The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1920-09-24
THE PLUMB PLAN
LEAGUE
BY Charles NJ. Kelley

The most important domestic prob
lem awaiting solution by American
citizens is that of transportation. 1t
is important because it affects for
good or i'll the well-being of every
man, woman and child in the nation.
Upon it is dependent the future fl
nancial stability and industrial pros
perity of the people. Practically
every other problem touches the rail-
roads, but many ordinarily well-in-
formed citizens are just finding this
out.
Because of it's commanding import
ance, the subject of transportation is
commanding larger share of atten-
tion from politicians. and it is not
a wild statement to say that it may
easily become the chief issue of the
present presidential campaign. Re
Gently Senator Harding has made
reference to the Cummins -Esch
transportation bill, defending it as
wise, constructive legislation, where
in he takes issue with millions of
people who accept it as the most
burdensome and iniquitous laws en-
acted by Congress in recent years.
The railroad issue has been of chief
interest in many state campaigns,
and the workers and other liberal
elements are advancing it for at
tention to the exclusion of less vital
questions. A number of congress-
men and senators who supported this
legislation have been defeated for
renomlnatlOn, recent retrementS be-
ing those of Congressman John J.
Esch, of Wisconsin, co-author with
Senator Cummins of the transporta-
ton bill, and Senator Hoke Smith,
of Georgia. who had been staunch
in his defense of privilege.
Contests that have terminated un-
satisfactorily, from the progressive
viewpoint, will continue from the
primary to the general election, and
there is no doubt that other men who
supported the railroad bill will ac-
company into retirement those who
were picked off at the first culling.
For the general public is slowly but
surely awakening to a realization of
just what the railroad bill means to
1t. Higher transportation rates
in some instances so high as to be
rohibitive-have convinced thousands
of citizens that their preconceived no
tions, founded upon the misleading
propaganda of the press, have been
all wrong. Private operation of
transportation is not proving out to
be the good thing that many imagin-
ed it would be.
The guarantee granted by the Cum
bill takes on a new sig
nificance when it is translated into
dollars that must be paid by the pub
lie. More than six hundred millions
of dollars paid directly from the fed
eral treasury were taken from the
pockets of the people by the COM
paratively painless process of indi-
rect and direct taxation, but now the
guarantee must be paid by every man
who uses the railroads. and no one
is exempt. The guarantee becomes
a charge against the incomes of bus
mess men, against the domestic bud
gets of the workers, against the op-
Grating cost of the farmers.
1t is estimated that before the
people have paid everything the bill
lion dollars granted the railroads for
dividend purposes will grow until it
attains the staggering proportions of
nearly $4,000, 100000. This means a
tax of $50 per year for every man,
woman and child in the country, or
an average tax of between $3.50 and
$500 for the average family.