The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1921-11-09

1913 .................... 5.159e
1914 ................... 4.17%
1915 .................. 1900
1916 (iscal Year, ............. 5000
1916 calendar YEAR, .......... 6.16Ts
1917 .................... $500
1918 .................. 3.51T
1919 ................... 2.46%
1920 .......... ............. O.32T
1t will thus be noted that during the
years when other Industries were max
ng very large profits, when the prices
Of farm products and the wages Of la.
Dor We're soaring to unheard Of heights,
he earnings upon railroad investment
n the United States were held within
very narrow limits and that they have
Turing the past four years progress
sively declined.
Roads Handicapped More Than Other
2. The railroads are responsible to
the public for providing adequate
transportation. Their charges are lin.
ted by public authority, and they are
n very large respects (nOtably for la.
1or) compelled to spend money on q
basis fixed by public authority. The
margin within which they are permit
ed to earn return upon their invest.
nent or to offer inducements to attract
lew capital for extensions and better.
nents is extremely limited. However
much the railroads might desire, there
fore, to reduce their charges in times
Of depression, Il will be perceived that
he limitations surrounding their action
10 not permit them to give effect to
broad and elastic policies which might
very properly govern other lines OF
business not thus restricted.
1t has been urged upon the railroads
that a reduction in rates will stinu-
late traffic and that increased traffic
will protect the carriers from the loss
incident to a reduction in rates. The
railroad arrangements cannot disguise
from themselves that this suggestion
is merely conjectural and that an ad-
verse result of the experiment would
be disastrous not only to the railroads,
but to the public, whose supreme need
is adequate transportation.
Consequently the railroad manage
ments cannot feel justified in placing
these instrumentalities, so essential to
the public welfare, at the hazard of
such an experiment based solely upon
such conjecture.
Farmers Especially Need Lower Rates
1t is evident, however that existing
| transportation charges bear in many
cases a disproportionate relationship
to the prices at which commodities can
he sold in the market and that existing
labor and other costs of transportation
| thus imposed upon industry and agri.
culture generally are burden greater
than they should bear. This is especi.
ally true of agriculture. The railroad
arrangements are feeling sensitive to
and sympathetic with the distressing
situation and desire to do everything
to assist in relieving it that Is compat
| ible with their duty to furnish the
transportation which the public mus
have.
At the moment railroads in many
cases are paying 10 cents an hour fol
unskilled labor when similar labor /.
working alongside the railroads ant
can easily be obtained by them at z
cents an hour. The railroads Of tht
country paid in 1920 a total Of consid
erably over $1,000, 100000 to unskillet
labor alone. However desirable it ma!
be to pay this or that schedule o
wages, it is obvious that it cannot b
paid out of railroad earnings, unles:
the industries which use the railroads
are capable Of meeting such charges.
The railroads, and through them tn
people generally, are also hampered II
their efforts to economize by SEIZED
ule of working rules and condition
now in force as heritage from tn
period of federal control and upheld
by the railroad labor board. Thes
conditions are expensive, uneconomi
and unnecessary from the point 0
view of railroad operation and extreme
" burdensome upon the public whicl
pays the bill. This schedule Of wage
and of working conditions prevents tn
railroads from dealing equitably wit
their labor costs in accordance wit
rapidly changing conditions and tn
great variety of local consideration
which ought TO control wages in dill
ferent parts of the country. The rail
roads are seeking to have these rule
and working conditions abrogated. :
The railroads viii seek reduction
in wages now proposed by first re
uuesting the sanction Of the RAILROAD
labor board. The railroads will pro
coed with all possible dispatch, and Il
soon as the railroad labor board shall
have given it's assent to the reduction
of wages the general reduction In rata
Will be put into effsc6