The Leader, enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1915-1921, 1920-07-30
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP is
FINAL SOLUTION FOR
RAILROAD QUESTION

fairer understanding between
employer and employee, which has
been brought about through or
ganization, that American Labor
stands head and shoulders above
that of any and every country in
the World. The American sys-
tenn of free schools, has develops
ed a generation of American cit
liens among its producers who
are able to discriminate between
the fair and the unfair methods
followed by employers and con-
sequently insist more strenu-
ously upon a fair division of the
profits made from the collective
labor of the many and the dol
lars invested by capital.
In the unwieldy public utility
corporations, Railroads, the great
arteries through which and by
which the entire world is served,
are SO directly concerned with
the proper distribution of the
products of the farm and factory,
should be SO owned and operated
that the services for which they
exist, are never interrupted. The
consumer and producer alike are
vitality interested in that feature,
more so than they are in the
wage question or the profits
which may be made out of the
railway systems.
Private ownership has had it's
trial, before the war broke down
and caused Government control
with private ownership, it func>
toned fairly well, better by far,
than the roads are functioning
now, under the free and unhamp-
cred system of private corpora
tons.
Railroads being a quasi public
utility, employing collectively
more people than any of the in
dustries, more directly affect the
wage system Of the country, and
thus become the standard by
which other industries are large,
ly governed in their wage scales,
1t is this intimate relation be-
tween the wage Garner and CAPT.
tai which causes railway opera
ton to become more or less a
subject of legal regulation, both
for the general public and the
people interested either as own
ers, operators or. employees. The
foremost economists of our coun>
try have foreseen the possibili>
ties of the ability of railroads to
throttle the development of one
section by favored rates extended
to competing sections, and have
advocated laws restricting such
practices and in all of the States
have succeeded in part to rem>
edy this evil. With the greater
development of the country and
its production our railroads have
been unable to keep pace as in
dlvidual owners and the logical
step now to be taken is the own,
ership and control of these trans
portation lines by the Federal
Government.
We are in full accord in this
with Williams Jennings Bryan,
the greatest democrat of the age,
Mr.. McAdoo, several members of
the Interstate Commerce Com
mission, members of the United
States Supreme court and scores
OF leaders in our national halls of
legislation. That the final solu-
ton of the railway question will
be through Federal Ownership is
universally believed.
Strikes and lock-outs will be
as scarce under such system as
they are in the Post Office De-
partment, where never has been
even a threat of strike since its
beginning. Advocates of Gov
eminent Ownership of Railroads
are getting to be so numerous
that they cease to connect them
with socialism. However the re-
dictionaries, call every progressive
a socialist and every measure di-
rectly intended to ameliorate the
conditions of the masses social
istic, in the hope of stirring up
opposition and thus secure to
their own benefit the continue
ton of the system under which
they have fattened and thrived
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