The Glasgow courier. [volume] (Glasgow, Mont.) 1913-current, 1921-08-12
IMPORTANT NEW FROM THE
MA 77ONAL CAPITAL
IN OUR WEEKLY LETTER FROM WASHINGTON, D.
Elli0tt's r. X. Testimony.

A~ ~ xCotlulVuys
1T is we'll worth while to repeat
q sentence or two from the recent tes-
tlmony given before the Senate Inter
state Commerce Committee by How
ard Elliott, chairman of the Northern
Pacific Railroad Company" says a
prominent congressman. while speak
ing OF the efficiency or inefficiency of
ahor during the war, he said, among
other things:
There was less interest, there was
more slack and careless work and not
as high efficiency as prior to the
a This condition was not peculiar
to the railroad; employee; everyone
knows it existed in the household. the
store, the office, on the farm, in, the
factory, and the mine, as well as on
the railroads. =. Generally the con-
ditions were better the farther awav
you got from Washington, and from
those manufacturing and ship-build-
ing regions where the necessities of
the war required that production be
speeded up regardless of costs. 49,.
The spirit in the air down here was:
We will spend whatever is necessary
to get a thing out of the way
LAS a matter of fact, although the
declared purpose Of government Off
Gals was to speed up production re-
CARELESS of costs, the disregard of
costs often had an opposite effect.
Recklessness on the part of govern
ment officials in spending none
caused a spirit of recklessness on the
part OF employees in spending their
time. When superiors set an example
nf VIC cfof,11nncc thu nv,r.- $780, 81
lowed by the subordinates. That was
to be expected.
Undoubtedly Mr.. Elliot was alb
solutely right in saying that the
farther you got away from Washing
ton and the government plants, the
better conditions were. And that is
true in time of peace as in time of
war, for government waste is not linn
tied to wartime, though it is accentu-
ated by war conditions. Except in the
postal service, where work has been
standardized, there is probably no de-
partment of government service where
the government gets as much for it's
dollar as a private employer would
secure.
"The effect of government laxity
and inefficiency is bound to have it's
Influence upon workers in proximity
to the government establishments.
For that reason, the farther you get
from Washington and from govern
ment plants the higher degree of eff
ficiency you find. Prior to govern
ment operation of the roads, every
employe of a road considered himself
a part of the organization and took
pride in the effort to make the SER
vice of his road better than the SER
vice of any competing road. This
spirit was destroyed when a govern
ment Director of Railroads took charge
and Scrambled" the railroads. The
old spirit is fast being restored and
soon the nation will regain the old
advantage of competition to see which
can render the best service. There
has not been competition in rates since
the Interstate Commerce Act was pass
ed, and probably never will be such
competition again. Rivalry in quality
of service is the source to which the
public must look for improvement.
"Mr. Elliot's remark that the farth-
er you got from Washington the bet
ter conditions were, suggests the ad-
ditional thought that the farther this
NV hcCpo away HUH government
ownership, government operation,
government limitation or government
interference, the better off we shall
be. Some regulations for the pro-
lection of individual rights, there must
be, but the fewer these regulations
are, and the less private enterprise is
subjected to the hampering influences
of bureaucracy, the more rapid prog
ress we shall make industrially and
Socially,"