The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-08-18
THE PRICE WE PAY

pay for rehabilitation OF the railroad
service now is apparent. The award
Of the Interstate Commerce Commits .
sion has made it clear. 1t is from IS
to 40 per cent increase in all freight
rates. with 20 per cent additional on
milk and cream; 20 per cent increase
in passenger fares and excess baggage
rates; and so per cent increase in
parlor and sleeping car rates. That is
to say. the shipper-farmer, mer-
chant. or anyone else-who has been
paying $40 for a certain amount of
freight, must now pay from $3.50 to
$14 for the same; the milkman who
has been paying $40 must pay from
$3.50 to SIS; and the traveller who
has been paying 81 Nor- his railroad
ticket and 81 for a seat in the parlor
car must now pay s1.20 for the one
and $3.50 for the other.
The people must pay all this.
Obviously they must in the case of the
railroad and parlor car fares. They
do that directly. But still more truly
must they pay the increased freight
rates. The fares will, after all, be paid
not by all the people but simply by
those who travel: tho that means
practically everybody. to some extent.
But the freight rates will be a charge
upon everybody. without exception,
because they will affect the prices of
commodities which everybody buys.
About-one-thir of this increased
cost Is the price which we must pay
for the recent wage award of the
Railroad Labor Board. and the re-
mainder is what We must pay for
former increases in wages and in the
cost of material. construction, and
everything else in railroad building
and operation. The citizen who finds
that 1t now costs him $4,000 to build
the cottage which few years ago he
could have built for $4,000 should
remember that there has been a SINH
lar increase in the cost of every one
Of the thousands of engines and cars
that the railroads have had and must
build.
OF the justice Of the increase there
Is no question. Tor during the period
Of its control and operation of the
roar the government was doing what
was exactly tantamount to the same
thing. As it could not make the roads
pay expenses it took hundreds of mill
lions of dollars yearly from the
pockets Of the people@ to cover its
deficits. Now thru the interstate.
Commerce Commission it DEGREES that
& la
people directly TO the railroads for the
same Identical purpose. The only Diff
ference IS that formerly the MONEY
was collected from the people in the
form of taxes. and now it is collected
in the form of higher prices.
The changed conditions lead Har-
vey's Weekly to say:
OF one thing warning needs to be
given. plainly and emphatically. That
is. that the increase in the cost of
goods to the ultimate consumer must
not be fraction of a cent more than
the actual increase in the freight paid
on them. 1t must not be a 40 per
cent increase, but only an increase Of
40 per cent of the very small part of
their price which represents the cost
Of railroad transportation. Thus if
certain goods were worth 500 under
the old freight rates, of which price
freight paid was $40. then under the
new rates, with freight s14 instead of
$40, the price must not exceed $104
instead of 500. It ought not to be
necessary to give such warning, but
experience has demonstrated that it
is. We might go further and say that
1t would be economic wisdom not to
raise the prices of goods on account
of the increase IN freight. but to let
the latter be borne somewhere in the
series of wholesalers. jobbers. retail
ers, and who not who stand between
the producer and the consumer But
il that be not done. at least the in
crease must be kept strictly down to
that in freight rates. Anything more
than that would be quickly detected,
and would render its perpetrator de-
servedly iodious