The New York herald., 1921-01-19
What Ais the Railroads.

DlSCuSSlnS tne ralirOdu SlludtlOn
in the Transportation World, EDWARD
G. RIGGs, executive assistant to the
president Of the New Haven system,
puts his finger ON the very spot of
danger when he says "the railroad
business in essence, as we'll as fact, is
no different from any other business
in this great nation"
The railroads are still in an unsat-
isfactory condition not because their
revenues are low; they are fabu-
lously high. When one looks back a
very few years and sees how their
gross receipts are up, not by tens
and not by hundreds of millions but
by billions of dollars, the increase is
dumfounding. The railroads are still
in an unsatisfactory condition, in
truth, because as their receipts have
been multiplied and multiplied they
have been devoured by ever growing
expenses.
The principal carriers of the coun-
try. for one example. literally feed
ON coal. The ton price OF that coal
is up many dollars over years not so
far back. If It is a wild dream TO
think of getting the price back to
the normal Of the pre-war days, 1t
is not even short flight of the imag-
ination to picture it half Of the way
back. Yet If a picayune decrease of
only a dollar a ton should befall. that
dollar a ton would mean more than
$o00.000,000 a year for the roads.
Between the last month of private
control in December, 1917. and the
last month of Federal control a little
more than two years later, as Mr..
RIGGS cites, the number Of men on
the railway payrolls swelled some
100000. Now. If the average wage to
the man was $500 a year here was
nm annual waste item for all the roads
Of close to $4O0 100000. If the average
was $1,000 there was a waste item of
not less than half billion OF dollars
year.
Take the two items together. the
excessive coal price. figured at only
81 ton too high. and the excessive
labor waste, figured at only $1,000 a
year q man, and. with S20O0o0,o00
for the coal and S3Oo,00o,OO0 for the
men. there Is combined total Of half
a billion Of dollars year. And half
billion of dollars year, the mini
mum amount of the overspendings on
those two items alone. is five per cent.
on ten billions of dollars a year. ap-
proximately the whole stock capital
lzation Of the United States.
And, of course, the excessive cost
which got into the railroads coal got
into all the railroads supplies. from
locomotives to hand cars and from
steel rails TO road bed ballast.
The railroads were better off, far
better off, indeed, when they had
billions Of dollars year less of gross
revenue, but could get their equip
ment and supplies at normal prices,
and could get their men to do a square
days work for a square days pay.
But the trouble with the railroads
has been the trouble with other indus
try and business-magnified earnings
devoured. and more beside, by costs
Yagnlfied to an even higher degree.
II has been the trouble with the in
dlvidual-greater income expressed in
dollar marks, but greater spendings.
They can all get back TO normal costs
and profits, work and reward. pros
perity and happiness. But never by
pumping up wages. prices and rates
to be swallowed whole as fast as they
appear. They can get back and the
whole nation can get back by honest
work, good goods and superior SER
vice at fair prices under which both
labor and capital can first live, then
thrive.