The Connecticut labor press., 1920-01-10

In the course of a long experience with legislative bodies in this and other countries I have known a great many foolish measures to be planned and many to be passed, but 1 have never known one anywhere on any subj ect for any purpose that was so foolish III so many different ways as the Cummlns Railroad Bill, lately passed by the United States Senate.
 It seems to be the human limit and prize winner in the way of the footless, the impracticable and the absurd.
 Laying aside for the moment the famous Sections 30 and 31, which are intended to take from workers the right to strike, feature after feature in this most amazing bill displays a hope less ignorance of the railroad business and the railroad situation and about both proposes that the nation shall do something either extravagant or abso- lutely impossible.
 Take for example the wild-eyed scheme contained in Sections 10 to g to provide that there shall be not less than 20 nor more than 5 railroad systems and that these shall compete.
 Where on earth are you to get 35 systems or 30 or 20? For that matter, where would you get 10?
 At present, so far as the carriers of any national importance are concerned, the control of the entire railroad organ ization of this country is vested in four groups of capitalists, which work to- gether as one. The proposition of this bill is that the four, which work to- gether as one, shall be split into 20 or 30 or s. But fried oyster ought to know enough to know that when you la1 Io into 25 nominal groups the actual con- trol will remain exactly where 1t was . before and cannot possibly be other wise.
 In other words what is here proposed is that the United States government, being composed presumably of adults and not of little children, shall stop to fool with another Standard Oil splitting, in which the same persons under 27 different names operate the same old monopoly in the same old way.
 How surely this IS so and must be, any person can see that will take the trouble to reflect that all the available investment capital of the country is now controlled by the Great Four-in-One. If you turn to any aggregation of wealth anywhere sufficient to swing the sum of money you will require for this adven- ture in financial fantasy you will dis cover that 1t Is in some way hitched up with the original Four. All you will have accomplished therefore is that you have marched up a hill and marched down again. The same Four will still have the same properties, with merely change i'll name.
 Or take the idea that these 20 or 30 systems, when by this dreamy magic they shall have been made are to com
 n -%< rNea%o with what? So long as they have the same owners competition among them will be exactly like a man playing soli :aire, his right hand against his left for $5 a game.
 Or suppose you were able to create by some mystical, magical wand-waving 20 groups of fnanciers not connected with the great Four-in-One and you could induce these to take over 20 rail road systems and operate them, and then they didn't want to compete? How would you compel them to do it Just how? That is the thing l want to know. Would you run up and down the line with a red face and club in your hand and yell at them, Compete, you sons of sea cooks, or I'll knock the block off you?" Of just what would you do? If they didn't want to compete, to ab- stain from competing would be their privilege, wouldn't it? The properties would be theirs, you know.
 Or take the provision that limits rail- road profits to 5H per cent. on the ag- gregate value of the railroad property in each district
 What Is this property value and how can you ascertain it so as to know that you have any real knowledge to go up- on? The United States government has been engaged for six years at an expense of many million dollars upon an ill-adVised scheme to ascertain the property value of the country's rail roads and the property that it checked up five years ago is worth twice as much now as 1t was then. Before its report is completed its labors are shown to be valueless. Some railroad property is rapidly increasing in value. Some rail road property is declining i'll value. Ob- serve then the mess you have stepped into if you adopt this plan. Railroad profits result from railroad rates they have no other origin. As the property values of fortunate railroads increase, rates in that region, under this bill must increase in like proportion. There IS no escape from this conclusion, although the esteemed statesmen that drew this marvellous measure seem never to have thought or tne SlIHpIc ldCl. he EdluC of the right-of-wav of the railroads in the far Northwest has much more than doubled in the last Is years. If they double again in the next Is years as they probably will, then rates ill the Northwest must be steadily advanced to keep pace with this increase.
 But the value of the rights of way i'll the central West have increased but little and probably will increase still less. The rates in this region therefore will remain stationary.
 Property value is no possible basis for railroad rates. Nothing is more easily manipulated. Take the tax re- turns of the present railroad companies. If there is one that is honest, accurate and just (outside of North Dakota,