The Washington times., 1938-09-24


when President Roosevelt was governor of New York
State he very much concerned about the railroads.
The railroad problem is so full of complexities that it
is tough one to tackle We have 1929 miles of rail-
road trackage Of this total 80 per cent is in bank
- ruptcy or being reorganized
huH TTOOLeW der Section 77B; about 25 per
A Coun1or Ono cent more is not paying interest
on bonds or stocks; about 80 per
cent is paying interest stocks.
Normally, using 19231925 a criterion according
to the l. c. c., 1,784OOO men are employed AS of Au-
gust Is this year. 939268 employed This is
only 526 per cent of normal"
Outside of white-collar employees, the railroads
practically all unonzed including Pullman porters and
walters.
The blunt fact is that large portions of our railroad
trackage pay. There isn't enough freight
passenger business to make them pay This is partc
ulary true in the Western section of the country All
the country good deal of freight business has been
diverted to trucks good deal of passenger business to
buses private
1t is easy say that unproductive trackage should be
abandoned but is hard to do it. We have many thou
sands of miles of highways that paying for them
Selves in the that they do get heavy use but
still cannot abandon them. We cannot leave the
people who live along them stranded high and dry That
also applies to the railroads.
Nor let the railroads 60 completely to pieces
and transfer all the freight and passenger business to the
highways We believe that Roosevelt said that if
tried to do everything by truck there would be solid
line of trucks from San Francisco to New York. and
wouldbe passengers would have to walk along the tops
of them. In addition it isn't practical to heavy
goods by truck.
Not approaching this from the familiar socalstic view
point that private capital should be forbidden to control the
of public transportation think the real issue s
=, ~, ,, In which way can we get the best rail-
HO" O''V"'~ road service and the cheapest rates.
~ d. nono9 while still preserving railroad employ
ment? Shall it be by private or public
ownership?
No doubt there would be greater operating efficiency
by ntegratng the various systems under such
rangement the familiar nne-regonal plan which kicked
>. around Congress so long. Some sort of
AHIeyTuI'O"' integration with ship and bus lines,
rL c14: now mistakenly prohibited. would help
NV We don't think that raising rates will
necessarily help These generally drive traffic away.
The DID, familiar argument is that the railroads broke
down under Government operation during the World War;
Actually the railroads had broken down under private
management and the Government had to take them
to move supplies.
Letting the railroads all into bankruptcy IS no solu-
tion The large insurance companies unfortunately
loaded with railroad bonds which in the old days
garded as a solid, conservative form of
BOHUS OSeU investment These bonds by law
m n o1:L specified in many States as approved
O0 OO'" holdings" The result is that if the rail-
roads are allowed go into bankruptcy the large nsu
rance companies will be in a very shaky position.
Lots of people and many railroad managers say the
ultimate solution will be for the Government to step in
not now but at time in the future So the question
is:
Isn't it about time quit staing and put the railroad
problem souarey up to the people, to let them decide
whether the time has for the Government to take
over-that is say, to bail out the railroads at fair
prices? What fair prices? How about their cur
rent value in the open market?
ted from Daily News
XXI-IoA Aoo1n