The Connecticut labor press., 1920-01-10

maybe) I'll eat 1t. There are 17 differ. l ent ways to guess at railroad property value and not one of them worth any l thing, if you want to get the truth | Suppose we take replacement cost as the best way. There isn't water tank or any line the replacement cost of which l is not twice what it would have been four years ago. Next year it may be | half what 1t is now. The values of most other forms of railroad property fluctu- 1 ate similarly. Five and One-half per cent on the property today may be nine | per cent on 1t next year. If Section ( 1 of this act means anything at all ii 1 means that rates are to go jumping up l and down in the same proportion. Try that for while and see what your shippers say about it. Also ob- serve what they will do to it. Moreover, if you cut rates you in- crease traffic. If you increase traffic you must increase equipment. If you increase equipment you increase prop erty value. Well, what do you do then Put up the rates again? In that case you decrease traffic and what will you do with the useless equipment you have purchased?
 The whole thing emanates from Bed lam direct There never was a stra- ger
 
 To meet the financial emergencies that will confront the railroad com- panies as soon as they take back the properties, the inspired author of this bill provides that half billion dollars shall be advanced to them from the na- tional treasury.
 On the basis of the deficits the con- panies will have as soon as they under take individual operation, half a billion dollars will run them only few months. They will then be in the hole again. We'll, what next? Another appropriation from the national treasury? It will be either that or universal re- ceiverships. And if we decide in favor of farther appropriations that will lead merely to others. If we are to decide in favor of the receiverships, why not have them now and save the half bil lion?
 But if it comes to that, gentlemen that own and operate railroads are no more entitled to grants from the na- tional treasury than gentlemen that own and operate barber shops or gentlemen that sell hams. I need money in my own business at least as much as any gentle man in the railroad owning line, if he's going to get his Pm going to move to get mine. l don't know any reason why raiding the treasury should be the ex- elusive industry of a fortunate few Let's all take hack at 1t. 1 don't find anything in the Constitution that says gentlemen that own railroad stock are to constitute a privileged class in this country. Then subsidies for all or sub sidies for none.
 And when we come to the provisions that seek to make striking a crime, all persons that have not surrendered their thinking apparatus must stand amazed before these triumphs of legislative magic. If men employed on a railroad must keep at work when they don't want to work. Will somebody please mention a way by which this can be enforced? Mandatory injunctions will not do it; that has been abundantly proved. Neither will the dire threat of penalties such as Sections 30 and 31 contain.
 Five hundred dollars fine, or six months imprisonment or both i'll the discretion of the court Pop guns? Fine any man $500 for striking and see what fun you will have collecting that fine. Or put him in jail because he re- fuses to work when he doesn't want to work. He wouldn't be working then, WOuld ne! Ana WIlO WOuId De running your railroads?
 But suppose that some method is found to compel men to work when they don't want to work. That is in voluntary servitude, is it not? Most assuredly and obviously And do you know what the Constitution says about that?
 Amendment XIII. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction"
 Manifestly then, at the first attempt to enforce this law you would run bang against the Constitution and how long then would the law last?
 And this is the measure that the de- liberate wisdom of the Senate of the United States has created to meet the problems of the railroad situation.
 Wouldn't it be interesting after that to see what committee from Wards