Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-19
HOLIDAY is
ADVOCATED BY MELLON
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin

mission arrogates to itself powers
too sweeping and invades the field
of management of the railroads.
whereas, under the law, it should
restrict its activities to a detached
and impersonal judging of right and
wrong in railroad cases, within the
meaning of the Act to Regulate
Commerce.
The first dissent from the practice
which in recent years has grown up
of regulating the railroads as though
they were owned by the commission
was expressed by the late Commits
sioner Clements in the Second Five
Per Cent Case. In that case the
railroads asked for a rate increase,
claiming that they could not make
money unless they received higher
rates. The commission agreed with
this view and granted the increase,
but Commissioner Clements dissented
from the majority opinion and de-
clared that if all a railroad had to
do to get a rate increase was to
prove that it needed money, the bur-
den of proof of why an increase
should be granted, which is placed
by the statute on the railroad, had
become light and Easy to carry.
1t was the opinion of Commits
oAOAAtl NAA9N 80
business of a specific charge for car
rying a given commodity a certain
distance should be the measure of
regulation and that the commission
had no legal right to give or with
hold a rate increase on the basis of
whether or not the carriers needed
the money. This he regarded as
alien to the commissions function
and an assumption of a managerial
duty.
The commissioner stood practical
ly alone then but since his time
that is, in the last five or six years
Others have taken practically the
same view. Mr.. Mellon has crystal
lied it in his %aphoristic statement
that the remedy is a railroad holi-
day.
1t is argued that under a relaxed
regulation the public would get
measureably better service because
each railroad would be on it's met
tie not only to cut rates lower than
its competitors but to give such SER
vice that it's facilities would be pre-
ferred. 1t is claimed hat when rail-
road operation is carried on in a
network of regulations and rules
which dictate to a nicely practically
every function of management, great
progressive executives and alert,
capable railroad workers are not at
tracted to the profession.
President Underwood of the Erie
Railroad tells of an experience of
his in the bitterly cold winter of
ously with the movement of trains.
Engines were frozen in the yards.
cars were frozen to the tracks and
snowdrifts blocked the tracks TO a
point where, on some of the worst
days, traffic practically vas suspend
ed. Mr.. Underwood. who has been
in railroad service for many years,
met at one of the terminals, an old
yardman who had been working all
his life on railroads. Mr.. Under
wood had known him for thirty or
forty years.
Steel Cars and Wooden Men
Greeting the aged worker, the
railroad president asked him to ex-
plain why railroads had so much
difficulty in these times. He pointed
out that a quarter of a century ago
winters were just as cold but that
traffic never was suspended and the
trains kept moving in all weather.
The old yardman answered: 1.-The
reason is that now we have steel
ears and wooden men but in h old
days we had wooden cars and men
of steel"
This is a favorite theme of Fair
fax Harrison, president of the South
ern Railway, who, at the termination
of federal control introduced eco
Monies in operation and increased
efficiency to an extent which over
came the operating deficit. 1t is his
opinion that esprit de corps is as
necessary I o operate a railroad as
to win a battle and that such spirit
is difficult to stimulate under tread
mill conditions of routine regulation.
But II Is to be expected that any
discussion of this backward swing OF
the pendulum will bring many earn
| est protests from critics of railroad
management and operation who de
sire not less but a greater and firm
er measure of regulation and out
right ownership IL need be. These
critics claim that there is enormous
waste and, in some cases, fraudulent
mismanagement of the carriers BY
their private owners. They asser,
that the only solution to the rail-
road problem is to turn the whole
system over TO government owner
ship and operation.
One of the principal attacks or
the cost q. railroad opsrau2n. ypa4I