ohio averaged 81 10000 a month.
This year they have averaged about
a million. But the Chicago and East
ern Illinois averaged $685., 900 in 1915 /;
this year so far 1t is $4,000. Chicago
and Northwestern with $91, 600 900
gross showed then an average of
g. 100000; now with SSs, 100000 in
eight months 1t is $1,100,0OO.
Denver and Rio Grandes compari-
son of average monthly net is $S45, 900
in 1916; in 1919 $4,000. Great
Northern's contrast is S3,10OOOO
against $950,000. Lehigh Valleys is
$1200,0O0 against 100000 Louis
Vile and Nashville's, 81, 1000 against
SS5O,OOO. Norfolk and Westerns,
s2,00O000 against $4,000. Northern
Pacihc's, 100000 against s1,l7O, 900.
If you want to take n railroad cele-
brated for It's trouble Erie. with more
than rj6Ooo,00o Of gross in 1915, av-
eraged net earnings close to $1,000 900
month, With S5s,0OO,OOO Of gross
in the first eight months this year.
Erie's net has averaged 100000.
If you want to take another, once
a child OF fortune, now in poverty
row. New Haven, with $40, 900 900 of
gross In 1916 averaged more than
s2Ooo,OOO a month net. With sea
ooo'oOo Of gross in the first eight