INTRODUCTION
The time has now come for an impartial and serious consideration by the people at large, as to whether it might not be better for their interests individually and collectively, and for all business interests of the country, to give the railroads a breathing-spell, to eliminate some of the useless and unnecessary restrictive law under which they are compelled to work, and to permit them to solve the very serious problem of giving the public what it wants in railroad service and railroad facilities, by encouraging friendly relations and friendly discussion with the public, rather than to have constant friction and bickering.
For many years, and particularly in the last few, there has been agitation about the so-called railroad question, or problem. Throughlack of complete information about the railroads there has arisen some antagonism toward them, and it is important to explain the real situation, because the American people, when they know the truth, are not likely to be unjust to any one class of people, or to any one business.
Upon the one hand there is a critical public. Upon the other, the railroads are struggling with forces which are causing rates to remain stationary or to decline, causing wages to rise or to remain stationary, bringing demands from a prosperous and luxurious people for increasingly expensive facilities and service, and causing taxation to rise at an alarming rate. These four forces are all at work reducing the margin between income and outgo and making it more and more difficult for the owners of railroad properties to keep their lines in suitable condition to carry on the business of the country, and to obtain a return commensurate with the risk of the business and sufficient to attract further investment.
If rates had not been fair and service adequate, neither agriculture nor commerce would have shown such gratifying gains as were made during the census period ending in 1910. If it were not a fact that since they were constructed railroads have steadily lowered rates, while increasing the extent and raising the quality of their service, and at the same time steadily increasing expenditure and work for the development of the country, America today would not be what it is. Its development would have been retarded and its progress slow.
To-day, however, the railroads are a big target at which many shoot. Out of 92,000,000 people relatively few in the regular course of their lives and business come closely enough into contact with railroads to know railroad officers or understand the business. Those who do not must depend upon casual information—what politicians say, what magazines print, what appears in the daily press—for their knowledge about railroads. The arguments hurled at railroads by some of the magazines are often more calculated to increase circulation than to educate the American people as to the actual facts. Many of the charges which have been believed by thousands of people are not based on accurate knowledge.
Railroad officers have been less active than they should have been in keeping in touch with the public. The railroad stockholders have not realized how strong the forces affecting their properties are. This condition has changed and the modern railroad-owners, officers, and employees should and do realize that it is necessary to maintain cordial and friendly relations with the public and by their personal efforts and examples to give full information about the business, and to build up a constantly better feeling toward the transportation machine of the United States.
It is, no doubt, true that little things—the abruptness of an agent or a trainman, a lack of proper courtesy, inattention to complaints of the public, dilatoriness—often cause quite as much criticism from the public as things of greater importance. This irritation and criticism can be reduced by adjusting the relations between the railroads and the public at the point of contact. For example, the passenger men and their representatives during 1913 came into touch with each one of nearly nine hundred million users of railroads. In each of nine hundred million instances some man had a chance to make or mar the reputation of his line and to affect just a little the attitude of the people toward the transportation business. Nine hundred million instances of courtesy and attention, or nine hundred million passengers completing a journey with a feeling that the railroad was interested in their comfort or pleasure, would constitute a great leverage, moving public sentiment into better channels.
Not only the passenger man but railroad men in general can build up cordial relations in this way, and have an opportunity to place before the people the real facts about the railroad business of this country, which will show a majority of the American people—who are unfair only because they do not fully understand this question—that the railroads cannot indefinitely provide at rising costs the increasingly good service which the public demands and should have, and survive, unless there is more reason in directing and controling the four forces which are influencing rates, wages, demands, and taxes.
There is plenty of information at hand about the railroad business. No form of business in the United States is conducted so openly, and in none are the facts and figures so available. This information does not reach the everyday citizen, who is interested but lacks ready sources of information, to the degree that it should. Every railroad man can do a great work by seeing that it does reach him.
The press of the United States reaches the people. The press can help the relations between the public and the railroads by giving correct information, and, if approached properly, will usually manifest a fair attitude. Railroad men have a responsibility in this respect, and, with their more intimate knowledge of the business, they can in many wayshelp the newspapers to avoid misstatements and false conclusions. In fact, this is a legitimate and patriotic line of work for the railroad stockholder, officer, and employee.
The railroad is working hard to do its part, but it cannot accomplish the impossible, and it needs the careful thought, judgment, and help of men in business life, who need to have the railroads grow and improve. The railroad system of the United States is a great piece of commercial machinery, essential to every one in this complicated modern civilization; without this piece of machinery, there could not be the volume of business—agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial—that there now is. The magnitude of these transactions is so great that this piece of commercial machinery must be kept in the very best order, and its capacity must be increased all the time. Without this, much business could not exist; on the other hand, without the business, this piece of commercial machinery would be idle and rust. The relation between the two is very close. Injustice and unfair treatment of either by the other is sure to react, and this fact is a much safer insurance against any injustice on the part of railroads than attempting to manage by legislation all of their affairs in great detail.
To-day on all important questions but one the railroad-owner is directed by acts of Congress and of state legislatures and by the orders of commissions and bureaus. He has little control over the rates, over the hours of labor, over the rules for the conduct of the business in which his money is invested, over the taxes he shall pay. There is reserved to him the one duty and responsibility of finding money to pay the bills. In order to make clear what this interference with the details of management really means, a commonplace illustration may be used.
Suppose, for example, that some men are engaged in the business of hauling freight of all kinds from the water-front to the various parts of a city. The owners and chief managers are doing the best they can to deliver coal, merchandise, and other freight promptly and cheaply, though every pound must be hauled with difficulty over slippery streets and up heavy grades. Suddenly, however, a large number of men appear and begin to tell the owners and managers how to run their business. None of these men have any financial interest in the business of transporting merchandise by wagon, and few of them have any practical knowledge of it. One man says, “I have been looking at your wagons and their beds are not the right height from the ground, and you must change them. I notice also that the steps are put on wrong and the buckles of your harnesses are not of the right character. You must fix these things.” Another man says, “The lanterns your teamsters carry are not suitable. You must buy a much more expensive kind and see that they are carried whether they are needed or not.” Another says, “You must not use a certain lead horse any more because he is not suited to the business.” Another says, “I noticed that you were carrying a calf on one of your wagons. In such cases you must get your wagon from the waterfront to destination within one hour, and it must be moved at a speed of not less than ten miles per hour.” Another says, “In our part of the city your wagons must not move faster than four miles an hour, and you must stop them at every street-crossing.” Another says, “The city authorities have decided that you must reduce all your charges 25 per cent.” And still another says, “I represent a committee that has decided that your sheds and barns are not of the right type and you must tear them down and build new ones.” Meanwhile some of the stablemen and others have come to the managers and owners saying that they have decided not to do any more work unless their pay is increased 25 per cent. Naturally the owners and their managers are somewhat confused and discouraged at all this interference and are tempted to say, as the fiddler did in the mining camp, “Please do not shoot, for I am doing the best I can.”
Now this all sounds rather ridiculous when it is applied to the man hauling coal and merchandise in the city, but it is exactly what is going on all the time in the United States to-day in relation to the railroads; only there is much more of it, because the Federal Government and all of the States are making rules and regulations about the kind of equipment to be used, the character of locomotive headlight, the kind of boiler in the engine, the speed of live-stock trains, the speed of trains in cities, the rates to be charged, the kind of buildings to be put up, and the labor unions are at the same time making demands for increases in pay.
Lincoln said the country could not endure “half slave and half free,” and it is a grave question whether the railroads can continue to meet the demands of the people and be the efficient instruments that they should be, if owned by private individuals, but in all important matters of management, except finance, practically directed by governmental authority.
The American people are strong enough to have any kind of railroad ownership and management that they want, and if they want government ownership they can have it. I submit, however, that the management of business enterprises in this country by the Government has not given evidence of thoroughness, efficiency, and economy equal to that displayed by private individuals, and that it is not to the best interest of this country to have government-owned and government-managed railroads.
So I repeat, those in the railroad business, both owners and employees, have a greater responsibility than ever before; not only the responsibility of doing their best, whatever may be their position in the service, but the responsibility of telling the people the real facts — the truth — about the railroad business, the responsibility of using their opportunities to aid the nation by helping the movement to have a greater proportion of our population live in the country than in the cities, the responsibility of directing the attention of the tourist to the beauties of America, so that the money now going to foreign lands will remain here and help to increase the balance of trade in our favor, and last, but not least, the responsibility, which to-day is a great one to every American and to every railroad employee, of encouraging the practice of those habits of industry, thoroughness, and thrift, which have not been so common in the last twenty-five years as they were when our country began its work of becoming a great nation.
The average American citizen has good common sense. He lives in the best country in the world, has the best institutions, by far the best and cheapest rail transportation in the world, and if the individual will exercise his common sense there is no limit to the progress that this great nation will make. If he does not, there will be increasing danger of a change in our institutions, so that the railroads and corporations, which are and should be powerful instruments for good, will be crippled, and later on the foundations of the Government itself will be shaken.
Every patriotic individual should do his part to counteract the foolish talk and insidious influences that are at work in the land and should exercise his mental and moral strength.
“Say not the days are evil — who’s to blame?
And fold the hands and acquiesce — O shame;
Stand up, speak out — and bravely — in God’s name.”
It is in this coöperative and hopeful spirit, then, that the following addresses on the railroad business in America are now submitted with the hope that they will throw some light on a subject most important to the future welfare of the United States.