The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • 59

What of Our Railroads When Peace Comes? acts of Big Problem Being Assembled for American Business Men BY JAMES MORROW WASHINGTON June Itemize a breakfast the peace breakfast of a town or city dweller in fair cir cumstances Coffee from Brazil by way of Boston New York or Philadelphia Oatmeal from grain grown in Wisconsin Bread made of flour ground in Minneapolis out of wheat harvested in North Dakota Paeon cured in Chicago from pigs fattened in Kansas Eggs miik and cream brought to market from farms fifty miles distant Then itemize the clothing worn by the man the dishes and cutlery on the taele and the furniture in the room for other points of origin far and near The sum of the whole in a way con stitutes what is termed the trans portation question No other question except the thorough beating of the Huns is more important agd forty years in the past out on the prairies of the embryonic and now opulent said a man interested in railroads and war Kork "ar unshorn and gloomy pioneer issu ing from his house of sod like an ani mal from its den looked stolidly but angrily at a freight train reduced to a toy by distance creep across the bound ary of his narrow geography and hard life was 10 cents a bushel But cattle at the time were mostly fattened on gratis There were no huge factories where corn was into food ch alcohol It was not used 1 ys iii the manufacture of cel hdJ'l guncotton and smokeless pow er varnishes and paints in and filaments for incandes ce I fiIicir running for office had La i' 'Vircr that tjie railroad over to blame And into the ncr hate was sown He 'politician Other politicians i the trick was workable rxd won i believe was the beginning the railroads and the rail back and purchased ont they could not persuade jiioneer in the sod house curs senators and repre r3 Were Active it new Invisible was ''Gives from Wall street i doors front am was the favorite exercise The camel and the figured theatrically i bin nouns of orators on the roier days sober In respect I aliens oLthe classes an tulled looking back to those il'e surveying from afar a na 1 liclaudi The trouble lay in the that virtue among men is dis tint blue eyes or large feet continued though it was somewhat until the bandits in German uniforms started their gocsi slepping into rance And when President Wilson summoned this ration to rich men rallied under the color? foil cd poor men who with scythe? and trowels and axes tier I or and their lives to the euVre of fife'um are no fiivtslons row the United Staiv Aaierkars Yave ac quired the habit of working together Air? they are learning many new things Before lb? war for example the na tional govcrnnii i1 arid the states ad resning the said: shall compete and you shall not Today the command is reversed shall not compete and you shall con solidate' is the order that controls the (orporations engaged in the transporta tion of and products men deny that their lines "broke under the pressure of war business the thing that collapsed was the national policy of restricting the railroads in times of peace They point to what has been done since the war began and declare that the nation has thrown its own case out of the court of practicability and common sense "Laws of Congress have been tem porarily set aside and the regulatory measures of the forty eight states have been suspended in a sense which sus pension miy eventually mean actual repeal sensible Americans are saying not after all so important as service Users of coal last winter having neither fuel with which to warm themselves nor to run their factories found that the doubling of freight rates in the face of a shortage of cars and locomotives would have afforded them no One of Gains of War all railway men are re peating and many of them are art work in Washington to be the first principle in efficient transportation adequate service to meet the require ments of business when the country is not at war The national government at last recognizes that principle and places it higher on the list than the question of rates which have recently been raised 25 per cent much then has been the gain produced by they continue factories must have steel Steel works must have iron and blast furnaces must have coal coke and ore if the nation Is to defeat the Prussians The necessities of war are helping the people to understand the necessities of peace and the transportation problem as a whole It will be far more diffi cult to mislead them after the war is over than it has been heretofore If i the national government in days of great peril and stress confesses by its acts that practices of the past were un sound the public will discard those practices and call for something ive hundred thousand business men members of the United States Chamber of Commerce are now studying the railroad situation Being shippers they are pa ers of freight They are getting all the old lumber out of their minds and are trying to build with new ma terial a structure of thought that will be strong and wise These men Washington feels and the thinking men of the nation farm ers artisans country merchants and bankers will decide the railroad ques tion in the days to come A great de bate is on the way The advocates of government owned railroads are al ready giving their views to the public They are loud and to quote the language of Harry A Wheel er vice president of the Union Trust Company of Chicago academic in their demands and will be more so as the months and possibly years succeed each other before the question actually comes to a The half million business men will have the facts organized for them by Richard Waterman a constructing so cial engineer who was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Railroads have been one of his spe cialties railroads as they are related to the public and not to the men who own them or the men who operate them although the two classes mentioned last can not be detached from the issue What Government Took When the government commandeered the railroads it came into possession temporarily of 260000 miles of track 2500000 freight cars 66000 locomotives 55000 passenger cars and terminal fa cilities meaning stations warehouses and so on of immense value This property valued at 118000000000 is owned by nearly 1030 corporations made up of 188 large transportation systems and 800 short lines The employes numbered 1940000 There were GOuOOO owners of railroad i bonds and shares Before the begin ning of the war in 1914 railroad mort gages notably those of the oldest and strongest corporations were thought to be as safe practically as government bonds They were bought and hold by life insurance companies and saviigs banks and thus millions of American families and millions of wage earners were di rectly interested in their value and sta bility In one way and another then railroad bonds wore and they are to day the basis of national prosperity and security A statement of the causes that brought about the confiscation by the government of property capitalized at SIS 000 000 000 the term of confiscation to continue during the war and for twenty one months thereafter was made to the writer by Mr Waterman after the declaration of war by he said greatest meet ing of railroad men in history was held in Washington It was called by Daniel upon their work with great energy and enthusiasm Wonderful results fol lowed even though laws national and local obstructed them at almost every turn or example: There are 2500090 freight cars in the country They were being loaded to only 43 per rnt of their capacity four months th? average load per car was increased 23 per cent Now it was nut altogether the fault of the railroads that haf empty rars were be ing hauled over the mountain and through the valleys Stat? lawmakers had legislated about loads and so on and so fourth Tliu was done supposedly in behalf of th? small ship pers who bad to meet the competition of large corporations shippers and buyers had a great deal to say as to huv their prod ucts were to be transported I heard of a milling firm in Minnesota that re ceived an orderfor cur loads of flour and felt obliged to telegraph and ask their customer if the flour could be bodily from one jurisdiction to another there had been limited power rher? was no limit whatever the tiansfer Anything to Whip Huns "Revchrl jnary ord rw were made The Pennsylvania Railronl spent many mil lions for a fn'songer station in York Other roads could only look across the Hudson from their terminals in New Jersey Now by Mr order the Pennsylvania station i also the station of the and (J winter coal was sent through some of the tunnels under Now York by national command in face of the fact that the charter by which the tunnels were dug prohibited their use for freight I am not saying that the has gone beyond the law or further than it should have gone now that we are at war That Is not the point 1 only mean that it is unfair to assert that th? railroad? nndei private management broke down The thing that really broke was the system by which ths WILLIAM McADOO WALKER MINI'S Director General of Railroads Assistant Director General of Railroads 4g uO 1 tyranny 1 am not arguing for compe tition or against mnnnpoly arts are need ar this juncture If we have been wrong we should char ge our policy If we have been right Ilion should stand fast to the truth when circum stances again permits us tn do jo Be ing competitors and satlsfyit us there by the inilroads established great or ganizations for the obtaining of bust Many Things Uprooted sought freight Now the shippers must find the railroads ive passenger trains loft on five railroads at about the same time from the same city hound for the same destina I ion Those trains have been relu''el to labor and locomotives thus have been released and ran be used for the tianspprtatlon food ami war mate ria Is in June a now schedule went into effect between Chi cago and th? Pafitlr roast It is I ha under the schedule there will be a reduction of nearly 1 2000000 car mik Pt rar This is arrornpliAhed by slopping the duplication of rvi to Loh Angeles fir? bring b( over the Senia TV Tluue bound tor San rancisco go by way of the North est rn the I nion Pacific nr the Southern Pacific The Burlington and the Northern Pacific are the preferred routes to Portland Seattle is reached over the St Paul Anri ilcketn for each city are pnrehujud at lau uatne office "'While we are ngaged In whipping the Huns we vll put up with ever necessary Im onvenienru am! will sur render every cherhheJ prrsonul right but what will after the llun? have ben beau Will then Oi sent to have our 4Ivh standurdird the mH iond guv nnient? "We drop a hutrr inio a box uoi caring nuv reuthes its destina tion so long il is there without delay rui io we wata lo be uers ur rates of 1 or of appies with nu choice ways and means? L'n duubludiy we are to iiavu a period vigorouj debate after Berlin lias been Ever since iho war ntarted in Erropo the bn filing of new trackage has en al a slutidstlil in the Unilnd Stalos Only milcj of road were laid in 1915 only 1098 miles in 1916 and only 9li nnle In IhiT long as the de velopment our railvuyj under private ownership recei ed encourage merit in sleacl of Samuel bunn a recognized transpurtu ion au tnority has told the LrIted States Che rn be of fiomnifice expansionf railway lai th uent on faster in ihiw cuuiilry Ilian in uny other in Beat German Efficiency Then ho added a very Interesting fart lie Raid freight ars ur railways had nix times as nuicli carrying capacity in proportion to our population as those of the railroadsf (rrnany and they handled fix tlnu jj as much freight truffle in opurtiem to our population as did those of Germany and the railways ul Willard president of th? These men agreed to waive all property inter ests during the war and to operate their roads as a single transportation sys tem They promised to forget that they were competitors and to devote them selves entirely to the contest with the Prussians will Mr Waterman continued airfax Harrison president of the Southern Railroad Hale Holden president of the Julius Kruttschnitt of the Southern Pacific Samuel Rea of the Pennsyl vania and Howard Elliott of the New Haven were chosen aa members of what came to be known as the railroads' war board The transportation agencies of the country were placed in their charge to be run solely in the interest of the United States five men I have named entered ill? war competition was al most a divine doctrine in the United loaded in nine cais States Since th? war however com petition has lost much of Its sanctity But that is a big question which goes to the roots of many highly Important and interesting matters and not dwell upon it at present fixe men who were rannin? Hie tailroads were willing 10 do anything that wmild help this country to win the war There were many things as I have said that they could not do under the network of national and state laws So the government took possession of the railroads and the statutes that hindered were promptly blotted out of the for the time being With the went the organization that had been created by the five members of the war board Men and property were lifted roads were by the nation and the Etates five men of the war board met obstacles that made free action Impos sible Mr McAdoo as director general of railroads removed those and the men who have operated the roads under the war hoard continued lo operate them after they wr re takenve' by the government until the war changed pinctices and touching the same terminals were rivals The Amer ican people believe or lld Ir lieve in competition Anyway they have em balmed that principle in It is life of we have taught to think in that it enterprise and ambition And Improves service espe cially on the railroads we say is robbery and Germany have relatively (Lu greatestfi eight carrying capacity of any gov ernment oM imd railways In the BililonH of dollars it admitted will Lave to be spent on the railroads iu the future If thy are to keep pa with the expansion of Amrrh an Where Washington Is ask ing will the money la obtained from the pockets of th? iudlvldnil in ve aorn or from the vaults (he na tional treasury? I fig lit fen billion is the capi talization of all the railway rorpora in the country Mr McAdoo has told the railroads that they ran bor row a billion tor needed ImpnivrniontH but not for extensions This sum will be added to the sum of the investment iTobably In the opinion of xpmtR six billion more will be required to place the railroads in a position to meet th? needs of the agricultural manu facturing mining and lumber indus tries Th? war will pile many billions of debt upon tit? nation the interest on which must bn raised by taxation on property and the people Also the debt must be paid and its reduction will still mean heavier taxes inanciers men and men of business are looking ahead while in the work of ov rpowering the Huns They can notkcf very far however But they be llrv? that the people should keep their i et nn the ground and by investigation and reflection safeguard themselves against unwise action in the end In the meantime th? railroads are ac tually being run by railroad men chief among whom Is Walker Hines Un til recently Mr Hines was assistant to the director general which means ii short that he is actively the most im portant officer of i he railroad adminis tration Mr ILnes a Kentuckian is 48 years old lie has a railroad lawyer for a quarter of a century serving first with The Louisville After 190 1 he as general counsel of thr Saiit'i be and after J908 chairman of Hie executive which posi tion he resigned when he was asked to Join th? government and the war against the Teutonic ioboers and bar barians iCOpVrlRhl I'll r1J I iIollun) BRITISH SURGEON NOTES MYSTERY IN AIR ALLS Many of ih? tragi folk of amim puiUculurly at aviation anpa In llm Lnitcd have appeared as mys teries to the general public Whether they have been as puxzllng to 11 co tola and other experts nf the fiyjny Borvicc cun nut say but the tions of a British surgeon A k'nii Who writes in the Journal of the Ruyiu Naval dbai Service Indicate that tt peculiar trajpdits urc nut confined America TJiv obvious suggestions generally ac '(! in America tluitj loss con HcinuHimss by the pilot is the Immediate cause ui many falls is also accepted by Dr ter in xuim cases after con Hciousneps departs the aviator makes a aiibconscious effort to land not always without success In iti eases the fly ing man regainrd his enxes recovered tliu (untrul of his machine and landed safely but wna found lo be ill lack of oxygen the cause to which sudden prostrations of airmen wia once attributed is no longer found guilty (jf Itself alone Among whoso patrol duty toH: as high as liOuu Let Surgeon Banter found few symptunis attributable to lack of oxygen and helkvcs that the body finds factors which compensate usually for the decrease in atmospheric pres sure The jnailty of the br athed air deuriuratea hut th? quantity taken in is larger What Dr 1 makes most of and our own aviation furgcons are probably observing th Harm thing the fact that In most cases fliers who overcome on hid: rind lived to tellf It admitted that they bail been feel ing out uf suits before they went up The slightest tllahility bc orm In th louus a (iist reEsf til ailment A com mon cold will turn Into suffocation per haps with ros bb An indigestion scarcely noticed on th? earth becomes seasick liras two tliice miles up It may that th? lamentably large Luinber deaths In our aviation will be reduced by' cloaer watching of th? general lienlth of the flying men All enthusiasts they may be too keen to fly when only a minor malady afflicts them Yet it is evident from the ob servations of th? Brit irh sur geon that a trivial illness transported atoft is like ly to become overwhelming ssaA a sama 2 THIRD LESSON 5 The in black (g) are not pronounced Th pronunciations refer only to the third sentence on the cards Key to the Pronunciation il pronounced like the a in farmer A Series of Twelve Lessons That Gives a Vocabulary of 1800 Words With Correct Phonetic Pronunciation ollowing these simpl? ru'e for pronunciation your Ereach convcrsaLon ahuuld be under stood me the dininc room and tell me at what hour you ordinarily dine manger et dite moi i quelle hcure vous vour prie a la sal a manzja i iect mwa a krl er voodeenA oroecuayr Show please Montrcz moi la salic dinex ordinairerr mSnjt manz je voo pree With pleasure go straight ad Avec plsisir fillers tent droit avdek playzeer too dru'i But you have not answered econ4 question Mais vous pas repondu a ma scconde question may Voo navi a r'ipongriu a a scgurd kaystccdug Do you see that card? Voyez vous cette carte? way! voo set kart? What dots that mean Qu est ce quc ccla sinthe garton? kaya ke aela seengeefee garsdng? I hope you arc not que vous n'etes pas en colere jayspayr ke voo nayt pa anj kolayr Mo I am not angry: but you must be polite Non je nc suis pas cn colere maia vous devrlez ctrc poll tiuaa je ne swcc pa ang kolayr may voo devrcci ajrtr pulea Excuse me I beg you Excuses moi je vous prie Ixkiizl mwi je voo pree Certainly but answer my question Certaincmcnt irsis ripondez A ma question taj rtayrtrtan? may rfpOngrla a ml laysteedng 10 Breakfast from 2:33 to 9 Lc dfijeuner cat servi tie sept heures et demle uqsj a ftffttf heuren la dAjeni ay sayrvtc sit er deme juska nuv east Can you give me a room on the third floor Pouves voua me denser une c'narnbrc ait troisietne etage? poova voo me drni tin sbimbr 6 trwazeettym Jtaj? 2 Yes I can give ton a om cheap on the rird Poor Oui je peux veus donner une chambre a tres bon marche au troiaiinse e'rge wee ie po voo a un shambr a tray b5ng s5rshk trwlaeeaym Itaj I do not like this room will yon pleaie show me another? It has only one window and is too dark Cette charr ne rne convient paa veuillez en montrer uno autre 1 'ic et il fait tro sombre oft shimbr ns me kdngveeanit pa vryi mans mong tri un otr? cel ua kun frnaytr 1 eel fay tro siJinbr 4 How does this one suit you? Celle ci voua convient elle? sell see voo kdngvetang tell Ah this is much better nave ray Oitw Ah ct eat bien mcilleure faites monter mes bagagea a sell see ay beeanf mayer fayt mdogti may bagaj You are right that room only eosts three francs per day Vous avez raison cette chambre ne coute que trots francs par jour IU hiirthr ne boot ke trwa franc par toor 7 Before you go show me the elevator if you please Avant de vous en aller montrez moi censeur voua pit tvkng de voo ing all mintri nwa Icsarjser seel voo play I There it is on the left Le voili i gauche 1e vwala a gdsn 9 Send me towels and soap Envoyez mci des serviettes et ven angvway mws day sayryeeyet i lu 13 I will send them immediately je lea anverrai tout de suite ja Uy ingvayray too de sweet tXTE herewith present to our pearlers conversational rench (copyright 191R by Scott Grove Scranton Pa) in a series ot interesting lessons that takes one through the common experience of daily life One lesson will appear each week By memorizing each lesson as it appears correct expressions will be learned The conversation should be repeated with companions who are interested in the course aloud to train eye ear and tongue together" suggests the author of the course save each lesson of the series for practice and for a Course in rench for the Boys Who Are Going THE HOTEL 1 BELLBOY 9AdRlMMIKNiHRfr AlBraiinffiSBflHMKi i A A KWB jr IA ff a a fast in tub A a in grate ay in fair ea ir meat 6 in bone in port in Sut gernun umlaut 1 in net a 1 wa "si a 1 vulau: ang an igt ang an in wan on In long ij 'll v' I.