Part 12

The farmer paid $1.76 to have it brought to him from Chicago, three hundred miles away.

If freight rates were advanced 10 per cent the cost of the harvester would be increased _seventeen and one-half cents_.

LESSON III.

FREIGHT RATES AND COOKING UTENSILS.

Next to the harvester the modern kitchen cooking range has added more joys and years to the farmer's life than anything in the cornucopia of modern civilization.

Here is a standard range. It is a thing of beauty as well as a means for cooking everything your mother used to cook and much more.

The freight on a steel range, weighing from 400 to 500 pounds, from Detroit to points in the Mississippi Valley, approximates from $2 to $2.50 per stove on stoves which retail at from $55 to $60 each.

An increase of 10 per cent would add from twenty to _twenty-five cents_ to the cost of the stove, which, divided by the life of the stove, taking the low average of ten years, would add one and one-half to _two cents_ per year to the cost.

On heating stoves the increase would be about _one-third less_.

LESSON IV.

FREIGHT RATES AND REFRIGERATORS.

What are the cold facts about refrigerators?

What cold storage is to the whole people, the modern refrigerator is to the individual family.

It preserves all things sweet and clean and wholesome.

Now the freight on a refrigerator, such as is used by the ordinary family, from Belding, Mich., where they are manufactured in large quantities, to New York is approximately seventy-five cents.

An increase of 10 per cent would add _seven and one-half cents_ to the cost of the refrigerator, delivered in New York City.

LESSON V.

FREIGHT RATES AND HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE.

Ever since Grand Rapids became the furniture hub of the Union there has been no excuse for any American family being without its antique or modern dining room set.

Look at this suite consisting of a solid table, six chairs, sideboard and china closet, etc. It could be bought F. O. B. at Grand Rapids for from $55 to $75, according to the wood and finish.

It weighs approximately 750 pounds and the freight from the factory to Chicago would be $1.60.

An increase of 10 per cent would add _sixteen cents_ to the cost of all this furniture.

LESSON VI.

FREIGHT RATES AND A BUSINESS SUIT.

Behold this business suit which no one would be ashamed to wear.

It might cost anywhere from $10 up to $35, according to the reputation of the tailor or the rent and advertising rates he pays.

The freight rate on such a suit of clothes, including hat and shoes, for a distance of 300 miles from any of our large jobbing or distributing centers is approximately _three and one-half cents_.

A 10 per cent increase would add a little more than _one-third of one cent_ to the cost of this suit, and it would add no more if it cost $50 or $100.

LESSON VII.

FREIGHT RATES AND "KING COTTON."

"Befo' de wah" cotton was king. Of our exports it still leads all our domestic products, having no second in sight.

If the entire cotton crop of the United States was compressed into one bale its value would be about $750,000,000.

Of this bale in 1908 the railways got a little "jag" worth according to the Interstate Commerce Commission $12,394,000, or less than 2 per cent.

An advance of 10 per cent in rates on cotton could not add more than one-fiftieth of a cent per pound to the price of cotton.

LESSON VIII.

FREIGHT RATES AND A SACK OF FLOUR.

Minneapolis, as all good little school children know, is the seat of the flour industry of the United States.

If they do not learn this at school it is impressed upon their receptive minds by every illuminated billboard and painted rock that meets their gaze from Eastport to California.

There are half a dozen brands of flour ground at Minneapolis and every one is better than all others.

The rate on this incomparable product in carloads from Minneapolis to New York is 25 cents per hundred pounds.

That is 12½ cents per fifty-pound sack.

This flour is sold to the consumer in New York at approximately $1.85 per fifty-pound sack (or it was when this was written).

An increase of 10 per cent in freight rates would add but one and one-quarter cents to the price of a fifty-pound sack, or a little less than two one-hundredths of one cent per pound.

The freight rate on a fifty-pound sack of flour from Minneapolis to Chicago is five cents per sack. An increase of 10 per cent in rates would add only five mills per sack between these points, or _one one-hundredth of one cent per pound_.

LESSON IX.

FREIGHT RATES AND DRESSED BEEF.

The reason cattle are butchered and carried to the consumer as dressed beef rather than driven to market on foot or hauled as live stock, is that the freight charge is less and the beef arrives in better condition.

Little children in New York and Boston appreciate this, if the wise grown-ups of the West sometimes seem to doubt it.

The rate on dressed beef from Chicago to New York is forty-five cents per hundred pounds. The average price of this beef to the consumer in New York is (or was) approximately twenty-five cents per pound. A 10 per cent increase in freight rates would add _less than five one-hundredths of one cent per pound_.

If freight rates were advanced 10 per cent, the increased cost in New York City of a two-rib roast of the best quality, weighing eight pounds, retailing for $1.92, would be _less than one-half cent_.

Surely this is not an excessive price to pay for _National prosperity and industrial peace_.

LESSON X.

FREIGHT ON EGGS, BUTTER AND POULTRY.

Eggs were cheaper when Columbus experimented with them than they are now, but it cost more to carry a dozen eggs or a firkin of butter ten miles in 1492 than it would to carry them 100 miles now.

The rate on butter and eggs from points in Eastern Iowa to New York--a distance of approximately 1,200 miles--is eighty-four cents per hundred pounds. On dressed poultry from the same points to New York the rate is ninety-six and one-half cents.

The eggs are sold to the consumer by the dozen and the other commodities by the pound; _and the consumer pays every farthing of freight that has accrued from the time the egg is laid, which he buys in the "original package," or as dressed poultry, or from the time the cow is milked, from which the butter is made_.

An increase of 10 per cent would add eight one-hundredths of one cent per pound to the price the consumer pays for butter and eggs, and it would add nine and one-half one-hundredths of one per cent per pound to the cost of dressed poultry, for which he pays from twenty to thirty cents per pound.

LESSON XI.

FREIGHT RATES AND LEATHER BELTING.

Some little children and many of their mothers do not know that a great deal of the power that makes the wheels go round in this industrial beehive is transmitted by belting.

The shops of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway at Elkhart, Indiana, are equipped with 13,288 running feet, or _practically two and one-half miles_, of leather belting. This belting cost the railroad company $6,235, or an average of 46.9 cents per running foot. The belting was shipped from Boston to Elkhart, a distance of 937 miles. The total freight charges amounted to $18.37, or fourteen one-hundredths of one cent per running foot. An increase of 10 per cent would add $1.83 to this cost, or _fourteen one-thousandths of one cent per running foot_.

This belting, moreover, cost the railroad company $1,082 more than it would have cost at the prices prevailing in 1899, representing an increase of 21 per cent. During this same period there was no change whatever in the freight rate.

LESSON XII.

THE RAILWAYS AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.

Now listen to the sober words of the one man who has perhaps given more official attention to the subject than any other citizen of the republic:

"Without regard to the personnel of railroad officials, without regard primarily to the interest of stockholders, but in the interest of public welfare and national prosperity, we must permit railway earnings to be adequate for railroad improvement at advantage and profit.

"To my mind it is a most impressive fact, so great as to elude the grasp of imagination, that the railway traffic of the country fully doubled in the first seven years of this twentieth century. This enormous addition to the volume of transportable goods overtaxed, as you know, the existing facilities, and the resulting condition perhaps accounts for much of the hostility which has been manifested in various quarters. For the man who has raised something by hard labor or made something with painstaking skill, which he could sell at a handsome profit in an eager market, and finds that he cannot get it carried to destination, and so sees his anticipated gains turned into a positive loss, is naturally exasperated and unthinkingly 'blames it' on the railroads, and is ready to hit them with anything he can lay his hands to; and as the state legislature seemed to be the most convenient weapon he wielded it for all it was worth.

"I dwell upon this a moment further, because it seems plain to me that the prosperity of the country is measured and will be measured by the ability of its railroads and waterways to transport its increasing commerce. With a country of such vast extent and limitless resources, with all the means of production developed to a wonderful state of efficiency, the continued advancement of this great people depends primarily upon such an increase of transportation facilities as will provide prompt and safe movement everywhere from producer to consumer; and that we shall not secure unless the men who are relied upon to manage these great highways of commerce have fitting opportunity, and the capital which is required for their needful expansion is permitted to realize fairly liberal returns."

(Hon. Martin A. Knapp, Chairman Interstate Commerce Commission, in "Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.")

LESSON XIII.

LOOK UPON THIS PICTURE.

What is this I see?

Smokeless chimneys! Closed factories. Spiders' webs across the doors of opportunity. Grass growing rankly in the streets of industrial towns. Dejection on the face of nature and of man.

What does it mean?

The railways have ceased to earn enough to meet expenses and provide for the progressive maintenance of their equipment and plant.

Why, are not their receipts greater than ever?

True, but their expenses have increased more rapidly than their earnings and their net revenues have only been maintained by postponing purchases that must be made some time or the railways will be incapable of performing their public service with safety, dispatch and economy.

In 1908 and 1909 the railways scrimped maintenance $300,000,000 and this will have to be made good some time, some how, before they are on as sound an operating basis as they were before the panic of 1907.

What must be done to avert the consequences described above?

A readjustment of freight rates, involving a reasonable increase applied to such articles and commodities as can stand it, without any appreciable hardship either to manufacturer, merchant or consumer, means the difference between grinding economy and a fair degree of prosperity.

THE REVERSE OF THE PICTURE.

Would a 10 per cent increase in freight rates mean such a difference?

It most certainly would.

It would mean the difference between closed shops and suspended improvements and the resumption of improvements with the ability to resume the large purchases of material and equipment, giving full employment to labor and furnishing improved transportation facilities, which, within a very short time the commerce of the country is going to demand more insistently than ever. To hundreds of thousands of workingmen it means the difference between steady, well-paid employment and walking the streets looking in vain for work.

LESSON XIV.

NARROW MARGIN BETWEEN EARNINGS AND EXPENSE.

"I have looked up the statement of about 80 per cent of the principal railroads of the country and find that during the last half of the year 1907, after the tremendous increase in expenses had become effective, while the gross earnings of the railroads increased $57,413,078 over the same period of the preceding year, their expenses increased $80,235,823, showing a net loss for the period, despite the tremendous business handled, of $22,822,745.

"The converging lines of cost and compensation in railroad operation, which for years have been steadily approaching each other, are now separated by so narrow a margin that in order to pay fixed charges, taxes and operating expenses, with even a very moderate return to shareholders, there must be either _a moderate increase in freight rates_ or a very _substantial reduction in the wages of railroad employes_."

(W. C. Brown, before the Mich. Mfrs. Assn., 6-22-08.)

LESSON XV.

WHICH SHALL IT BE?

"Is it not better, Mr. President, that you and I, and tens of thousands of people who buy and use automobiles, should pay a dollar or two more freight on our machines than that the family of the engineer, the conductor, the brakeman, the switchman or the humble section hand shall be deprived of the actual necessities and comforts of life, which we know they must give up if the monthly pay check is reduced?

"No question of greater importance confronts the people of the country today, for upon its righteous solution hangs the momentous issue of an early return of prosperity or a continuance of the depression of the past six months, emphasized and darkened by a struggle with organized labor such as this country has never experienced."

(W. C. Brown, before the Mich. Mfrs. Assn., 6-22-08.)

LESSON XVI.

MORAL.

"_Our prosperity came with the prosperity of the railroads; it declined when adversity struck the railroads. We do not believe we can have the full measure of prosperity again until the railroads are prosperous._"

(National Prosperity Association of St. Louis.)

PROGRESSIVE SAFETY IN RAILWAY OPERATION

By A. H. SMITH,

Vice-President of the N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co.

An Address Delivered Before the National Association of Railroad Commissioners, at their Annual Convention, held in Washington, D. C., November 16, 1909.

In examining into the state of an art of such far-reaching importance and such diversified nature as that of transportation by rail, it seems necessary to acquaint ourselves with its beginnings and growth; to determine the elements upon which its development relies and the necessity which has invoked the various steps of improvement in the plant devoted to transportation and the art of employing and controlling it in the performance of a public service.

The lay observer will scarcely appreciate, in the absence of the actual analysis, that there exists so many branches of this subject, each branch of which, by itself, may be considered the object of a separate professional science and a distinct human industry.

EARLY RAILROAD HISTORY.

Railways had their origin in tramways laid over 200 years ago in the mineral districts of England, which conveyed coal to the sea. Animal motive power was used. By the discovery, in 1814, of the adhesion of a smooth wheel to a smooth rail, it became possible to consider the employment of the tractive power of a rolling locomotive, and for some time subsequent to this, to the trial trip of the "Rocket," in 1829, which may be described as the first successful steam locomotive, the experiments were along these lines.

While industrial railroads similar in character to the English existed in this country, the Baltimore & Ohio was the pioneer American railroad built for public use. On July 4, 1828, the first rail was laid by Charles Carroll, the only surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, and thirteen miles were opened for traffic in 1830. In the same year the West Point Foundry began building locomotives, producing the "De Witt Clinton," in 1831. It weighed three and one-half tons, and was built for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, the pioneer company of the present New York Central Lines, which had been chartered in 1826, four years before actual construction was begun.

The line was opened from Albany to Schenectady in 1831; to Utica in 1836, and to Buffalo in 1842. Connections to New York and Boston were built in rapid succession.

About this time, in Pennsylvania, the Columbia Railroad was built from Philadelphia to Columbia, on the Susquehanna River, forming the pioneer division of the present Pennsylvania System.

Several companies were chartered about the same time in Massachusetts.

Following the panic of 1837 there was little industrial development and a lull in railroad construction, but with 1850 begins the era of rapid extension and the welding of short connecting lines under single ownerships. The consolidation was vigorously objected to at first. Originally there were eleven companies owning and operating the line between Albany and Buffalo. Between Buffalo and Cleveland, changes of passengers and freight were made at Dunkirk and Erie. The latter change was made necessary by the difference in gauge; to the east six feet and to the west four feet ten inches. Plans for the consolidation of some of these lines made in 1853 entailed for through operation the change of the gauge east to conform to that west of Erie, to obviate transfer. This proposition so aroused the inhabitants of Erie that they resorted to violence. In December, 1853, they tore down the railroad bridge, no trains going through until February, 1854. This same bridge was rebuilt in 1855, but again torn down and burned by a mob. Finally a compromise ended what is known as the Erie War and the gauge was changed, from which time dates the beginning of definite through operation.

In 1851 the Erie Railroad joined New York with Lake Erie. The Baltimore & Ohio reached the Ohio River. Two years later the Atlantic seaboard and Chicago were connected by rail, which the following year reached the Mississippi River. These extensions to the Western Frontier opened the traffic between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

In the early days the public desire for rail transportation facilities led to numerous enterprises securing public financial support, but owing to the disaster that was experienced in some of these enterprises the Ohio law prohibited any town, county or State from rendering such assistance. When the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was built, Cincinnati found it imperative to have railroad communication to the South, but the prohibition of the aforesaid law prevented public assistance, and the scheme was devised of building and owning a line. This line went south through Kentucky to Chattanooga, was built and operated, and eventually leased to the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific.

The railroads played an important part in the conduct of the Civil War, many of them being practically devoted to the transportation of Government troops and supplies. Great damage was done to the many lines in the South owing to the military operations. By the close of the war there had been no pronounced advance in protection by the appliances which are now commonly employed in the control of train operation. This was largely due to the light equipment, slow speeds and sparse traffic.

The first Pacific railroad was begun, with Government aid, in the '60s. With the opening up of the West and the return to industrial pursuits of the people after the close of the war dates a remarkable era in railroad extension. In the decade from 1880 to 1890, 70,000 miles were built in the central and western districts, opening vast unoccupied agricultural, grazing and mineral sections to immigration and development. The panic of 1893 exerted considerable influence on railroad construction during the following decade.

The period since 1900 has been more one of reconstruction and improving existing lines; the growth of industries and population tributary to existing lines necessitating this course.

The vastness of the railroad industry may be imagined when one considers that from fifteen to twenty per cent of the capital of the United States is invested in railroads. As an exhibit of the growth and importance let me quote the following statistics of railroad growth by decades since the first operation:

1830 23 miles 1840 2,814 " 1850 9,021 " 1860 30,635 " 1870 52,914 " 1880 93,296 " 1890 163,597 " 1900 193,346 " 1909 about 250,000 "

Such is the exhibit of progress in the extent of railroads, broadly viewed. With the growth in extent the elements of safety have multiplied and have become very numerous; in fact, an almost indefinite subdivision of railroad property and operation in respect of safety might be conceived. We will consider, however, the beginnings and the growth of a few of the more important and striking items and their relationship to the state of the art, as portraying in a more graphic manner the adjustment, if you may call it such, of safety to progress, or, as the subject has been assigned to me, "Progressive Safety."

AIR BRAKES.

As the density of traffic, and the speed, together with the weight of equipment, developed, following upon the greater transportation to be undertaken, the question of brakes was an important factor. More efficient brakes were needed; the essential characteristics being that they should be continuous throughout the length of the train, simultaneously applied and released, with a single point of control.

In 1869 George Westinghouse, Jr., brought forth what is known as the straight air brake, consisting of a pump, main reservoir, three-way valve, brake cylinder and train line. Application was made by admitting air from the main reservoir into the train line. The brakes were released by reducing the train-line pressure into the atmosphere through the three-way valve. The brakes were useless if there was a leak, a burst in the air line or a parted train.

With these shortcomings in mind, the automatic air brake was produced in 1873, in which the method was reversed. With the addition of an auxiliary reservoir under each passenger car and a triple valve, application of brakes was secured by reducing the train-line pressure, while admitting air from the main reservoir raised the pressure and released the brakes. On the application of the automatic air brake to freight cars it was found the reduction of pressure was not quick enough to set the rear brakes promptly, and in consequence accidents occurred from the bunching of the cars.

The consideration of the brake question by the Master Car Builders' Association in 1885, and public tests under their auspices in 1886, at which time the manufacturers were represented, did not succeed in stopping freight trains without violent and disastrous shocks. So discouraging did these tests seem for the time being, that a report was made, suggesting that the successful application of such brakes on long trains could only be accomplished by electricity. However, the following January witnessed the introduction of the Westinghouse Quick-Action air brake, which corrected the previous trouble and made practicable the application of air brakes to long freight trains. Continuing from this time there has been marked improvement and development in all features of the apparatus, without, however, modifying the essential elements of which it is constituted.