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GOATS 
 
 By Frank W. noxon 
 
 SECRETARY, RAILWAY BUSINESS 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 TwoTalksdelivered before theKiwanis 
 and Rotary Clubs, Lima, Ohio, Jan. 
 7 and 8, 1924 
 
 OU will observe that my sub- 
 ject is “Goats.” Before but- 
 ting in among you I was 
 assured that you were inno- 
 cent of anything savoring 
 of the hog on the one hand 
 or the bull on the other ; but I inquired, 
 “Does Kiwanis domesticate the goat?” 
 Your ritual, I was told, is quite as free 
 from that interesting animal. This 
 allayed my fear of outraging your 
 feelings. 
 
 The goat is a quadruped. He is 
 celebrated in science, song and story. 
 In the zodiac, capricornus has his fore 
 part like a goat and his hind part like 
 
 l 
 
a fish. Hence we often hear a goat 
 called a poor fish. When we speak of 
 the domestic goat we make no refer- 
 ence to his marital condition. The goat 
 
 / 
 
 ** r 
 
 frequents rocky places 
 and can subsist on 
 scrap iron and obsolete 
 Victrola records. He 
 has a habit of skip- 
 ping. Mostly he skips 
 
 }*\ J 
 
 meals. It was Chaun- 
 cey M. Depew, now 
 at 89 still Chairman 
 
 
 of the New York Cen- 
 
 ** 
 
 Capricornus, 
 the slump in rail- 
 way purchases. 
 About this time 
 look for the 
 industrial and 
 agricultural goat 
 who feels like a 
 poor fish. 
 
 tral Lines, who in 
 nominating Benjamin 
 Harrison for Presi- 
 dent at Minneapolis in 
 1888 referred to “the 
 inebriated chamois 
 skipping from jag to 
 jag.” It is said that 
 under the present re- 
 
 gime there are no 
 inebriated chamois — the goat obeys 
 the law and only man is vile. There 
 are types of vileness. A student of 
 natural history was asked by his pro- 
 
 2 
 
fessor: “How does a goat smell?” He 
 replied, “Awful.” 
 
 There are also styles of goat. The 
 species to which your attention is in- 
 vited today is not a literal goat but a 
 figurative goat, like the Swedish 
 nightingale, the Irish bull, the Welsh 
 rabbit, the mock turtle, and indeed the 
 capricornus itself. He is the sort of 
 goat who suffers disagreeable conse- 
 quences not of his own making. For 
 example, the board of directors of 
 Kiwanis think they have done me to 
 you upon the motion of their Vice- 
 president, W. L. Breckenridge. As a 
 matter of fact the whole thing was 
 conspired by L. A. Larsen, his boss 
 at the Locomotive Works. Mr. Larsen 
 committed the crime. Mr. Brecken- 
 ridge is the goat. You in your turn 
 are goats. 
 
 Now if you get me thus far you 
 understand what I mean when I ob- 
 serve that in the little mat- 
 ter of railroads as affected by 
 a benevolent but sometimes 
 feverish government Kiwanis 
 
 3 
 
is a flock of goats. There is nobody 
 I love more than a Congressman 
 unless it be a Senator. But as 
 some dead old statesman once said, 
 they certainly have an itch to do 
 something for the sake of doing it. 
 Have you forgotten the young physi- 
 cian in Cincinnati out on his first 
 case? He looked the infant over with 
 such intelligence as he had accumulated 
 and bade the anxious mother give him 
 a tepid bawth every morning. “But,” 
 she cried, “I do give him a tepid bath 
 every morning.” “Well, then,” replied 
 the medic, “omit bawth.” 
 
 If you will get Congressman Cable 
 into the Club or some other place 
 conducive to recklessness and ask him 
 why so many of his contemporaries 
 think it desirable to enact a railroad 
 bill in the present Congress it is dol- 
 lars to marks he will answer, “The 
 people expect us to do something.” 
 Heaven knows the people have reason 
 enough to expect it. They have sel- 
 dom been disappointed. But if what 
 you expect in this world is not always 
 
 4 
 
what you get, sometimes what you 
 get is not what you want. What I 
 aspire to accomplish with you sportive 
 specimens of the genus angora today 
 is to put you in the mood of the lady 
 in the popular song: “If I don’t get 
 
 the sweetie I want, God help the 
 sweetie I get.” 
 
 This man Larsen is an angora in 
 his own right. You see there is down 
 in New York a goat whom for the 
 sake of argument we shall call Smith. 
 Also Smith happens to be his name. 
 Smith runs a railroad ; and the men 
 who run the railroads are all goats. 
 If trouble cannot be blamed on anyone 
 else it is the righteous and orthodox 
 thing to find your goat amid the peaks 
 and valleys of transportation. Have 
 you heard of fundamentalism? Well, 
 that is fundamentalism. If Smith 
 doesn’t have enough locomotives he 
 comes at once into all his privileges as 
 a goat. Therefore Smith 
 keeps a young ibex whose 
 caper is to estimate future 
 traffic and the power necessary 
 
 5 
 
to move it. This goat comes in and 
 Smith calls out cheerily, “What is it, 
 kid?” The juvenile antelope answers 
 that it is necessary to order a couple 
 of hundred locomotives. So they send 
 for another goat, a cashmere, or finan- 
 cial goat, and Smith remarks, “Say, 
 kid, we need a couple of hundred 
 locomotives. Can we pay for them 
 out of earnings?” “No,” says his 
 bookkeeper goat, “not all of them. 
 We are scrapping some and we can 
 replace those out of earnings but the 
 rest have to be charged to capital ac- 
 count — we have to borrow the money.” 
 “Why?” asks Smith. “Because that 
 is the rule of the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission.” “Oh,” says Smith. 
 
 So Smith goes out to get the money. 
 Downtown in Manhattan around 
 Trinity Church they have people who 
 buy or sell money. Smith goes to 
 one of these hucksters and says, “Will 
 you peddle some stock?” This guy 
 laughs until the Trinity chimes vibrate. 
 “Railroad stock 1” he shrieks. “What’s 
 that? Oh, yes, I remember now. Ask 
 
 6 
 
dad — he knows.” “How about bonds ?” 
 “No use,” he answers, “but if you like 
 I’ll see how some of our consumers 
 feel. If they don’t want bonds shall 
 
 The wage earner skipping from jag to jag of 
 prosperity and hoping not to fall between 
 into the valleys of shut-down from 
 lack of railway orders. 
 
 I try equipment trusts?” Smith calls 
 him a gang of pawnbrokers and other 
 pet names but very reluctantly replies 
 yes. An equipment trust is a note 
 secured by a locomotive. If it isn’t 
 paid you don’t have to find somebody 
 
 7 
 
with the money and the appetite to 
 buy the whole railroad. You can sell 
 the locomotive to another railroad, 
 which can push it away and leave the 
 road. 
 
 Well, the huckster phones Smith : 
 “Nothing doing.” “Not even trusts?” 
 gasps Smith. “Noth-ing do-ing.” 
 “Why not?” Smith sobs. “Investors 
 afraid of Congress.” “But,” cries 
 Smith, “Congress isn’t going to do us 
 any damage.” “You and 1 know that, 
 but the investors don’t believe it. You 
 tell ’em.” 
 
 This goat here in Lima, Larsen, 
 goes to Smith about an order for 
 locomotives. “Noth-ing do-ing,” says 
 Smith. “But why ?” demands Larsen. 
 “You need a couple of hundred, don’t 
 you?” “Yep.” “Then what’s the 
 trouble?” Smith tells him. “Well,” 
 says Larsen, “then our employees will 
 be the goats. Shut-down.” “Looks like 
 it,” murmurs Smith. 
 
 Of all the kinds of goats whom 
 Noah sent into the ark two by two 
 the most real sirnon pure aromatic 
 
 8 
 
antelope is the employer who faces 
 unemployed workmen and their fami- 
 lies and tries 
 to explain a 
 shut-down. 
 
 Somebody 
 butting at the 
 gate. “Who’s 
 there?” “John 
 Galvin.” Gal- 
 vin is a goat 
 who makes 
 steel castings 
 and the like 
 for locomo- 
 tives. “Let 
 that goat in,” 
 says Larsen. 
 
 Here is where 
 Larsen passes 
 a part of the 
 buck. “What’s 
 keeping you 
 awake John?” 
 h e inquires 
 sardonically. 
 
 “What you going to need from us?” 
 answers John. “Not a Troy ounce,” 
 
 Trinity laughs at the 
 mention of selling railroad 
 stocks. 
 
 9 
 
says Larsen, “and you’ll be all-fired 
 lucky if we don’t cancel what’s on 
 your books now.” “Why?” asks 
 Galvin ; and Larsen proceeds to rub 
 it in on Galvin, who goes back to the 
 Steel Foundry and orders the sign- 
 painter to make a handsome new half- 
 time poster. A few hundred more 
 goats in Lima. 
 
 Have we with us today W. H. Stol- 
 zenbach, who ekes out an existence 
 amongst the alps of wholesale grocer- 
 ies? Mr. Stolzenbach hasn’t heard 
 yet about the epidemic of goats over at 
 the Locomotive Works and the Steel 
 Foundry. One of his salesmen is 
 hauled up on the carpet. The worthy 
 Kiwanian brandishes a bad report. 
 “Why ?” he demands. He is impatient 
 about this because of another little 
 matter. Collections are putrid. The 
 answer is that some of the locomotive 
 goats and the foundry goats are feed- 
 ing their families on credit or on short 
 rations. The grocery stores have 
 stopped buying and are asking for 
 time on past accounts. Do I see in 
 
 10 
 
the room F. D. Bradley, the Kiwanian 
 who represents wholesale packing? 
 Possibly at this stage of our little ani- 
 mal performance, he too has had on 
 the carpet the problems of collapsing 
 sales and de- 
 cayed collec- 
 tions. More 
 goats — 
 Messrs. Stol- 
 zenbach and 
 Bradley and 
 their families 
 and such em- 
 ployees as 
 they send to 
 pasture, and 
 their families, 
 and every re- 
 tail grocer 
 and butcher 
 in Lima and 
 his family and the employees they lay 
 off and their families. A tidy little 
 flock of goats. 
 
 Coming into Lima yesterday morn- 
 ing at an hour when nobody was up 
 except goats, I admired the row of 
 
 This leap is the capriole. 
 The animal hears a threat 
 of railway legislation which 
 will put him on the blink 
 so he goes up in the air 
 and kicks. 
 
 11 
 
department and specialty stores on 
 Main Street. Did I exclaim, “Ah, 
 Rotarians and Kiwanians”? No. I 
 whispered, “Goats.” All these loco- 
 motive and foundry goats and whole- 
 sale grocer and packer goats and retail 
 grocer and butcher goats and their 
 families have cut down their purchases 
 at the stores. 
 
 What does the epidemic do to the 
 goats on Main Street? Page Oliver 
 Steiner, banker. In that capric hour 
 when the money-dealers around Trin- 
 ity, Manhattan, report investors afraid 
 of Congress and the goats breed fast 
 and furious in Lima, what do you 
 say, Mr. Steiner, to department store 
 Rotarians and Kiwanians who drop 
 in on you to negotiate accommoda- 
 tions ? Is it true that the rule of your 
 life is safety first and that you boost 
 the rate but cut the amount and speak 
 loud about collateral and by other sur- 
 gical processes do a smaller business 
 and shrink your own profits and 
 smoke fewer of Mark Kolter’s cigars 
 and tell C. M. Paine when he phones 
 
 12 
 
that you are going to drive last year’s 
 model another summer? Are you not 
 therefore a goat and the breeder of 
 goats in Lima? 
 
 Dr. A. C. Adams, have you noticed 
 when the sun passes into capricorn 
 that patients ordinarily desperate let 
 nature take her course and cut you 
 out? 
 
 W. S. Jackson, is it your learned 
 observation that when Friend Lar- 
 sen tells Friend Galvin “Noth-ing do- 
 ing” your clients are too busy keeping 
 their checks good at the bank to enrich 
 you by quarreling among themselves? 
 
 The Rev. Sam Huecker, what effect 
 has a pestilence of goats Sunday 
 morning upon the contribution box? 
 
 James Morton, in the days when all 
 these goats are ultimately consuming 
 investors’ terror of Congress do you 
 find it a capering frolic — this secre- 
 tary’s job of maintaining the Board 
 of Commerce budget? 
 
 So far as I know there is 
 only one man in Lima who is 
 not a goat and that is the indi- 
 vidual who sells paint to indus- 
 
 13 
 
trial employees when they have idle 
 days at home. 
 
 Out yonder on the Western farms 
 and ranches and down South on the 
 plantations are husbandmen who take 
 from the soil the food which Mr. 
 Stolzenbach and Mr. Bradley distri- 
 bute in Lima, the cotton and woolen 
 goods which Lima citizens outside the 
 goat season buy from J. E. Morris, 
 the Kiwanian clothier, and from the 
 department and specialty stores on 
 Main street. When Goat Larsen and 
 Goat Galvin lock horns and put up 
 the sign for “shut-down,” goats ap- 
 pear in multitudes through those dis- 
 tant regions more than 80 % of whose 
 market is domestic. By some strange 
 twist of human eccentricity, where in 
 a bright world does the investor take 
 his fright of Congress but just there 
 on those farms and ranches and plan- 
 tations? Down around Trinity Church 
 the money-dealer might say to Goat 
 Smith “You tell ’em” — meaning the 
 farmers ; and Goat Smith might reply, 
 “The farmers won’t listen to me and 
 Smith might turn to Larsen and say, 
 
 14 
 
“You tell ’em;” and Larsen might 
 answer, “They won’t listen to me 
 and Larsen might say, “Galvin, you 
 old goat, you tell ’em and Galvin 
 might reply, “They won’t listen to 
 me and Galvin might pass the buck 
 along and along and along. Well, 
 what is the answer? 
 
 What would you think of Lima 
 telling them ? There are a lot of other 
 Limas, who might be induced to co- 
 operate. I haven’t the December 
 figures, but at the end of November 
 the year of Congressional fright had 
 seen hold-over orders for locomotives, 
 all makers, drop from 1445 Jan. 1 to 
 739 Dec. 1 — about half. Just now 
 operation is nearly 100% in the loco- 
 motive works and perhaps 60% in the 
 foundries. This is on orders held over 
 from 1922 and placed new in the 
 early months of 1923. Has it occurred 
 to you that a resumption of orders on 
 the earlier scale might have a pro- 
 nounced control upon the birth-rate 
 among Lima goats in the months soon 
 to come? 
 
 The first place to tell ’em is Wash- 
 
 15 
 
ington. Why shouldn’t the goats of 
 Lima ask Congressman Cable to ar- 
 range that if the Senate and House 
 Committees on Interstate Commerce 
 hold hearings Lima receive notice ? 
 While he is about it why shouldn’t 
 the Congressman himself make a list 
 of Congressmen from those farms 
 and ranches and plantations out yonder 
 and tell them what they are doing 
 to their domestic market by scar- 
 ing investors into a slump period of 
 railway orders? The farmers have a 
 society, the Farm Bureau Federation. 
 The President is O. E. Brad- 
 fute of Xenia, Ohio. 
 
 Why shouldn’t 
 
 16 
 
the goats of 
 Lima get him here 
 and tell him or go to 
 Xenia and tell him 
 there — tell him 
 about the 
 
 serious problem 
 of birth control in 
 goats and its relation to 
 consumption of farm prod- 
 ucts? When the Lima goats 
 have organized to do these things, 
 why shouldn’t they butt in and 
 horn in around Trinity Church, Man- 
 hattan, and tell ’em there — the money- 
 dealers — a message to investors — that 
 some determined and well-organized 
 goats in various parts of the country 
 are standing together to prevent the 
 damage which the investors fear? 
 
 At the Zoo they tell me the goat has 
 a special caper known as the capriole. 
 He leaps upward and while in the air 
 he kicks. If the goats of Lima and 
 of Limas everywhere desire investors 
 to believe Goat Smith when he says 
 Congress isn’t going to do the rail- 
 roads any damage, let them go up in 
 the air and kick. 
 
 17 
 
Question Box 
 
 HY does President 
 Coolidge recommend a 
 , change in the consolida- 
 tion provisions ? 
 
 Undoubtedly because he 
 has faith in those gentle- 
 men who tell him these mergers must 
 be immediate or we perish. Some of 
 the rest of us have the impression that 
 there is no hurry. 
 
 Do you remember the man who was 
 denied admission at the pearly gate? 
 St. Peter said, “Your name is not in 
 the book. You can’t come in here. 
 You are keeping the line. Pass along.” 
 “But,” insisted the man, “I have led a 
 perfectly good life ; I was a member of 
 the Presbyterian Church ; I gave one- 
 tenth of my income to the poor. Please 
 look again.” So Peter sent a little blue 
 angel in after more books, and the 
 angel came out with one in his hand 
 and showed Peter a page, and Peter 
 exclaimed, “What do you know about 
 that? Here is your name. You aren’t 
 due up here for 20 years yet. Who 
 was your Doctor?” 
 
 Everybody knows who was the 
 
 18 
 
President’s doctor. It was Senator 
 Cummins of Iowa, long Chairman of 
 the Committee on Interstate Com- 
 merce. On most aspects the Senator 
 believes amendments are not necessary 
 now; but on consolidation he and his 
 patients are knocking at the gate a long 
 while ahead of time. Senator Cummins 
 has on his mind the problem of the 
 strong and weak road, both taking the 
 same rates in competition and one hav- 
 ing income enough to give good service 
 while the other is starving itself and its 
 public. He said “The strong roads must 
 swallow the weak.” The Senate Com- 
 mittee brought in and the Senate 
 passed a provision that if a scheme of 
 mergers were not complete in seven 
 years then compulsion should be 
 applied. The House substituted per- 
 mission for compulsion and the Senate 
 agreed. On a plan to that end 
 the Commission has been holding hear- 
 ings and will soon proclaim it. The 
 mere preliminaries for a permissive 
 plan have taken two years and ten 
 months. How many years would be 
 consumed in validating com- 
 pulsion? To write compul- 
 sion into the statute would give 
 us not consolidations but a 
 
 19 
 
lawsuit. Ask the Rotary lawyer to 
 estimate for you the number of years 
 that would drag. St. Peter’s 20 would 
 not be far out of the way. 
 
 On top of that, will anybody guaran- 
 tee that 19 systems created equal in 
 income will remain equal any longer 
 than is required for the differences in 
 efficiency and energy among their man- 
 agers to become manifest? 
 
 NO NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 What harm would it do to repeal 
 the rule of rate-making? 
 
 Some months ago a certain radical 
 Senator was reported sick. Another 
 Senator who does not admire him 
 remarked “Let us trust it is nothing 
 trivial.” Whenever your enemy wishes 
 you a happy New Year it is a signal 
 to reach for your pocket book. Who 
 is it that wants to repeal the rule of 
 rate-making and inquires what harm it 
 will do? It is the man who wants to 
 break transportation down and force 
 seizure of the roads by the govern- 
 ment. Either you think that would be 
 harmful or you don’t. If you do, then 
 you are in order to retort, “If repeal 
 
 20 
 
will do no harm why do you want 
 repeal ?” 
 
 They have made converts among 
 intelligent citizens, utterly opposed to 
 government ownership and the Plumb 
 plan. These have been taught to say 
 that the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion would fix adequate rates without 
 
 Federal control. Uncle Sam, the umpire, 
 seeing that no State hits another 
 below the belt. 
 
 any such rule. Then why didn’t the 
 Commission do so before the rule was 
 enacted ? The Commission changed its 
 course because it believed that was the 
 national will. The evidence of the 
 national will was the passage of the 
 law. Repeal would be evidence that 
 the nation has changed its mind. 
 
 21 
 
The section of the Act which con- 
 tains the rule is imperfect. Nobody 
 is satisfied with it. Amendments are 
 ultimately desirable. They can wait. 
 The paramount thing now is to give the 
 railway managers a legislative respite 
 in which to build up their properties 
 and service. 
 
 NO NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 Why should the railroads have a 
 guarantee ? 
 
 They shouldn’t and they don’t. 
 Never in a single month since the pro- 
 vision went into effect has net income 
 equalled the rate of return at which 
 regulation was said to aim. Nobody 
 made restitution. The government 
 says to the roads, “We are going to 
 make your rates and if even then you 
 earn too much we are going to limit 
 your income by taking back half over 
 6% ; but in carrying out this scheme, 
 which we inflict on nobody else what- 
 ever besides railroads, in order to 
 cheer you up we promise not to go 
 so far as to cripple you into impotence 
 for public service. If we do take too 
 much, try and get it.” It is like Beau 
 Brummel in the play. Mortimer, the 
 valet, tells him the tradesmen are 
 
 22 
 
below demanding payment. “Promise 
 them something,” says the Beau, “And 
 — Mortimer, promise yourself some- 
 thing.” 
 
 Probably the clause can be better 
 phrased. By and by. NO NECES- 
 SITY NOW. 
 
 Would scaling down railway valu- 
 ation reduce freight rates? 
 
 There was a Scotchman in Toronto 
 who complained of a reduction in the 
 street car fares. They had been sell- 
 ing four rides for a quarter and 
 changed it to five. The Scotchman 
 came in furious. “Why,” he said, 
 “I’ve been walking down town every 
 morning and saving car fare. Now I’ve 
 got to walk five mornings instead of 
 four to save a quarter.” 
 
 The effect of lower valuations upon 
 freight rates would be about as real. 
 The paramount object of having rail- 
 roads is the public interest. The goods 
 must be carried. It requires a certain 
 number of dollars every year to pay 
 operating expenses, taxes, interest and 
 dividends sufficient to attract capital 
 for additions and betterments. It 
 happens that for the sake of something 
 to hang it on Congress has used valua- 
 
 23 
 
tion as the base upon which to figure 
 net income in rate per cent ; but what 
 difference would it make in the num- 
 ber of dollars required for the job 
 if you cut the valuation in two? Would 
 each dollar buy twice as much of what 
 the railroads must have to serve the 
 public? Certainly not. You would 
 merely have to fix double the rate of 
 return. 
 
 The only possible connection be- 
 tween valuation and expenses would 
 be repudiation of bonds to save inter- 
 est ; and the American people are too 
 shrewd even if they are not too straight 
 to repudiate contract obligations legally 
 entered into. Who are these gentle- 
 man who urge scaling down valuation ? 
 Is there one among them who doesn’t 
 favor government ownership or the 
 Plumb plan? For their purpose, scal- 
 ing down valuation would be effective. 
 But what is their purpose ? It is to put 
 a stop to the magnificent service which 
 has given the nation prosperity and 
 driven government ownership off the 
 platform. 
 
 It is well to consider for future 
 action improvements in the valuation 
 provisions. NO NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 24 
 
Ought Congress to order a reor- 
 ganization of the rate schedule to aid 
 the farmer ? 
 
 That is, Congress, having created a 
 Commission to perform the judicial 
 function of deciding the right and 
 wrong of freight rate relations between 
 commodities and between groups of 
 shippers, is asked to make those judi- 
 cial decisions itself. This whole ques- 
 tion of the reorganization of the rate 
 schedule by reducing some rates and 
 raising others has been before the Com- 
 mission in concrete form ever since 
 Mr. Hoover as Secretary of Com- 
 merce began urging it. The Commis- 
 sion replies that every specific case will 
 be tried and adjudicated on the merits, 
 that hundreds of thousands of such 
 corrections are made annually all in the 
 day’s work, but that the principal need 
 of shippers just now is stability of 
 rates, not turmoil. That is their deci- 
 sion. Now they are to be ordered to 
 make another one. 
 
 Can you imagine the uproar if Con- 
 gress should order reversal by some 
 federal court? 
 
 For myself I confess that whenever 
 anyone proposes legislative rate-mak- 
 
 25 
 
ing or rate-making under political pres- 
 sure of any kind I get into the state of 
 mind of the Irishman. He said, “I’m 
 glad I don’t like spinach ; because if 
 I liked it I’d ate it, and I hate the 
 damned stuff.” 
 
 Apart from the propriety of the 
 proposed procedure, the thing itself is 
 futile. It is easy enough to find rates 
 to reduce, but where are you going to 
 find groups of shippers coming for- 
 ward with a patriotic cheer and 
 begging to have the compensatory 
 advances bestowed upon them? You 
 have all heard of the man who was 
 picked up in the street and carried to 
 the hospital, where they diagnosed it 
 first as acute alcoholism, but the alco- 
 holic man was off for the day. The 
 appendix man was on duty, so they 
 decided he had appendicitis and sent 
 for an anesthesist. Just as they were 
 about to gas him he woke up and de- 
 manded “What are you doing?” They 
 told him and he said, “I’ve had my 
 appendix out twice already.” The sur- 
 geon said that made no difference, as 
 the anesthesist had come a long dis- 
 tance and his time couldn’t be wasted. 
 They cut him open and sure enough it 
 had been removed. The surgeon 
 
 26 
 
instructed the internes to tatoo on the 
 man’s abdomen, “Don’t go in. No 
 appendix here.” 
 
 Uncle Sam’s Carrier : Creditors are below, 
 sir, demanding wages, supply money and taxes. 
 
 Uncle Sam : Promise them something. 
 
 Carrier ; Yes, sir. 
 
 Uncle Sam: And — promise yourself some- 
 thing. 
 
 The Commission has already cut 
 wherever it dared, eliminating in 1923 
 about $500,000,000 of revenue. 
 
 It may be thal one of these days we 
 
 27 
 
shall face the question whether Con- 
 gress can do the job better. NO 
 NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 What hope is there for stopping 
 the rise in freight rates? 
 
 Economies in railway operation. Any 
 other nostrum is bunk. The trick must 
 be turned by the railways and by the 
 developers of mechanical improve- 
 ments and progress in method. For 
 years they lived from hand to mouth. 
 Progress toward economy had been 
 great. To foreign observers it seemed 
 marvelous. If it had not been for that 
 progress freight rates would long ago 
 have been higher than anything we 
 have seen. For economies had to over- 
 come a steady and formidable advance 
 in wages. 
 
 Such progress must continue if the 
 railroad problem is to be solved. We 
 postponed too long the reform of our 
 government policy of regulation. The 
 plant is consequently in arrears. This 
 is true of improvements in the type of 
 locomotives and cars, in track appli- 
 ances, and in junction and terminal 
 design. Now we have to pay for our 
 neglect. For a while freight rates must 
 be higher than we are accustomed to 
 
 28 
 
in order that in the future the rise 
 may cease. The struggle of the engi- 
 neers and manufacturers against the 
 inflation of expenses through wages 
 and other factors is like a base ball 
 game between colored gentlemen that 
 I heard about in the South. The engi- 
 neers resemble the team in the field. A 
 visitor asked the centre-fielder. 
 “What’s the score?” “35 to nothing.” 
 “Who’s ahead?” “They is.” “They’re 
 walloping you fellows, aren’t they?” 
 “No, suh. We ain’t been to bat yit.” 
 
 If private initiative under wise regu- 
 lation fails to produce the required 
 economies after a reasonable trial, 
 legislation may become timely. NO 
 NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 Does not federal control violate 
 state rights? 
 
 No. It sustains and enforces state 
 rights. If Indiana tries to do some- 
 thing to Ohio federal control prevents 
 her. If Ohio tries to do something to 
 Indiana that is not right but wrong. 
 The only advocates of state rights are 
 those who want license to commit state 
 wrongs. A Youngstown manufac- 
 turer tells how he was asking for 
 freight cars and could not get them, 
 
 29 
 
and saw empty cars rolling serenely 
 past his window on their way to South 
 Dakota. Will somebody suggest how 
 that South Dakota wheat farmer could 
 get a freight car sent him empty from 
 somewhere east of Ohio if he had to 
 depend on the railroad commission of 
 South Dakota to get it for him? The 
 authority is federal. It is the same 
 with rates. Does Ohio want Indiana 
 to pay less than her share of the reve- 
 nue of railroads which serve both 
 states and place Ohio in the position 
 of either paying more than her share 
 or putting up with poor service ? Some- 
 body has got to umpire it. There can 
 be no other umpire than the federal 
 authority. 
 
 Under the Act the Interstate Com- 
 merce Commission is directed to 
 arrange co-operation with state 
 authorities and has made great progress 
 in that direction. If you hear anybody 
 urging restoration of state control ask 
 him to put his hand on his heart and 
 say he was not sent by some state 
 official who clings to his job. 
 
 If that provision will not remove the 
 friction after a reasonable period, we 
 can consider what to do next. NO 
 NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 30 
 
Ought the Labor Board to be 
 abolished ? 
 
 No. At present two camps face each 
 other, one demanding abolition, the 
 other demanding that decrees be made 
 obligatory. That means deadlock. 
 What has been going on is an excellent 
 illustration of nature taking her course 
 without legislative interference. The 
 work of the board has dwindled. Com- 
 pany autonomy in dealing with labor 
 has been restored. Negotiation has 
 taken the place of strikes and the 
 threat of strikes. No interruption of 
 service is in sight. A bird in the hand 
 is the noblest work of God. 
 
 It may be it can be improved upon. 
 If ever the various groups of thinkers 
 can agree on a substitute it will be 
 timely to consider another arrange- 
 ment. NO NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 With reference to transportation, 
 what can business men do to pro- 
 mote general prosperity in 1924? 
 
 They can persuade Congress to try 
 the Act further unamended and make 
 unmistakable to railway managers and 
 to investors that the demand for a 
 legislative holiday is too strong for 
 Congress to defy. 
 
 This assurance will sustain the flow 
 
 31 
 
of capital into railroad improvements. 
 Large-scale railway purchases began 
 in January, 1922, precisely at 
 the lowest ebb of general busi- 
 ness. They have ever since been 
 the largest factor in business revival. 
 If the roads buy freely now, this will 
 continue to maintain industrial pay- 
 rolls and to provide a domestic market 
 for farm products and manufactures. 
 
 The railroads by the same process 
 will equip themselves to carry the ton- 
 nage and again as in 1923 meet the 
 peak of load without those car short- 
 ages so often in the past disastrous to 
 agriculture, industry and trade. 
 
 Success of the railroads for another 
 couple of years in carrying the traffic 
 offered will go far to remove appre- 
 hension about government ownership 
 and to reassure those who fear rail- 
 roads are but the first trench, with 
 other forms of business awaiting the 
 the socialist or soviet attack just 
 behind. Stability of railroad laws now 
 spells confidence all around, and the 
 foundation of national prosperity is 
 confidence. 
 
 Whatever amendment is proposed, 
 the answer is that this is no time for 
 tinkering. NO NECESSITY NOW. 
 
 32 
 
 Form 
 
RAILWAY BUSINESS ASSOCIATION 
 LIBERTY BUILDING 
 PHILADELPHIA