The Connecticut labor news., 1921-03-25
NEW CONGRESS IS FIRST TO AGAIN
 SAVE RAILROADS
Esch- Cummins Bill Didn't Give Enough Millions to Suit
 Capitalists.

Washington, March 25.-Immediately upon the converting of the new Congress its members will address themselves to the perennial task of saving the rail- roads"
 It is a periodical function of govern ment at intervals of about two years to intervene and rescue the carriers from the i'll effects of management and graft. Just now, however, the rescue squad IS running ahead of schedule.
 The widely-heralded Cunmlns-Esch bill, which was to be III the way ot rre,+>- -,eration, removing from the transportation system all infected tissue and sending 1t off completely restored to health and strength IS proven to be a quack nostrum. It threatens to kill the patient before the politico-eConomic diagnoSticianS can determine just what is wrong with the patient and devise new remedies to meet the condition
 The transportation bill, 1t was prom ised by it's authors and supporters, would take the roads from politics and make an end of all talk of government ownership. It was to yield satisfactory and certain returns to investors, was to meet the nations transportation needs and re qurements and reinvigorate industry III general. It has done none or these things.
 Investors returns have reached the vanishing points, high transportation rates having had just the opposite result predicted The roads are still in politics more so than ever-and government ownership looms up large and menac1ng to railroad managers-as the only way out of the difficulty.
 There is more talk of government ;, WocbioOtOr1 tndaV than ever before. Politicians who a few months ago were telling their constltu-- ents that they were unalterably opposed to every suggestion of government inter ference with and regulation of business, that they would calmly face political death-and crossed their hearts on it before they would desert the special privilege group they have longed ta1th- fully served, are now admitting, con- fidentially and not for publication, ot course, that perhaps, after all, 1t may be necessary to chose the lesser of two evils and send the railroads back under the protecting wing of the people.
 The railroad doctors have just about exhausted their plans" for saving the railroads. They put their best brains i'll the transportation bill, and they had the assistance of the ablest railroad attor- neys in the country. Bankers, speculat- ors and captains of industry gave hand and contributed from their wisdom sug- gestions that were incorporated III the bill Everybody was consulted but the plain people, who are not expected to know anything of such matters, and who have developed a rather distressing dis regard for the sacredness of vested rights.
 When some bold plain citizen ventured a suggestion, he was told he was talking through his hat and should leave all such Weighty questions to his betterS. Sen atOr Cummins went up and down Iowa assuring his neighbors that their op- position to the transportation act was based upon misleading propaganda, and appealing for a suspension of judgment until his law had been given fair test President Harding was even more em- phatic in his defense of the bill. He Ill so many words told. Ohio protestants that they didn't know what they wanted and would not know what to do with 1t if 1t were granted them.
 And now these prophets and economic tinkererS are face to face with the utter collapse of the transportation system. Not a single prediction has been realized. The transportation bill isn't performing any miracles, and only a miracle can help the railroads, unless, as 1t may hap pen, the obvious remedy is applied III the shape of government ownership and democratic operation of the roads,
 Who saved the railroads when they broke down in 1917? The governemnt, of course. Wo saved them again Ill 191O, when they were returned to their private managers? Again the government, to the tune of nearly a billion dollars to make up deficits. Who asked the gov ernnent to intervene? The railway managers, to be sure. When they were satisfied that they couldn't get the roads out of the muck of nismaragement and craft, after we had entered the war, they came on to Washington and earn estly recommended that the government should do what they were incapable of doing. And the railway managers ln- itiated suggestions that the government save the railroads last year. By the same token, it is predicted, the rail- way managers will soon be coming with hat in hand asking the government to again step in and undo the harm that has been done by a year of anateurlsh bungling by so-called railroad experts.
 Government ownership, it has been repeatedly declared i'll these columns, is the only abiding solution of the trans portation problem. The people have just about lost patience with the Wall street bankers and speculators who have fallen down on their job and are less inclined than ever to listen to further arguments favoring continued private operation. Transportation as an individualistic en- terprise is approaching its end. The politicians will perforce go to the people for the remedy, for in the people reposes what political sanity remains in this country