The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1932-09-13
Representative Of Railroad Tells
of Carriers Present-Day
Problems

The Northern Pacific railways tax
bill in 1881 on it's operating property
its lands and it's subsidiary company's
property was $1,000 for every hour of
the entire year.
F.. w. DeGuire, executive assistant
of that railroad, in Bismarck Monday,
referred to the heavy taxes railroads
pay in discussing the problems now
confronting the steam lines. He
pointed out that his railroads total
tax bill on operating property last
year was $7,783,0 900, on its lands s644,-
600, and 100000 on the property Of
the Northwestern Improvement COM
pany. a wholly-owned subsidiary,
making a total of $8729 900.
Again. he said, the Northern Pa
cific in Bismarck Mandan in 1881 av-
eraged 1886 persons on the payrolls,
to whom a total of $697 ZOO was paid,
and in Burleigh county the railroad
paid $1O6,978.14 in taxes.
production of transportation in
this country today is in excess of
consumption and, to large extent,
the ills of outstanding transportation
agencies are traceable to that fact
DeGuire continued.
Cannot Scale Down
Under conditions which now exist.
Transportation is unable to scale down
it's operations to the level of the bust
ness available.
Because there is too much trans
portation. a new era In that field OF
business is dawning This new era
will place in its proper relationship
each of the agencies of transporta-
tion-the railroads, the common car
riers on the highways, the airplanes,
the pipe lines and even the private
highway carriers. There is definite
place for all of them, but salient facts
stand out:
THE railroad continues to be the
essential carrier and no substitute has
vet been devised.
ITO handicap a railroad with heavy
burdens, unsound regulations and
subsidized competition is to handicap
also the territory the railroad serves.
UNLESS unfair burdens now i'm
posed upon the railroads are removed.
business generally will continue to be
depressed because an excess of trans
portation, some of it subsidized, Will
impoverisr the essential carriers.
Every community served by rail-
road is certain to be Impoverished II
it's railroad is impoverished.
Railroads are essential, not only
because they provide the backbone OF
the transportation industry and no
other form of carrier could begin to
move the volume that is handled by
the steam lines, but also because they
are ineXtricably tied in with Amer
ica's trade and industries. Backing
up into many great industries is the
railroads vast consumption OF basic
materials. What the railroads buy Is
based upon their earnings and ability
to pay. =,
Even in these slack times, the rail-
roads employ more than l 100000 per-
sons at an average annual pay OF
s1,228; the yearly payroll Is approx
mately 81 ,348 900 900.
S1.OO0.000 Day
Railroads in 1881 paid 1928, LAB, 1872
In taxes-more than 81 100000 for
every working day. Today the gov
eminent units take away from the
railroads in taxes more than hall the
earnings after meeting only operating
expenses In the first five months OF
this year, for instance, the net oper-
ating revenue of Glass railroads was
S273,928,324, which was the amount
available before deductions for any
taxes or interest charges, while taxes
levied total Sl24,941,177 or 1876 per
cent. In 1913 the percentage was only
1875: in 1929 it was 224 per cent; IN
1880 it was 259 per cent and IN 1881
it had climbed to 3l.7 per cent.
Bringing the tax problems OF the
railroads closer to home, the COM
parative figures for the first halves
of 1881 and 1882 are even more start
ling. For the three northern trans
continental systems - the Northern
Pacific. Great Northern and Chicago,
Milwaukee. st. Paul & Pacific-the
railway operating revenues IN the flrst
six months of 1881 totaled S124,O73,-
$40, while in the first half of 1882
they had dropped to S87 1881 ITO. These
three transcontinental railroads OPP
Grating expenses in the first half OF
1881 were s1O4,591,157. which figure
had been reduced to SOL ,536,557 in the
first six months of 1882. This left as
net operating revenue for the three
lines in the first six months of 1881,
sl9,482,413, while for the first six
months of 1882 the net operating rev.
enues had been reduced to S5,844, 622.
The three railroads tax charges in
the first six months of 1881 were sl2,-
6l7,646 and in the first half of 1882
they were S11 1859, 1873, so that in the
first half of 1881 the tax charges were
64.76 per cent of the net operating
revenues, while for the first six
months of 1882 they were 1882 per