The New York herald., 1921-10-31
MONDAY. OCTOBER 81. 1921.
The Public and the Railroads.


Apparently the railway executives,
who announce they will go right on
with their proposals for further wage
cuts, cannot make much headway in
that direction for the better part OF
81 year. The official statements and
documents in the strike settlement
}case seem to bear out the union
!. leaders claims that there will be no
wage reductions for "a considerable
!. time" Their resolutions calling OF
! the strike lay stress upon the Labor
Boards declaration that because of
its crowded docket it would not be
able to reach wage reduction petit
tions before next summer.
Both the Labor Board and the
q unions make much of their common
understanding that in the Chicago
proceedings before the board the
railroads engaged to make no changes
in wages or working conditions un-
less by agreement with their en-
: ployees or by decision of the board.
If this means that there is no hope
of the unions agreeing with the roads
!, upon wage reductions, regardless OF
the Labor Boards docket, the chance
for the public to get material ease
from its colossal transportation bill
goes UP in smoke.
n,x< ha x>.th q greatly
y lieved to know that there is to be no
winter tieup of its food and fuel sup
ply, it is not going to abandon its
demand for lower freight and pas
.senger rates. 1t is going to insist,
,yas the railway managers realize and
admit, that when all other costs OF
business and living are being worked
downward toward normal the heavi-
est cost in the greatest single busi-
ness of all should come down, and
come down sharply.
v Only the dumfounding mathematics
OF the railroad receipts and expendi-
E fures in recent years can give the
picture of how much more the pub
lie Is paying for it's transportation
work than it should pay or can stand
paying. The country's whole trans
portation bill in 1912, as represented
by the total operating income of the
roads, was only $4,000, 100000. For
(, the three years of 1912, 1913 and 1914
the annual average was only about
$4,000, 100000. AS late as 1916 1t had
gone no higher than s3,596, 1865, ,766.
But in 1920 It was up to $6,171.-
e4s3, ,OOc.
This transportation bill which the
4 American public had to pay in 1920
was above two billions of dollars
!. more than it had been even as late
as 1917. II was above two and half
billions of dollars more than it had
been in 1916. 1t was above three
billions of dollars more than the an.
nual average had been for the three
fiscal years up to the outbreak of the
European war. 1t was three billions
and nearly four hundred millions of
dollars more than in the fiscal year
OF 1912.
And, astonishing to relate, the
whole of that terrible load of more
than six billions of dollars which the
American public had to pay in trans
portation charges for 1929 was swal-
lowed up in running expenses, except
for negligible one per cent. There
was not a penny OF it left for divi-
dends. There was not a penny of It
left for surplus to improve and ex-
tend the carrying system of the coun-
try. There was not enough left by
hundreds Of millions OF dollars to pay
interest on the mass railroad debt.
When anybody talks or thinks
about cutting rates he wants to look
where that more than six billions
of dollars Of operating revenues went
ir 1920. When anybody talks or
thinks about better railway manage
sment or cheaper supplies or smaller
Manages he wants to look at those
pame tables OF expenditures. Then
he wants to ask himself where the
savings must come from to lower the
rates, so long as the roads are con-
stituted as they are in their many
Z units and various groups and so long
a. they are under the expense condi-
tfons they are under. He wants to
ssk himself what must be done, and
where, to get the transportation
charges Of the American public down
TO what they were or anything like
what they were before the war.
II there had not been dollar TO
pay in 1920 for the locomotive fuel
bills, instead Of the se7S 100000 actu-
ally paid out; Il there had not been