Arizona republican., 1921-12-17
lowing selfish interests to predotni-

OI HdNe luSl past, especially during the period of them to the situation that seems to apply at the present date in the Re- public of Mexico. In this latter country politicians visioned that there was untold wealth being gained by private capital through the opera ton of the railroads, and in order. in their opinion, to get this revenue for the running of the government, they seized practically all of the rail- roads. to operate them nationally. We have but to travel over these rails today to note the miles and miles of track without proper main- tenance and couple this with the de- teriorated condition of the rolling stock and equipment and the further unofficial statement. which to me is only rumor, that there is at present being taken out of the federal treas ury, monthly, one-half million dollars to take care of the deficit alone in operating and maintenance expenses, then you can gain some idea Of what railroading means under the control of politicians. Coupled, of course, with this seizure of the railroads, was the glamour of the high railroad po- sitions, which one and all of the poli- ticians considered themselves capable of filling.
 U. s. Government Experiment.
 The above situation is analogous to our experiment in the United States, and must say it is healthy sign when our own government, so to speak, dropped the hot potato" Look back to 1916 when the Adam son law was put into effect by our congress. Listen to your own repre- sentatives and senators, decrying the fact that they were forced at that time under misconception, to put on statute, which has called upon you as business men and merchants, in the final analysis, to pay the bill. Fol low this up to the time when we en- tered the Word war and look at some of the statistics that we now have, to look back on and analyZe, in order to show definitely the fallacy of such proceeding and the Selfishness of those in power to grab the manage
 ment of these properties for their own glory, and not from the patriotic motive that we were then led to be- lieve was true.
 We find that in 1917 the railroads transported more freight and pas -
 The lines, inclosing months of that year, were in excellent physical con- dition, and the equipment better maintained than it had been before or has ever been since. We find, too, that the railroads moved a heavier freight traffic in the last nine months of private control than in the first nine months of government control, and the heaviest freight traffic ever | handled in any one month There | was no war necessity for federal con- trol at that time. Railroad execu- tives unanimously offered their ser vices and their properties and their experience, but to no avail. The de- l sire for standardization was too great Once in control and having an un- 1 limited authority for disbursements ! of money in which they had no per- 1 sonal interest, led to extravagances ! almost beyond comprehension. Do
 you realize that this Adamson law in- | creased the labor bill over 1916 by 1 s271, ,000, 900 for the year 1917, and l further the United States Railroad
 Administration during the brief peri l cd of four years raised wages above 1 this s271, ,000, 600 by the huge sum of | s2, 230, ,0O0, 900 in 1920? In other 1 words, after 26 months of misman- agNnent the government surrendered l the roads with the heritage of four | or five billions of debt saddled on the | country.
 In 1917, the roads had 2s4.5oo shop men. In March, 1920, 378,000 shop
 men or an increase of 43 per cent l Yet they turned the roads back to 1 the owners in a deplorable condition
 Now I ask: What ails the railroads?' l Let's look at the next situation l We will call 1t water competition 1 The balance sheet of the United
 States shipping board as of January ! 1, 1921, evidenced expenditures aggre- I gating $3,062, 100000. 1,667 vessels 1 have been built and placed in com l mission. many in domestic coastwise in most aggressive competition witt I the railroads. The practice Of the shipping board is to turn these ves- sels to agents to operate them al | the expense of the shipping board l who receive for their services 5 pel l cent of the gross receipts. They are l released from obligation to show any net return, to pay overhead expenses or a return on the property invest ment, so that all incentives to con
 servative rate making and efficiency
 of management are absent. This wa! | the condition in April last, but I un'
 derstand that the shipping board II have under consideration changes, a:
 the present contracts are not satis'
 factory.
 It may interest you to know tha U large sums of money are being spen
 currently by the government In i'm
 proving inland waterways, which il
 the aggregate will deprive the rail
 roads of a very heavy tonnage. Th' r,
 upwards of s150,000,0 900 on traffi'
 routes closely paralleling steam rail
 road lines. Believe you are familia
 with regulations abolish tolls for us'
 of the Panama canal. This in itsel
 will mean a differential of one dolia' a ton for transcontinental freight. believe, we, of the interior states
 should take careful note of this sub
 sidiZed water competition as agains the rates on the transcontinental rail
 roads. Shall we revert to the condi
 tions of Australia, where the mdnu factories and business is concentrate,
 on the seacoast, or shall we endeavo to make our entire nation prosper ous? It is alarming to note tn movement of manufactories from tn interior of the United States, t coast cities, and when we read in tn tpress where one hundred families an, a large manufacturing plant ha moved from an interior city to tn sea coast, in order to take advantag of the low transportation rates a afforded by water, we of the interio states must consider the effect. The next problem of interest is tn competition that is being given i
 the way of motor trucks and moto vehicles. The Railway Age of Janu