amount of investors’ money needed for the development of our railroad facilities. If rates are going to be reduced whenever dividends exceed current rates of interest, investors will seek other fields where the hazard is less or the opportunity greater.” And again: “The necessary development of railroad facilities is now endangered by the reluctance of investors to purchase new issues of railroad securities in the amounts required. This reluctance is likely to continue until the American public understands the essential community of interest between shipper and investor and the folly of attempting to protect the one by taking away the rewards of good management from the other.” Mr. Fairchild, also, whom I have previously quoted, points out that the time has arrived when there should be some support of the railroads.
That the railways have been falling behind the business of the country is shown by statistics from the reports of the Bureau of Census and of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In the United States the value of the railways
