The New York herald., 1921-10-25
FORD GIVES 4 RULES
FOR R. R. OPERATION
Get Rid of Parasite StOckhOld-
ers and Fire Useless En-
plOyees and Lawyers.

WAsHINGToN, Oct. 24.--Henry Ford,
writing in the current number Of the
official publication of the Chamber of
Commerce of the United States. tells how
he would run a big railroad. Mr.. Ford's
operation OF his own road, the Detroit,
Toledo and IrontoD, has been the sub
jcct of much discussion among railroad
men and the public.
First of all. says Mr.. Ford. he would
get rid of the individual stockholder,
whom he considers a parasite then he
would turn TO lighter rolling stock, and
finally fire the useless employees espe-
cially the lawyers.
Finance as IL applies to railroads,
says Mr.. Ford, is Il failure: and the
roads spend money uselessly In red tape
Of all sorts. particularly in accounting.
THE real purposes of a railroad Mr.
! Ford writes. ''is TO serve the public.
There is no reason why It should be
diverted from that service and set to
doing an entirely different thing-put-
ting money into the pockets of stock
holders who make no contribution TO
the roads actual operation. In the end
the public pays these dividends. They
are a tax on the whole people.
There is n possible and practicable
system of financing railroads by which
those contributing the money will be In
positions to aid directly to the success
OF the undertaking. If the brakeman
on railroad owns stock in it he has an
additional inducement to competent SER
vice. If the railroad is success it is
due to him and his fellow worlSmen. and
they are entitled to the profit.
Railroads should OF have TO go to
banks for money. They can be other
wise financed. The first thing Is to
make railroad work. Make 1t possi-
BILE for people to use ii al much as they
want to. Then there will be no trouble
about finances. The trouble is that
we start with finance and expect
finance to make the road go. Finance
can't do that. Finance is failure.
After removing the dividend drain
the second step would be to remove
the great physical burden of the rail-
roads-needless weight of its rolling
stock. A freight train is several times
the weight of the load 1t carries and
passenger train Is twenty times as
heavy. The cost of pulling empty trains
Is needlessly large. Contrast this with
the efficiency of the bicycle which
weighs twenty pounds and will carry
man VINO weighs 200 pounds.
"The third step, an immediate step
which should be taken in the operation
of any great railroad system, would be
that of expediting the journey of the
freight carrier. BY speeding up our
freight over the preliminary part of it's
journey on the d. Il. and I. we have
been able to shorten the time of its
delivery by periods ranging from seven
to fourteen days. This means our
product to the people to whom we sell
it from seven to fourteen days quicker
than it used to. 1t means that we carry
on our books $50, 10000 less undelivered
product than we otherwise would.
"Most railroads have enough lawyers
working for them to operate them If
they We're engaged in useful work one
of the first things is to dispense with
the legal staff A well managed road
needs less of that sort of service. The
lawyers are mostly in the claim depart
ment, which is one of the most wasteful
branches OF railroad operation. Any
small claim against railroad is very
likely to knock about the claims depart
ment for weeks or months, TO cost many
times as much as ii would to pay it,
Proper organization would lead. at the
time. it IS first presented, to establishing
the facts about it and settling it on the
basis of justice. 1t would keep all this
detail off the books"