Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-19
SQUARE DEAL FOR RAILROADS
URGED BY BANKERS PRESIDENT
Rome c. Stephenson Believes Approval of
Four-System Merger Would Ma
terially Aid u. S. Business.

are unfair to the railroads. because
Government policy is the deciding
economic factor in that competition.
Citing figures which showed the re-
markable expansion in common carrier
bus transportation in recent years,
during which there has been a startling
drop in railroad passenger traffic, and
the tremendous inroads into freight
business of the railroads made by high
way motor trucks during the same
period, Mr.. Stephenson said that where
competing motor rates are below rail
rates the situation calls for the relent-
less analysis of just the conditions under
which this competitive threat to the
earnings of the railroad is able to
operate.
Rights Of Way.
Railroad rights of way, he declared,
represent tremendous capital invest
ments, on which the railroads have also
heavy current costs to meet. They
pay every day million dollars in taxes
and most of this Is on their rights of
way" he said. "Also they spend daily
over two million dollars additional for
the proper maintenn nee of way" He
asserted that the motor buses have not
had to pay for their rights of way in
any sense that the railroads paid for
theirs.
They have simply taken possession
of public highways built by public
funds both State and National" he
continued, land they have extensively
made those highways vastly less COM
Portable, less safe and less serviceable
for private motorists and others who are
contributing chiefly to their creation
and maintenance.
Mr.. Stephenson pointed out that in
1929 motor ownership and operating
license fees and taxes in the Nation
totaled 1890, 900 900, the great bulk of
which was paid by private automobile
owners, not by the purely commercial
portion of highway creation and upkeep
paid for by motor buses and trucks is
commensurate with the use they make
of those highways. rs it not a ques-
ton of fact to be determined" he
asked, whether or not motor bus and
, truck traffic Is, in effect, being SUBJ
sidized by being allowed to escape a
proper charge for rights of way and
maintenance Of way and are thereby
able to offer a far keener competition
against the railroads than they other
wise would?
1T involves the question of how COM
mon carrier motor traffic rates would
compare with those railroad rates with
which they come into competition il
their schedules were based on the
equivalent of an added capital invest
ment to pay for the rights of way
which they are now getting free anc
also If to present operating costs were
added the cost of maintenance of way
as represented by their fair portion OF
highway upkeep. Under such conditions
would bus passenger and truck rates
command the same place in public eS-
TEEN and demand relative to railroad
travel that it now does?"
Urges Investigation.
Mr.. Stephenson declared that al
these matters should be thoroughly in
quired into by competent public bodies
both State and National, with a view
of determining the equities and basic
public economic interests involved, par
ticularly in respect to their effects upor
the Nations stake in its railroads"
Il venture to say" he added, "that
such inquiries would show whether i
Is to the public interest to let thing!
remain as they are, whether the Situa
ton calls for a new basis of motor bu!
and truck taxes to satisfy the equities
of the case or whether it would cal
for such drastic action as the exclusion
of this traffic from our public genera
highways and the requirement that
even as the railways, it provide as &
part of its own private capital invest
ment its own rights of way and for it,
own maintenance of way out Of oper-
ating income"