The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1922-01-16

obtain greater production and some
profit.
1T is my belief that by the increased
production and the increased tonnage
which the carriers would haul, they
would at the lessened rates recoup
their losses. and railway property
would again reach n point of making a
fair return.
"Of what good is It to make the
soil smile a harvest" ic It cannot he
marketed and marketed at q figure
that the consumers can buy freely at
prices which will leave q reasona bic
margin Of return to the producer?
Last year the cotton planters of
the south produced the crop on peak
prices for labor, the highest prices ever
before paid for fertilizer and other
supplies necessary in agricultural pro-
duction, and could not sell the crop
for anything like its cost to make it
'FThey could not pay their fertilizer
bills, nor pay the merchant who sup
piled them, and in turn the merchant
could not pay the banks.
This was also true of the thousands
of acres Of peanuts which the southern
states produced, including Florida.
Peanuts have become a very important
crop, taking the place of cotton in
some sections. They are crushed for
oil; the meal is used for feeding and
fertilizer purposes and great quantities
are used in CONNECTIONS, etc.
Our forest products have suffered in
the last year. The freight charges have
been too high to market at a profit.
Many of our mills have run on half
time. or have been shut down entirely
at times, and yet we know that there
is a shortage in houses all over the
country, but transportation charges
are so high that no real building boom
has as yet been started.
an 1921 the president made an eff
fort to start building a million and a
half much needed houses in the coun-
try. and found that nobody would
build them, because to do so under the
less adventure even under the present
eXhorbitant rent rates.
Transportation is that element OF
human activity on which is based more
largely than any other the welfare and
prosperity of the entire country. This
is true of any country where the
proper distribution of the results Of
labor is necessary to a sound economic
condition. Therefore it will be seen
that the cost of transportation, which
is represented by the freight rates, in
sofar as the shipper is concerned, is
one of the most important questions
now confronting US. The proper ad-
justment of this question is Of IS vital
Importance to the carrier as it is TO
the shipper, for the interests of both
are so interviewer that they must
stand or fall together.
Transportation is the commodity
offered for sale by the common carrier,
and if tho cost of producing it is so
high as to make it unstable at a pro-
fit the carrier would be in the same
position as would any other business
enterprise where the cost Of producing
the article it has to offer is so high
that it cannot do business at a profit
and it is universally true that no bust
ness can live on anything less than a
fair profit.
ION the other hand, every individual
in the land who produces anything for
the markets, or who receives anything
from the markets, is interested in the
cost of transportation, for the level of
such cost necessarily very largely de-
termines whether or not business is to
be conducted at profit by the great
mass of people, and there can be no
real prosperity unless it is mass pros
perity."