Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-02
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS
FACED TODAY'S ISSUES
Tariff Revision, Law Enforcement,
Liquor Menace, Railroad Valuation
and Others Are Old Problems.

nent of radical doctrines, horned in
to the law suit-as a friend, OF course,
of the State of Nebraska and OF the
cost of reproduction" theory OF valu-
alton.
The railroads lost. Nebraska and
Bryan won. The decision to Smythe VS..
Ames said, in effect, that the valuation
of a railroad is, speaking roughly, what
it would cost to reproduce 1t.
Dollars Again Grow Small.
Time passed, as the oldtime melo-
dramas used to say. The Great War
came in 1914. Thereupon the wheel
of the dollar began another revolution.
Big dollars once more became little
dollars-as they had after the Civil
War, as they do after all wars.
Again arose the question Of railroad
valuation Again 1t came to the Su-
preme Court. But this time the roles
of plaintiff and defendant are exactly
reversed.
Now, in a period of little dollars. the
railroads want their valuation to be
cost of reproduction" Now the rail-
roads are contending valiantly Tor ex-
actly the theory which in 1897 they
denounced as an atrocious radicalism
invented by William Jennings Bryan.
The railroads today, in short, are In the
shoes that Bryan occupied 80 years ago.
Similarly now the agencies Of gov
eminent, as well as the progressives
and radicals, have likewise reversed
their position. They are making today
the arguments the railroads made In
1897.
And back of it all and beneath it all
is the changing value of the dollar
from fifty-cent dollars in 1870 to one
1,,,, IN1ln fyN 1907
back to f1fty-cent dollars.
To complete this particular bit Of
irony, to make it twice perfect-Just
one more half-circle of the wheel Is
required. One can envisage the most
exquisite of ironies. Suppose the rail-
roads should win their present conten-
ton Gas they partially won 1t in the
O'Fallon case). And suppose, then, the
dollar should make another half-circle.
Suppose the present fifty-cent dollar
should become by. say, 1910. a one
hundred-cent dollar.
Permanent Dollar Value Urged.
In this disquisition. it should be said,
many statements are made and phrases
used, with the looseness that brevity
sometimes causes. A strictly legaliStic
history of railroad valuation would be
more exactly phrased and would be very
much longer. It would not, however,
differ materially from the loose and
abbreviated narrative given here.
From all of which very many lessons
portant is that the value of the dollar
ought not to be permitted to change,
to range from 100 cents down to SO
cents or less, and then back to 100
cents again. Among all the causes Of
human discomfort. of political commo-
ton, of judicial difficulty and confu-
sion, even of moral and ethical irlsta-
bility-among all the causes that pro-
duce such results probably the most
one consists Of changes in
the value Of the dollar.
A dollar should be the same dollar
always. Prof. Irving Fisher has plan
which he thinks would make 1t so. II
his plan is sound it ought to be adopted.
There is vet another analogy. oni-
nous to those public utilities described
by Senator Norris of Nebraska as col
lectively "the power trust"
During the '80s, '90S and early 1900S
the railroads committed many iniqui-
ties. Their iniquities led to political
connection. In the end Congress took
notice of them harshly. In 1906, during
the administration of Theodore Roose-
Welt, the railroads were brought into
subsection to public opinion and to law:
Between the things the railroads did
in the eos and things charged against
the public utilities today there is an
almost perfect parallel. In some re-
spects the actions of the railroads were
the more offensive; In other respects.
the actions of the. public utilities
are the more contemptuous OF public
opinion.
For example, the railroads undertook
10 destroy some citizens and some cor
porations by giving secret rebates on
freight rates, to competing citizens and
That was one of the
principal charges against the railroads,
and it was abundantly proved. AS re-
spects the public utilities today, the
writer has heard no charge that they
in rates.
Conditions Changed Little.
But as respects attempts to influence
public opinion by secret approach to
The press, 1t is the public utilities who
are the greater offenders. The rail-
-oads used to give free passes to prac-
,ically every editor and reporter; they
bought a newspaper and
their ownership of 1t; they
set up an elaborate publicity bureau"
>GIIcIl SOIlSIIlAlS IlcWJ, W COAIcCt uiIOIe
nation about all the newspapers in the
little or big. and about their
to railroad propaganda.
But the railroads did nothing COM
parable to the purchases Of newspapers
~ public utilities, recently revealed;
Tor to the introduction of public utility
into school books. nor to
he payments made by public utfli-
les to newspaper writers and college
eachers.
With some variations, everything
charged or proved, or both, against the
public utilities today, was charged, or
or both. against the railroads
IS to 40 years ago. The speeches made
n the Senate now by Senator Norris.
senator Walsh of Montana and others;
he revelations brought out by the
Federal Trade Commission-all these
IctionS and utterances about public
Utilities today can be found dupli-
ated, in effect, in the railroad de-
'ates in Congress in 1905 and earlier.
The ultimate outcome of this analogy
5 thing every reader can grasp for