quantity year by year. The imagination of the people is fired by the building of the Panama Canal, and it is thought of as a great work; but the railroad equipment for the use of the people is worth at least eight times the cost of that canal, and the annual cost of repairing and replacing that equipment, about $446,000,000 in 1912, is as much as the cost of the canal. To maintain a high standard of equipment for the use of the American people is fully as important as to have the Panama Canal, and yet rarely is any suggestion made to encourage the railroads in the work they are trying to do and to help them to make a better use of that equipment or to obtain rates that will enable them to have adequate facilities and adequate equipment for the fast-growing business of the country.
The railroads are struggling all the time to perform their work with less loss and damage to life and property, and few people not in the business realize the vast capital expenditures that should be made in order to equip the railroads with modern safety appliances that help
