The Wilmington morning star., 1946-07-31
Fair Enough
By WEsTBRooK PEGLER

planted Els elbows on the ran alongside Aoru
Dewar, the Scotch distiller, and said, 81 think
we ought to be better acquainted because l
am a big whiskey man myself"
"Eh, :ndeed?" the old guy said, land what
whiskey do you make?"
Make" Gene hollercd, Lord, Lord, I don't
make it. I drink it."
And I am a big railroad man, too, because
1 ride railroads and, thus qualified, I would
like to handy words with Robert R. Young,
the chairman Of the board of the Chesapeake
and Ohio, who has stared another of his
publicity campaigns to modernize railroad
practice and equipment. At that, I am almost
as mucu a railroad man as Young because
he is no up-from-under brakeman or dis
patcher but a stock broker and l hope he
won't mind my saying that in the newspaper
business I prefer newspapermen to rich
grocers and renovated playboys as publishers,
and in the railroad business, railroad men
to promoters and lawyers. I like that kind
Of railroad executive who can ride along in
his work car with a spotlight playing on the
track at night and detect little things with
the expert, naked eye that might cause
trouble and a bankers eye for that would be
no smarter than nine.
Mr.. Young is a pretty good propaganda
because, starting last winter, he raised such
a row with his newspaper ads that the big
lines were forced to run cars through from
coast to coast for the first time in history,
with the exceptions of military trains and the
| campaign specials of some presidential nomi-
nees.
Now he and some friends are trying to
break the decision OF a special court which
decided that the Pullman Company should be
sold to a group of railroads and the De-
partment of Justice, for some reason, prob
ably political, is appealing the case to the
Supreme Court in his interest. The new series
of ads probably will catch the attention of
the Supreme Court and | have no reason to
think that would break Mr.. Young's heart,
either. because he and his business associates
want to buy the operating company and make
a dollar. 1t is a form Of picketing adopted
from the propaganda campaigns in favor Ct
Harry Bridges when his deportation case was
on appeal, and while a FORMAL Supreme Court
might be inpervious to such noise this one
might turn on something that one o. those
panoplied W.P.A. clients and precinct COM
mitteemen heard in "A right club from some
one like Murray Carson.
Mr.. Young's first ad calls the standard
Pullman sleeper a rolling tenement and the
boy has got something there but when he
seems to advocate new lightweight stream
liners" l call him outside.
I agree that the old Pullman design is
archaic and that misery is built in immov-
able and irrevocable. There may have been
an improvement on the sit-up cars when they
came aICng IN the 1l1lleS WIN DlrQS ana
flowers painted on the doors and lace doilies
under the s~pittoons but the practice of stack
ing people on shelves behind curtains should
have expired about 1900 These are several
new designs which would carry the same pay
load in privacy and greater comfort, although
anyone who thinks a steel house tearing along
at 80 miles an hour can ever be as pleasant
as his own bedroom is just a fool, and one
Of the reasons why people aren't riding in
tho new mnHp1c pnu, ie the r T n with -,
strikes since the war ended. They can't get
enough steel or copper or electrical equip
ment and I don't think Young can either, for
all his talk.
The strean-liner ana the lightweight car
are fakes as far as the comfort and safety
OF the Passengers are concerned. The stream
liner is a fake, period, because The air re.
sistance of a square car is so little more
than that Of cars with curved ends, linked
together at the vestihules like sausage, that
stream-li1ing makes no eppreciable difference
to anyone. including the stockholders. You
can't stream-line the under side of a car
and that fatal defect defeats the whole idea.
although the customers dc like novelties and
this one and the siIverJ exterior gave them
the simple pleasure that a child gets from
a red wagon.
How can the color of the car on the out
side or its external lines possibly affect the
passengers safety and comfort one way or
another?
The lightweight car is less stable at high
speeds and on curves for the same reason that
a little automobile can't hold the road under
conditions that a big, heavy machine meets
without the slightest difficulty. I crossed from
Los Angeles to Chicago on a pre-war super
chief and I tell you that was an adventure.
The dishes slid all over the tables and my
waiter told me that on his last trip practical
ly everything in the diner went to the floor
at one point where the engineer PLAYED crack
the-whip. You had to grab holds walking
through the train and at night I recalled a
channel crossing when We had to strap our
selves into our hunks but l found no strap
in my roomette This vas that light equip
ment that Mr. Young speaks OF. "A passenger
doesn't care whether the railroad company
saves money on fuel by substituting light ma
terials and construction for good, heavy steel
and old basic design. That is the company's
worry and the economy on fuel probably can't
be assessed and shared with the customer
and wouldn't be worth the discomfort and
extra risk if it could be.
On a trip up from San Diego to Los Ange-
les a friend Of mine said he and all the
rest of the observation car were tunbled all
over the place on a curve. Arriving in Los
Angeles, they set up a howl and the driver
said he hadn't done anything unusual and was
surprised to hear what had happened.
Another train, containing both light and
heavy cars, hit a curve too fast going into
California from Arizona during the war and