X5l}ï 0% Qhth ^
Published by the CITY CLUB OF CHICAGO, 315 Plymouth Court
DWIGHT L. AKERS, Editor*
Volume VI MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1913 Number 2
CONTENTS
I. "The Present Railway Situation in the United States—Reg¬
ulation Versus Public Ownership." An address by Carl Vrooman,
January 11, 1913. Page 17.
II. "The United States as a World Power." An address by
Edwin D. Mead, January 14, 1913. Page 26.
THE PRESENT RAILWAY SITUATION IN THE UNITED
STATES—REGULATION VERSUS PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
Judge Stephen A. Foster presided at
the noon-day meeting of the City Club
on Saturday, January 11, 1913, at which
Mr. Carl Vrooman of Bloomington was
guest of honor. The introduction by the
chairman follows:
THE CHAIRMAN—"We are to have
to-day a discussion of a world-wide
problem by one who has given it world¬
wide study. Broadly speaking, the policy
of England and of America has
favored regulation of railways, while
the policy of continental Europe has
favored a greater or less degree of
public ownership. In this country dur¬
ing the last few years great progress
has been made toward perfecting regu¬
lation. The Supreme Court of the
United States has held that more and
more of the power over interstate com¬
merce is vested in the federal govern¬
ment as distinguished from the state gov¬
ernment. It has also held that the
rulings of the federal commission on
questions of fact and in the exercise of
its wide discretion are final and beyond
review by the courts. Thus the system
of control by the federal commission
over interstate commerce has been ren¬
dered exclusive and efficient. Congress
during this time has not only dealt with
every phase of the question of unjust
discrimination and unreasonable rates,
but it has also invaded the field of opera¬
* Carlos Colton Daughaday, Acting Editor.
tion. It has required the carriers to in¬
stall safety appliances, and to submit to
boiler inspection; it has regulated the
hours of service of employes ; it has
passed new rules concerning the liability
of the carriers to their employes for per¬
sonal injuries ; it has provided for arbi¬
tration of labor disputes ; and it has pro-
vidèd for the investigation of railway
accidents. Some of us at least feel that
Congress should go even further than
that in the way of regulation, and pre¬
scribe rules concerning the issuance of
stocks and bonds by the carriers, and
also for the supervision of their equip¬
ment and facilities. But throughout this
legislation, both state and national, past
and prospective, one principle has for
the most part been kept in view. The
initiative has in almost all instances been
left with the carrier itself. The incen¬
tive for personal effort, both in the con¬
struction of railway lines and in their
operation, has been considered of value
and not to be lost or destroyed. It is
believed by so doing more and more
satisfactory service for the public has
been secured. Whether or not this is so,
I presume, is one of the questions that
will be discussed by the speaker of the
day. Whether or not the different steps
that have been taken in this country
extending the regulation of federal and
state authorities over the railways will
w«hiNCTO„ c°°><omcs.
18
GHp (Eitg Club HuUrttti
ultimately lead to public ownership is
doubtless one upon which he will give
us light. I am pleased to be able to in¬
troduce to you to-day one who has given
this subject so much thought, and who
can speak to you with so much authority.
I have the pleasure of presenting Mr.
Carl Vrooman, of Bloomington, 111."
(Applause.)
Mr. Carl Vrooman
"Gentlemen of the City Club : 'That
great American philosopher, the late
Josh Billings, once said that 'you can
never have an honest hoss race until you
have an honest human race.' The prin¬
ciple involved in this dictum is to my
mind the only known key to a proper
understanding of the railway problem.
No system of railways so far worked out
in the world has ever been entirely satis¬
factory to everybody. There is no such
thing as perfection in railway manage¬
ment, either under private initiative, un¬
restricted competition, government regu¬
lation, or government ownership and
operation. The only question is whether
or not a given system of railway man¬
agement is as good as the people of any
country are capable of giving themselves
at any particular time. In a country
where the intelligence of the citizens has
reached a high plane, in which the tech¬
nical competence of the average citizen
has reached a high standard, evidently
the people are capable of giving to them¬
selves a better and more effective system
of railway management than they are in
a country where these conditions do not
prevail.
"When railways were introduced into
Europe, England went in, as we did, for
private railways. Railway competition
was the slogan of British statesmen.
Belgium, on the other hand, went in at
once for government railroads, while
France started out with a system of
government-regulated private railways.
Thus we have had from the start these
three types, and we can trace in the his¬
tory of the railways of these three coun¬
tries very interesting parallels and very
interesting dissimilarities. It is possible
to compare the results gained from these
three different methods, and to arrive at
some very interesting results.
"Of course the thing that interests us
most is not an academic discussion of
world-wide railways, but a discussion of
our own particular railway problems
with whatever of light can be thrown on
them from the experience of other coun¬
tries.
"In the United States, for perhaps 'the
first fifty years, we believed in the old
English idea of competition in railway
management—in accordance with the
classical doctrine of the economists.
We have all been nourished and nur¬
tured upon this doctrine of laissez faire,
of competition, of individual initiative,
and we stuck to it even when it seemed
ridiculous to the majority of railway
economists. The remarkable thing about
it was that we were able to stick to it as
long as we did.
State and Interstate Commerce Commis¬
sions
"Finally, however, America started on
her present career of railway regulation
by the creation of the Interstate Com¬
merce Commission and the various state
commissions. You are all aware how
embryonic the Interstate Commerce
Commission was at its inception. It had
almost no power. The main thing it
accomplished during the first years of its
existence was in the way of educating
the American people on the railway
problem, and the same might be said for
the different state commissions. During
the first few years of our experiments
with state regulation there never was
any commission which achieved anything
like satisfactory results, but we had a
variety of commissions started, and
these various experiments have given us
a great deal of interesting data on the
subject.
"The Massachusetts State Commission,
which is held up as an example of a com¬
mission with no power save that of moral
suasion, has for many years been re¬
garded by certain railway economists as
the ideal railway commission. But this
theory at last has collapsed, and prac¬
tically no one can be found today who
will maintain that the Massachusetts
commission is at all a model institution.
"It is not generally known that the
state of Texas was the first state in this
union to have a really powerful and effi-
Sty? (Etttj (Eluh bulletin
19
cient railway commission. But such was
the case. It is true that Texas has made
some mistakes, in some cases it went a
little too far, but it enjoys the distinction
of being the first state that ever had a
commission 'with teeth.' Now that we
have got the Wisconsin commission and
the New York commission and the New
Jersey commission and the Georgia com¬
mission, all of them with power to make
rates, the Texas commission no longer
stands alone.
"Along with this development of the
state commissions, with increased pow¬
ers, has gone a great increase in the
power of the Interstate Commerce Com¬
mission. This great instrument of gov¬
ernment started out, as I said, with
largely perfunctory powers—the power
to look into conditions and tell the people
what they thought of them, and to try
cases and render decisions that they had
no power to enforce. But this species
of ineffectualness is a thing of the past,
for today we have an Interstate Com¬
merce Commission with large powers
that i$ exercising its powers with great
discretion and technical competence.
Ever since the formation of the Inter¬
state Commerce Commission, the com¬
mission has been composed of high-
minded men with great ability, in whose
character everybody has had the highest
confidence. We have never had a man
on the commission against whom there
has been raised any charges of graft or
any suspicion of anything even remotely
approaching graft or dishonesty. More¬
over, the commission is undoubtedly the
hardest working body of men in the
United States government today.
"I think that not many of us realize
the amount of work the commission is
carrying on. I once devoted several
months to studying its activities, and I
was appalled at the strenuosity of the
commissioners. Your chairman has told
you something of the work of the Inter¬
state Commerce Commission, how in
some cases it has reduced rates, how it
has equalized rates, how it has intro¬
duced safety appliances, how it has pre¬
scribed methods of accounting and seen
to it that the prescribed methods were
carried out. If I had time it would be
very interesting to go into details and
show exactly what the state commissions
and the Interstate Commerce Commis¬
sion are accomplishing. But that would
require an entire afternoon, and I will
have to content myself, therefore, with
indicating some of the things that they
are not doing.
"The germ idea, the essential function
of our present modern commission, is to
give to the individual citizen, either in
the state or the nation, the expert assist¬
ance of men who are highly trained and
highly competent to aid him to contest
these questions with corporations which
have equally competent men in their em¬
ploy. In former years when a man went
before a court with a railway case in¬
volving rates, or some important legal
problem, he worked under a very great
disadvantage, and his lawyer worked
under a very great disadvantage, for the
reason that the railways were always
represented by lawyers who for years
had specialized in railway law. These
lawyers had at their beck and call spe¬
cialists who had been in their employ for
years, and who were familiar with the
intricacies of rate making and the thou¬
sand and one highly complicated matters
which only railway specialists under¬
stand. The ordinary man in going up
against that sort of a proposition was
very like a man in a canoe attempting to
contest the supremacy of the seas with
a modern battleship. Even the judge, if
he had not specialized in railway law,
was very often at a loss to know how
to decide many of the important ques¬
tions at issue. The great improvement
which the commissions have brought
about is this, that today any man,
woman or child in this country, at the
cost of a two-cent stamp, can communi¬
cate with the Interstate Commerce Com¬
mission, or one of the various state com¬
missions, putting his case in its hands,
with the certainty that the case will have
the attention to which it is entitled. Of
course, there are cases where shippers
appearing before a railway commission
find it necessary to engage legal assist¬
ance, but a very great majority of the
cases which are attended to by the Inter¬
state Commerce Commission, several
thousand certainly every year, are cases
in which the complainants have merely
written the commission the facts, and
left the matter in the hands of the com-
20
Sftj? (Ettg QHiib Hulletut
mission to be pushed to as successful a
conclusion as possible without money
and without price.
"This is a novel and interesting devel¬
opment, and I hope that no one will think
from what I may have to say later that
I underestimate or undervalue the gre'at
work that is now being accomplished by
the state commissions and the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
The New England Situation
"And yet the real fact of the matter is,
that, successful as has been the work of
these commissions, as great as are their
powers, as high-minded as are the com¬
missioners themselves, at the present mo¬
ment in this country we apparently are
not within sight or earshot of any real
solution of our railway problem. Ques¬
tions as great and as difficult of solution
as any that faced us twenty-five or fifty
years ago, face the American people to¬
day in connection with the railway ques¬
tion.
"I have had the privilege during the
past two months of being called to Bos¬
ton to investigate the conditions of the
New England railways. Mr. Louis
Brandeis, who for many years has been
carrying on a brilliant and aggressive
fight against the gradual but steady en¬
croachments of a transportation monop¬
oly, has today for the first time during
this long and bitter contest got the peo¬
ple of New England almost to a man
behind him. This New England trans¬
portation monopoly has come, not like a
thief in the night, but gradually, brazenly,
resistlessly, like a conquering army. With
Mr. Mellen at its head and Mr. Morgan
at its back, this colossal corporation has
gradually taken over not only the steam
railways in New England, but also the
trolley lines and all the steamship lines
which touch at New England points.
"There were laws on the statute books
which forbade the New Haven line or
any other railway to take over the trolley
lines. Mr. Mellen did not care anything
about these laws. With an insolent dis¬
regard for the majesty of the law, he
pursued the even tenor of his way, looked
neither to the right nor left, and never
said so much as 'by your leave.' The
law was plain. Everybody knew the law
was plain. There was nothing uncertain
about the construction of the law. He
simply ignored it ; he trampled it under
foot. He bought the trolley lines in
direct defiance of the laws of the state
of Massachusetts, and when the matter
was brought up and threshed out in the
courts and in the general assembly, Mr.
Mellen went to the governor of the state
of Massachusetts and practically issued a
declaration of war, in which he set up
the economic power of the New Haven
Railway against the political power of
the state of Massachusetts. His declara¬
tion in substance was: 'We are here,
and we are here to stay. What are you
going to do about it? If you can afford
to throw the commerce and industry of
New England into a state of confusion
and chaos, go ahead, punish us, forfeit
our charters. We can stand it if you
can.' And the Legislature and the gov¬
ernment bowed down to his will and put
the seal of their approval upon his
anarchistic acts. This does not sound
very much like the old New England
spirit in the days of the revolutionary
fathers, but this is what was done. It is
incredible, but it is true; old New Eng¬
land, the cradle of liberty, has become
the cradle of economic tyranny, of trans¬
portation monopoly—the most thorough¬
going transportation monopoly in this
land.
"Now, the problem which New Eng¬
enders are eagerly discussing is, What
can be done about it? When they cre¬
ated the Boston Holding Company to
hold about SO per cent of the stock of
the Boston & Maine Railway, for the
New Haven road, a clause was inserted
to the effect that at any time the state
of Massachusetts could buy this block
of stock of the Boston & Maine Railway.
There had been a similar clause in the
old Boston & Albany charter, and the
B. & M., having never seen any desire
manifested on the part of the government
of Massachusetts to exercise this power,
felt that this clause was a concession
which might safely be made to the re¬
formers without doing the road any
harm. It remains to be seen whether
or not this is the case. At any rate, Mr.
Brandeis and a number of other able and
patriotic men in Boston have decided
that the time has come for the state of
©tj* (iïitg ©Util Hullrtm
21
Massachusetts to make that purchase.
This is the most interesting railway situ¬
ation today in the United States.
Railway Problems in Illinois
"We do not need, however, to go to
New England to find highly unsatisfac¬
tory railway conditions. Look at our
Alton line right here in the state of Illi¬
nois—a line which runs through the rich¬
est and most fertile agricultural region
on the face of the earth, but which at
times can hardly pay its section hands—
a line many of whose trains during cer¬
tain seasons of the year are crowded to
suffocation, with people standing in the
aisles. The conductor of one of these
trains, on being asked why he didn't get
another car, replied, Tt is this way every
day. I have reported the matter for the
last two months and nothing is done
about it. It is no fault of mine ; I can
do nothing.' We have a railroad and
warehouse commission, but it does "noth¬
ing to end this inexcusable condition of
affairs.
"Our grain shippers down in central
Illinois find that during the season for
moving crops we cannot get sufficient
cars. The commission has done a great
work in requiring the railways to operate
their cars in something approaching an
equitable manner, but the railway com¬
mission has no power, and there is no
railway commission that has the power in
this country, to see to it that the railways
furnish sufficient cars to take care of the
traffic.
"Several years ago I came home from
abroad, fresh from some investigations
of European car shortages on govern¬
ment lines, only to find at home a situa¬
tion worse than anything I had ever seen
or heard of in Europe. The railways of
the whole Northwest, including Jim
Hill's road, one of the very best managed
railroads in this country, were almost
paralyzed. Grain was stacked for thou¬
sands of miles along these lines and was
decaying and rotting for lack of enough
cars to send it away in. And throughout
this country practically the same condi¬
tion of affairs existed.
Government Regulation
"Such illustrations might be gone into
at very great length, but I think enough
has been said to indicate that while it is
quite possible, by means of regulation,
to remove some of the most blatant evils
of private railway management, at the
same time the great fundamental causes
of our most serious transportation
problems have not been removed.
"When you get beyond the removal of
certain positive evils of private railway
management, then you get beyond th«
possibility of improving conditions by
government regulation of private rail¬
ways. Regulation, like drugs, is very
useful in acute crises, but when a chronic
condition of anemia exists it cannot be
reached by any regulative process. You
cannot inject initiative into a railway
management. If you so supervise the
railways, as they try to do in France,
that every act of the railway officials
from the president down to the fireman
is inspected by some government official,
then while you may prevent certain posi¬
tive defects and evils, you will so para¬
lyze all liberty of action, you will so com¬
pletely destroy all powers of initiative,
that your last condition will be worse
than your-first.
"President Hadley in his book, written
some twenty-five years ago, but which is
still a classic, says that too great a de¬
gree of government regulation is worse
than government ownership and opera¬
tion. This fact has been illustrated in a
number of cases.
Watered Stock an Evil
"The other day I was told by a railway
official on one of our western lines that
for certain regions his road had not ap¬
propriated a dollar this year for main¬
tenance of way. They kept a few gangs
of men on the pay roll, he said, to be
used in case of accidents, but no attempt
was being made to keep the road-bed in
a normal condition of repair.
"A majority of the railways of the
country are more or less in this highly
unsatisfactory condition. The railroad
presidents and managers and officials
generally in this country are thus placed
in a very peculiar and difficult situation.
From above they have the commissions
keeping down rates ; from below they
have shippers and passengers demanding
lower rates and better service ; the em¬
ployes demanding higher wages ; and
22
utyp ©tig Club ^Bulletin
from every side they have stockholders
and stock manipulators and banking syn¬
dicates pressing on them for greater divi¬
dends, or the same dividends on new and
greater issues of watered stock. The
high-minded, hard-working, highly com¬
petent railway managers and specialists
who are today running the railways of
this country are for the most part vainly
trying to achieve the impossible. The
pressure on them is increasing from
every side. It is a question in their minds,
as it is a question in the mind of every
railroad economist, what the issue will
be. So long as we permit the unre¬
stricted issuance of fictitious securities by
the roads, there can be no possible hope
for any fair or reasonable solution of the
railway problem. When a railway be¬
comes burdened with millions of dollars
of watered stock and bonds, it must
either raise rates, lower wages, reduce
dividends, increase the efficiency of its
management or curtail its service. This
much is clear.
Government Ownership Predicted
"In view of these and similar facts, it
is evident that railway regulation is not
a complete and unqualified success.
Moreover, our hopes of ultimately work¬
ing out for ourselves a satisfactory
régime of railway regulation would seem
brighter were it not for the fact that
while many nations have tried it, no na¬
tion has ever yet succeeded in creating
a system of railway regulation that was
satisfactory either to the railways or to
the public.
"Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Natal,
New Zealand and the Australian colonies
all either began as state roads, or, for
some reason, adopted a government
régime before making a protracted trial
of private railways. But Germany,
Austria, Hungary, Russia, Denmark,
Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Mexico and
France, after making long and painstak¬
ing trials of private railways, finally were
forced to decide in favor of government
owned and operated railways. Think of
this continuous and imposing procession
of the nations of the world away from
the standard of private railway monopoly
to that of public ownership and opera¬
tion. And not one nation among them all
has ever been known to make a perma¬
nent change of policy in the other direc¬
tion.
"This magnificent unanimity of action
cannot be made light of or ingeniously
explained away. It has a meaning for us
today, a meaning which is as clear to
most of our railway , presidents as it is
to railway economists. I am told, on
the best authority, that gradual railway
nationalization on equitable terms would
not be an unwelcome solution of this
problem to many of our greatest railway
managers.
"Probably the strongest argument that
can be urged in favor of government
ownership of railroads is involved in the
contention that such a régime would give
us as good a transportation system as we
as a nation deserve, because it would be
as good as we are capable of achieving
and maintaining. And probably the
most powerful indictment that can be
urged against our present system of cor¬
porate railway (mis-)management is that
which is so easily made by merely calling
attention to the fact that our present
corporation morality, the morality of the
financial jungle, is admittedly and no¬
toriously lower than our morality as in¬
dividual citizens, or our public morality
in state or nation.
"Manifestly, if in America or else¬
where the dominant influence of the
world of Tig business' and 'high finance'
were found to act as a moral stimulus
to the rest of the nation, and to exercise
a beneficent counter influence to the dis¬
honest and demoralizing tendencies
which were manifesting themselves in
the various departments of government,
doubtless it would be wiser, while that
condition of affairs lasted, to leave the
control of our national arteries of com¬
merce in private hands. But when, as in
our country today, the main effort of
government necessarily is directed to the
herculean task of compelling a reluctant
and oftentimes openly rebellious business
and financial world to respect the most
elementary principles of common honesty
and legitimate business rectitude, the case
would seem to be somewhat different.
The strongest argument, or at least
the one which is generally conceded
to be the strongest argument against
Government ownership of railways, is
©Iff (ÏÏttg (Eluh Bulletin ,
23
the supposed fact that government indus¬
trial enterprises are less efficiently man¬
aged than private enterprises. When I
first went to Europe to make a first-hand
study of the railway question, it was with
the feeling that though there might be
social advantages in connection with gov¬
ernment ownership, yet from the stand¬
point of economic efficiency private man¬
agement undoubtedly had the best of it.
However, I did not always find this to
be the case. In France I found that the
French government in some instances
had built lines better and cheaper than
private enterprise had been able to do.
Moreover, I have never been able to find
any of our railways that are more ef¬
ficiently managed—not even the Penn¬
sylvania—than are the Prussian state
railways.
"It is pretty generally believed that we
could not get the great masters of the
railway world to run our railways if the
government owned them. Perhaps not,
but Mr. Mellen and the other great rail¬
way managers are not half as interested
today in running our railways as in their
predatory schemes of high finance. The
cream of their energy is spent watching
the stock ticker, manipulating, speculat¬
ing, and gambling in stocks and bonds.
The railways of this country are actually
run by highly trained men, who work
long hours and bear much responsibility.
These men who run the railways, the
highly trained technicians and managers,
are looked upon by the great predatory
masters of finance much as the peasants,
schoolmasters and the clergy were looked
upon by the predatory barons of the
middle ages. They regard them as be¬
longing to a lower race of beings, these
men who work for fixed salaries.
Railroading a Legitimate Enterprise.
"The railroad business itself is a highly
legitimate enterprise; but it is a legiti¬
mate business enterprise which at present
is being prostituted to the financial am¬
bitions of men who go out to fight and
to conquer, just as men have gone out to
subdue and plunder their fellows since
first the human race emerged from the
jungles of primeval man. These indus¬
trial overlords, these financial tyrants, are
the ones who have brought our railways
in this country to their present critical
condition—who have brought about a
state of affairs which at any time may re¬
sult in an acute crisis or industrial de¬
pression that will throw thousands of
miles of railways into a state of bank¬
ruptcy.
"Therefore, if the American people
once decide that present-day railway
evils are inherent in corporation railway
management, they will say, 'Even though
it be costly, we can well afford the luxury
of railways run in the interests of the
whole people ; of a transportation system
that looks first to the building up of the
entire industrial life of the nation and
only secondly, or not at all, to profits ; of
a railway system which will give us free¬
dom from the industrial tyranny which
is fastening itself upon the people of this
country, rich and poor alike. For this
is a luxury that not only every nation can
afford, but that no self-respecting nation
can afford to be without. Where free¬
dom, either political or industrial, is at
stake, nations do not haggle about the
price. Cost what it will, in time, in treas¬
ure, or even blood, a virile nation can
always afford to be free.
"Personally I have no fear for the
future. The American people have
solved greater problems than this and
they have solved them rationally, justly
and permanently. Other nations have
clearly demonstrated that the railway
problem is not insoluble, and in our own
good time and way we shall yet find a so¬
lution which will safeguard the legitimate
interests and rights alike of employes,
stockholders and, last but not least, of the
traveling and shipping public." (Ap¬
plause.)
CHAIRMAN FOSTER—"I presume
there are many here who have questions
to ask, and I am sure the speaker will be
very glad to answer them."
A MEMBER—"I would like to ask a
question which perhaps has already been
partially answered. There is a very lively
campaign going on in this country at the
present time by an organization whose
name I forget (it is composed of men
whose business is to sell supplies to rail¬
ways) ; I have on my desk today one
of their pamphlets in which they take
the position that the time has come in
this country when we must raise railway
rates."
24
Stye (Eitij Club bulletin
MR. VROOMAN : "Of course, this
matter was thoroughly threshed out be¬
fore the Interstate Commerce Commis¬
sion in the rate cases, where Mr.
Brandeis showed very thoroughly that
no raise in rates was required for the
safeguarding of any legitimate interest
of any railway ; and also that the rail¬
ways in this country, by increasing the
efficiency of the management, could
easily save a million dollars a day. He
offered in support of this contention the
testimony of such experts as Mr. Emer¬
son. It was proved, I believe, to the sat¬
isfaction of the commission—possibly
not to the satisfaction of the railways—
that the statement of Mr. Brandeis was
not an exaggeration. Of course, if we
allow this process of issuing fictitious
securities to go on unhampererd, it is
certain that the roads will have to raise
rates or lower wages, cut dividends or
curtail the service. There is no other
way out of it. But I do not believe the
American people are going to stand for
a continuation of this practice very much
longer, and I don't think that our gov¬
ernment ought to guarantee a profit upon
the billions of dollars worth of fictitious
railway stock that has been issued in this
country. We do not guarantee it on
mercantile enterprises, we do not guar¬
antee it on farm lands, we do not guaran¬
tee it on anything else—then why should
we guarantee a profit on fictitious rail¬
way stocks?"
A MEMBER—"Do you take the stand
that all railways are over-capitalized?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Not at all, but
nearly all."
A MEMBER—"I saw the statement
the other day that the Alton was capital¬
ized for $135,000 a mile and the C., B. &
Q. for $35,000, and you could not replace
the C., B. & Q. for $35,000 a mile today."
MR. VROOMAN—"That is the reason
why there should be a valuation made.
Of course, a physical valuation does not
cover the ground, because there are many
factors which have to be taken into ac¬
count. A strong argument can be made
in favor of capitalizing the cost of get¬
ting the road in successful operation.
That to my mind is a legitimate factor,
but any franchise value or value based
on the earning power of the road is
false in principle. You first give them
this monopoly, the right, and then you
pay them for the power they have to levy
tribute on the community."
A MEMBER—"How do the rates for
the same service in this country per mile
for the carriage of passengers compare
with those in Europe?"
MR. VROOMAN—"It is very gen¬
erally recognized that passenger rates are
cheaper in Europe."
A MEMBER—"For the same serv¬
ice?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Yes, sir. Of
course, that is an approximation, be¬
cause you do not have the same service.
The conditions are not the same, but the
majority of economists, even the most
conservative economists, like Professor
Hadley, take the view that passenger
rates are cheaper abroad. But a great
many of these conservative economists
maintain, on the other hand, that freight
rates are higher abroad. Of course,
freight rates are vastly more important
than passenger rates, but for the average
haul in Prussia, 7iy2 miles, our rates are
higher than theirs. Abroad ' they take
the ton-mile cost of America where the
average haul is three or four times what
it is in Germany for illustration, and
make a misleading comparison. The
length of haul makes a very great differ¬
ence in the cost per ton-mile, because
whether - you send a parcel ten miles or
a thousand miles or two thousand miles,
in any case you have all the work of
loading and unloading, which is a large
percentage of the expense. The majority
of disinterested experts, who have in¬
vestigated this question of comparative
rates, have decided that for the average
haul abroad the cost is greater than in
this country."
A MEMBER — "How are wages
abroad ?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Wages abroad
are much cheaper than in this country.
That is where the government roads have
a very decided advantage, at least on the
surface. I don't think that they have a
very great advantage as a matter of fact,
for the reason that not only with the
railways, but in every sort of industry,
ÛTtiP (Ctîg ÛUuh IBulbtin
25
the average American workman is very
much more efficient than the average Eu¬
ropean workman. In some of our fac¬
tories an average American workman
can do twice as much work and some¬
times three times as much work a day
as the average European accomplishes.
This shows the infinite difficulty of mak¬
ing any comparisons where conditions
are not really comparable.''
MR. JOSEPH CUMMINS—"You
ffiave referred already to the fact that one
class of men are actually operating the
railways, while another class of men are
dealing with the affairs of railways in
other aspects. I think it would be inter¬
esting if you would enlarge somewhat
upon that fact and perhaps give us some
examples. What I have in mind is this :
I presume it is true that a very small
number of interlocking groups of finan¬
ciers have the actual control, the actual
final say as to what shall be done in the
financing of the railroads—what shall be
done about rates so far as they can con¬
trol them. And I presume it is also true
that in those groups that actually control
the destinies of our railroads, there are
not any railroad men at all. Is it true
that this situation, which has arisen in
this country in the last twenty-five years,
markedly is at the heart of our railway
problem? Is it true that the railroads
are not in the hands of railroad men
running the railroads for railroad pur¬
poses, but are in the hands of financiers,
who look upon the railroads not from
the point of view of the public, not from
the point of view of railroad men, not
from the point of view of an operating
industry, but from an utterly different
point of view? Isn't that at the very
heart of the railroad problem in this
country?"
MR. VROOMAN—"It undoubtedly
is, and it might be added that these finan¬
ciers do not look at the problem from the
point of view of the stockholders. The
stockholder is a creature to be manipu¬
lated and used, just as the shipper and
the passenger are. They are all pawns
in the great game of high finance. The
great captains of industry are great cap¬
tains on the battle line ; they hire a presi¬
dent as I would hire a stenographer, and
they give him his orders. They say:
'This is the game this year. I want a
dividend of eight per cent in order to
float this new issue of fictitious stock.'
Then the president has to cut down ex¬
penses, cut out the repair of rolling stock
and every other expense that is possible
to put off until the next year in order to
make his eight per cent. Another year
he gets an order to build up the road,
and so on. The roads are being manipu¬
lated neither in the interest of the ship¬
per, nor the passenger, nor the stock¬
holder, but in the interests of the stock
gamblers. The railways are dominated
by the great financiers, by the great bank¬
ing houses of the world, and the railroad
men themselves are simply cogs in this
great mechanism. In talking to one of
them not long ago about the matter of
railway accidents, I said, 'Doesn't it get
on your nerves, the terrible slaughter,
this useless butchery of ten thousand
people in this country every year, and the
maiming and the crippling of one hun¬
dred thousand more?' He replied, 'What
can I do about it? I am just a cog in the
machine. I am not responsible morally,
because I have not any power to change
it.'
"It is the system which is wrong, not
the men. The majority of the railway
officials in this country from the top
down are splendid types of manhood,
men of high competence, upon whose
shoulders rests a double responsibility
which they are fulfilling to the best of
their ability. They are responsible to the
men who employ them, and they are re¬
sponsible to the public—this patient and
long-suffering public, from whom so
many billions of dollars have been ex¬
tracted by these masters of high finance."
MR. CUMMINS—"What is the first
step that should be taken to get rid of
the incubus that has been forced upon the
system ?"
MR. VROOMAN—"I think the first
step is a physical valuation. Let the In¬
terstate Commerce Commission take the
value of the railways, and then set a lot
of experts at work studying the railways
in this country and abroad. If we go at
it in that way, we could give to the world
a railway system much better than that
of any European governmental system."
26
QIlj? <2Itty ©lull Itallplttt
MR. CUMMINS—"Is the idea first to
make a physical valuation of railways,
and then let the government take them
over and get rid of this watered stock ?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Yes, sir,"
MR. CUMMINS—"Then to get rid of
this group of financiers that are exploit¬
ing the railroads?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Yes, sir."
MR. CUMMINS—"And then have the
railroads run as a business enterprise?"
MR. VROOMAN—"Yes, sir, by the
government."
At the conclusion of Mr. Vrooman's
address, Mr. H. A. Whitehead related
some personal experiences in railroading.
He confirmed Mr. Vrooman's apprecia¬
tion of the high character of American
railway officials.
THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER
Mr. Edwin D. Mead, of Boston, the
eminent author and lecturer, addressed
the Tuesday meeting of the City Club,
January 14, 1913. As author he is best
known to the American Public through
his philosophical works. Martin Luther,
A Study of the Reformation ; The Phi¬
losophy of Carlyle ; The Roman Church
and the Public Schools; and The Influ¬
ence of Emerson are from his pen. In
his public addresses he has strongly ad¬
vocated the principles of universal peace.
In this cause he served as delegate to the
peace congresses of Glasgow, Rouen, Lu¬
cerne, Munich, London and Boston. Lor
twelve years he was editor of the New
England Magazine, and has been hon¬
ored with the presidency of the Massa¬
chusetts Good Citizenship Society and
of the Twentieth Century Club of Bos¬
ton. Mr. Edwin D. Mead was born in
New Hampshire, September 29, 1849.
He spent his boyhood on a farm and as
a young man clerked in a village store,
the practical schooling of so many dis¬
tinguished Americans. At the age of
26 he went abroad and devoted four
years to study in English and German
universities. In 1898 Mr. Mead married
Miss Lucia Ames, also of literary talent
and prominent as the president of the
Massachusetts Woman's Suffrage As¬
sociation.
The Rev. A. Eugene Bartlett, presid¬
ing officer, called the meeting to order,
and introduced Mr. Mead.
THE CHAIRMAN—"Fellow-Mem¬
bers of the City Club : We are always
glad to welcome to the City Club one of
Boston's best citizens. All of the men
who have come to us from Boston have
been men with messages. We appreci¬
ate their coming to us, but yet we feel
somehow that men from Boston need to
come" here on their own account. Bos¬
ton knows already that Chicago is big in
size and big in vice, but sometimes these
men from the other cities need to come
here in order to find out for themselves
that Chicago is also big in virtue, and big
in the determination to be better that she
is to-day. Independent of the section
from which a man may come, it is good
for him to come here and feel the Chi¬
cago spirit in its energy and its youth,
wrestling with the mighty problems with
which we have to do. This is the typical
American city, but it is not the rival, if
you please, rather the friendly partner of
Boston and New York, sharing in a great
common work.
"I think that our speaker today per¬
haps should be reminded, although I am
sure he is aware of the fact already, that
this City Club is not only vitally inter¬
ested in all that concerns the welfare of
our own city, that we are not only think¬
ing about honesty in the affairs of the
city, state and nation, but that we mem¬
bers here are also interested in thinking
about justice in international matters;
that the City Club is larger than its name,
and that it has a real patriotism.
"It is with great pleasure that I intro¬
duce to you today one of Boston's big¬
gest and brainiest members, a man who
really founded the Twentieth Century
Club of Boston, whose good works have
been so numerous that I will not attempt
to catalogue them to you today ; they are
SHp (ïïthj Qlluh Hitllrttn
27
already known to you, especially that he
is the secretary of the World's Peace
Foundation. It gives me great pleasure
to introduce to you Mr. Edwin D. Mead
of Boston." (Applause.)
Mr. Edwin D. Mead
"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : Your
Chairman surely need not remind me,
for one, that as a Bostonian I needed to
come here to learn of Chicago's laud¬
able efforts, because I am no stranger
here. I come always with joy, and watch
with deep interest and constancy the
splendid things that you are doing here.
I want especially to bring congratula¬
tions to this Chicago City Club from our
City Club of Boston. I think there is
nothing more encouraging in the country
at the present time than the multiplica¬
tion of these City Clubs. They stand
pre-eminently for better cities, for a bet¬
ter social order and a better public spirit.
Our own City Club in Boston has had a
growth so phenomenal as to show us how
necessary it was that Boston should have
such a club. It is hardly half a dozen
years old as yet, but it has already grown
to a membership of between four and
five thousand. It hopes presently to
move from its temporary quarters—very
pleasant quarters many of us find them
in the old house on Beacon street—into a
large new club-house of its own. And it
is pleasant to come here and find you in
such delightful quarters, built since I was
last in Chicago. I wish you great new
usefulness and satisfaction in your new
home.
Peaceful Basis of Our Power
"I have promised your chairman to
speak to you at this noon hour upon the
subject 'The United States as a World
Power.' There are two kinds of power
in the world—moral power and physical
power : the power of ideas and of ma¬
terialism—and it is according as a nation
or a man lays the emphasis upon one or
the other that the record is made up at
last. 'The United States as a world
power' is a phrase that we hear rather
often nowadays ; it has become common
and rather fashionable ; we read many
articles in the newspapers and in the
magazines about the United States as a
world power. And it would sometimes
seem as if upon the pens and lips of men
who talk and write about the United
States as a world power the popular no¬
tion is that the United States suddenly
began to be a 'world power' a dozen or
fifteen years ago when, with vastly su¬
perior forces, we sunk half a dozen sec¬
ond-rate Spanish gunboats in Manila
harbor and at Santiago. Now that is a
very cheap view of world power—-and a
very cheap view of the United States. It
is my opinion that the United States be¬
gan to be a world power as soon as it
began to be at all ; and on the whole I
conceive it has been the greatest of world
powers from that time to this ; and on the
whole, too, a power for good and a power
in behalf of those policies which we be¬
lieve, and most of us are glad to believe,
are destined politically to control the
future and shape international policies
and institutions.
"Many of you are familiar with Glad¬
stone's essay, 'Kin Beyond Seas,' one of
the most interesting of his later essays ;
the essay in which he discussed more
fully than anywhere else the relations of
England to this country. He especially
compared the American and English
political systems, and if you are familiar
with that essay, you will remember Glad¬
stone said that to his thinking the consti¬
tution of the United States was the
most remarkable political document ever
struck off at a single time by the hand of
man. Now that is very great praise
from a very great man. I think it is
entirely just and warranted praise, and
temperate praise. At any rate, it is true
that from that time to this there has not
been an important political constitution
framed by any nation which has not
shown the influence of that constitution
and somehow borne its impress. This
is a rather remarkable fact. We had not
been set up as a republic for a generation
before all South America was in fer¬
ment. You know they are at this time
beginning to celebrate centennials down
there. Every one of those South Amer¬
ican states was in revolution ; every one
had a George Washington of some kind
or another, named Simon Bolivar or
named something else ; and they emerged
from that period of revolution all made
over with constitutions framed in some
sort after the similitude of the constitu¬
tion of the United States. Now that is
28
Sttje (ÏÏitg Club Bulletin
a pretty big exercise of influence as a
world power. Within a generation, a
whole continent made over through our
exercise of influence upon the institu¬
tions and constitutions of that continent !
I think that is worth recalling when men
rise up and tell us that we suddenly
began to be a world power a dozen years
ago when we sunk half a dozen second-
rate Spanish gunboats.
The Influence of the United States Upon
Great Britain
"How about Great Britain, the country,
from which we broke away when we
achieved our independence? Think for
a moment of the British colonies ; think
of Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa and the rest. Their polit¬
ical institutions, with variations of
course, are far more like those of the
United States than like those of England
herself, precisely because they were
found better adapted to their democratic
ideas and needs. Now that is an exer¬
tion of our influence as a world power
upon the colonies of Great Britain.
"And how about Great Britain herself
—what was our influence there? Many
of you remember that in his later life
the great English historian, Freeman,
came over to this country and gave lec¬
tures. He gave a course of Lowell lec¬
tures in Boston. He spoke in New York
and he spoke in Chicago, and I think the
most interesting address he gave in that
American visit was an address here in
the city of Chicago. He was here, if
I remember rightly, on Washington's
birthday, and he was invited to give an
address on Washington. That address
is included in one of the later volumes
of Freeman's collected essays and ad¬
dresses. It bears the title, 'George
Washington, the Expander of England.'
I don't know how vou felt here in Chi-
cago when you read that address. I read
it with surprise ; I read the title with
surprise. We Americans are not in the
habit of thinking of George Washington
as the expander of England. Rather the
contracter, we say, for we think' that by
Washington and his associates in the
Revolution England was shorn of her
proudest possessions. But the English
historian was right, and the title was
correct. George Washington was the
great expander of England, because he
and his associates first taught England
with drastic power what the principles
and policies were which she must ob¬
serve in dealing with her colonies, if she
expected to retain them, if she expected
to hold her empire together and to ex¬
pand it. They taught England that she
must treat her colonies with justice; that
there must be an end of oppression ; that
there must be no taxation without rep¬
resentation ; that local rights must be
assured ; that Englishmen on this side of
the water must have every right which
Englishmen had at home. England
learned that lesson, and because she
learned it, and has observed it, the Brit¬
ish empire today is strong. Its strength
comes through the fact that every mem¬
ber—Canada, Australia, and all the rest
—knows that they have simply to request
independence to get it. Now that was
a great lesson to teach and to learn ; and
upon that lesson are based the integrity
and expansion of the British empire,
which is strong because all its parts are
held to the mother country simply by
the bonds of loyalty and love.
"What was our influence upon Great
Britain itself, the mother country? I
think most of us misconceive the very
character of the American Revolution.
We are altogether too much inclined, and
we teach the boys and girls in the schools
erroneously—I am glad to say not so
much as twenty years ago—to conceive
the American Revolution altogether as
a struggle between a united country of
American patriots and a great united
country on the other side of despotic
and tyrannical Englishmen. Nothing of
the kind was true, either on the other
side or on this side. The peoples on
both sides were in civil strife from be¬
ginning to end. You know how it was
in this country. North Carolina was not
the only colony torn with dissension
through those years. In my own Massa¬
chusetts the wealthier and in some re¬
spects more influential class were on the
side of the king and the ministry. They
regarded the Revolution as a mistake and
a wrong; and rather than live under the
new government thousands of them went
off to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
It was with the greatest difficulty often
that Washington and Congress kept their
Stye (Ettjj (Elub SuUettn
29
little army together, precisely because of
the prevalent sympathy with the British
cause and lack of sympathy with the
revolutionary movement.
"How was it on the other side? It
was the same sort of thing. Why, gen¬
tlemen, I only need to say to you to have
you recognize it, that almost every great
Englishman of that time—the men whom
after the century and the generation
England and we alike still honor—almost
every one of them was on our side, and
fighting for us in Parliament while we
were fighting for ourselves at Bunker
Hill and Trenton. Why, the whole map
of the United States, especially of the
old thirteen states, is dotted with the
names which are the persistent memo¬
rials of our gratitude to the men who
were our friends at that time, and whose
names were attached to towns, many of
which were then being born, because
they were our friends and we honored
them. I say our map is dotted all over
with towns calls Chatham, and Pitts¬
burgh, and Grafton, and Foxboro, and
Conway, and Barre and Wilkes. In
Massachusetts there was a town which
was named Hutchinson, if I remember,
after the royal governor, and they turned
it into Barre. They had a struggle
whether to call it Barre or Wilkes.
Finally they called it Barre, after Colonel
Isaac Barre, our fervent friend in Par¬
liament. A lot of the people wanted to
call it Wilkes, for John Wilkes, the bril¬
liant English journalist who fought on
our side with his pen at the time. Down
in Pennsylvania they had the same kind
of a struggle, and they ended their strug¬
gle by putting both names together and
calling the town Wilkes-Barre.
"I say our very map is a record of our
gratitude to the men in England who
were then on our side. You remember
their utterances ; we were brought up
on them as boys—the speeches of Burke
and Chatham. T thank God/ said the
great Pitt in Parliament, T thank God
that America has resisted. If she fails,
if she falls, the British constitution will
fall with her.' They recognized that
our cause was theirs ; that we and they
alike were fighting the cause of English
liberalism, English progress and dem¬
ocracy. And it was in the red heat of
that struggle that there was given to
political liberalism in England almost the
greatest impulse which it ever received—
an impulse which has gone on until stu¬
dents of politics here know well that in
many respects the British government
today is much more democratic than our
own.
"Now that immense influence upon the
British colonies and upon British polit¬
ical institutions and politics was a
great influence by the United States at
the very moment of the Revolution. It
was, if you please, an influence as a
world power—and, my friends, it was
a momentous influence. We were af¬
fecting the course and character of Eng
lish history.
American Influence in the Balkans
"There is going on at this moment a
great war in southeastern Europe—that
is, I am afraid it will go on tomorrow;
we hope it won't, but we fear it may.
At any rate, there has been a terrible
war in the Balkans in the last weeks, and
we know that the purpose of that war
has been to thrust Turkish tyranny
finally out of Europe. You remember
the mutterings of the strife began four
years ago, in 1909 ; and you remember
that the storm center at that time was
Bulgaria, and that the demand of Bul¬
garia was that her formal independence
should be recognized—Turkey having
maintained a kind of suzerainty up to
that time. I say her formal independ¬
ence, because her real independence had
been achieved and been recognized as
far back as 1878, I think it was, by the
treaty of San Stefano, after the war
between Turkey and Russia. Do you
remember who were the young Bulga¬
rian statesmen who set Bulgaria up in
self-government, who her first prime
minister was and some of his chief as¬
sistants ? Where were they educated to
their ideas of self-government and liberal
politics ? Why, they were educated at
the little American college at Constanti¬
nople, at Robert College, on the hill over¬
looking the Bosphorus. So well was
that known that when the great ships
sailed away after the treaty of San Ste¬
fano, carrying the young men up through
the Black Sea to their home to set up
Bulgaria in self-government — as the
great ships, I say, passed the little Amer-
30
Stye (Kttg (iïlttb Hulletin
ican college on the hill, every one dipped
its flag, and every one with its great guns
thundered its salute in reverent recogni¬
tion of the American cradle of Bulgarian
self-government.
"When we realize what has come from
that, when we realize that out of Robert
College there have been going out, and
are still going out, young statesmen to
make over Bulgaria, to make over Ser-
via, to leaven Macedonia and to affecL
the whole Near East—we realize, then,
something of the mighty influence of the
United States as a world power through
American ideas, something at this mo¬
ment of concern to the Balkan states
worth taking note of.
"As touching the Balkans ' and the
situation at Constantinople, I wish every
one of you would read the book by our
American Dr. Barton, 'Daybreak in Tur¬
key,' which shows how, not only Robert
College, but the American college at
Beirut, and a dozen smaller colleges, have
played so great a part in influencing the
whole Near East with the ideas of
Washington and Jefferson and Franklin.
I wish you would read also that remark¬
able book, 'Fifty Years in Constanti¬
nople,' by Dr. Washburn, the president
so long of Robert College. I wish you
could have been, as it was my privilege
to be, at the International Peace Con¬
gress at London in 1908, and heard that
most interesting and remarkable states¬
man, Ahmed Riza, the leader of the revo¬
lutionary movement of the 'Young
Turks,' who from that time to this has
been the president of the Turkish Parlia¬
ment. It is not through any fault of his
and his associates, with their splendid
ambitions and devotion, that Turkey is in
the miserable plight in which she finds
herself today, but simply because with all
their high purposes they have not been
able to carry them out against the accu¬
mulation of counteracting influences. If
Ahmed Riza were here today he would
say to you that the obligation of the
'Young Turk' party, the obligation of
every reformer in the Near East—of all
there that has in it any hope and proph¬
ecy and relish of salvation—is to Ameri¬
can education and ideas and influence.
"Look at this wonderful thing that in
this last year of grace, through the influ¬
ence of the United States as a world
power—primarily, I maintain, through
that influence—Turkish tyranny has been
finally thrust out of Europe (for it will
never come back) and a federal republic
set up in China by men who have an¬
nounced publicly their ambition to be to
establish in China a federal republic like
the United States of America. These
were the very words of Sun Yat Sen, the
Chinese revolutionary leader.
American Ideas in Japan.
"During the last two generations there
has been born into the world a new and
mighty fact. The name of that fact is
Japan. Two generations ago, in 1853,
your fathers here in Chicago read very
little about Japan in their newspapers.
There is not one of us who does not in
every newspaper today read very much
about Japan. No man would venture to
leave Japan out of any list of the eight
great world powers. What happened in
Japan in 1853? Why, something Amer¬
ican happened. An American seaman,
Commodore Perry, with his ships, sailed
into one of the harbors of Japan; and
as a result there was framed a treaty
between the United States and Japan.
Thus Japan was led out of its old hermit¬
like condition, its isolation, into friend¬
ship and co-operation with what we call
the civilized powers, the western world.
It has been the United States that has
exercised upon Japan the greatest power.
Japan sent here—of course she sent to
Europe also—for our scholars to come
over and take positions in her professors'
chairs ; she sent her young students here
to study in our colleges and universities ;
and a great Japanese scholar has recently
said that half of the men in Japan
today who are makers of public opinion,
in statesmanship, in scholarship, in the
great influential activities of public life,
are men who have somehow felt Ameri¬
can influence.
"When the president of the University
of Kioto, who was also the president of
the Japanese Academy, was in this coun¬
try three or four years ago, he came to
Boston, and I remember a speech of his
at a dinner there. The tribute paid by
this eminent Japanese scholar to the
United States and her influence upon
Japan would have been something to
give you pride in that kind of exercise
©I?* (Ettg (Elub Huilrttn
31
of world power of which a country may
indeed be proud. And only two months
ago we had in Boston Dr. Naruse, the
head of the Japanese Women's College,
in which a thousand women are study¬
ing. Dr. Naruse, one who has himself
felt the influences of American educa¬
tion, paid the highest tribute to American
influences in the uplift of Japanese
women and in Japanese education alto¬
gether. Why, the basis of the agricul¬
tural college in japan was outlined by
the first president of our agricultural
college in Massachusetts.
"You will remember that in 1905, only
seven or eight years ago, the 'bloodiest
and costliest war of modern times—the
great war between Russia and apan on
the plains of Manchuria by the Pacific
Ocean—came to an end in Kittery Navy
Yard in the state of Maine, one of the
most amazing romances of history. It
is a bit new that there is no longer such
a thing as two hemispheres, but simply
one round world, of which we all are
parts. I say that war in Asia came to
an end upon the New England coast.
How did it come to an end ? It came to
an end through American initiative, just
as it ought to have come to an end before
it ever began at all, by half a dozen
Japanese, among whom was Count Ko-
mura, sitting down on one side of a
table, and half a dozen men with Rus¬
sian names, Count Witte and others, sit¬
ting down on the other side of the table,
and during the long summer days for
a month there in the building in the Navy
Yard by the open windows looking upon
the pleasant sea, doing some sums with
their slates and pencils. And these men
found that the sums came out very badly ;
that the whole thing looked badly for
Japan and for Russia, and that the war
ought to be stopped—-and it was stopped.
"Now, who were those Japanese
statesmen ? Where were Count Ko-
mura and his chief associates in that
great work educated for their great task
and responsibility ? Why, they were
educated at Harvard University, in Mas¬
sachusetts. And who was the most in¬
fluential Japanese statesmen here in
America during that anxious summer ?
Why, it was Count Kaneko. And where
was Count Kaneko educated for his
great responsibility ? Why, also at Har¬
vard University, And where and how
was he fitted for Harvard ? Why, by
four years of study in the Boston Latin
School. Now those are illustrious ex¬
amples, but they are only a few of scores
of examples which might be given of
the immense influence of the United
States upon Japan in providing her with
her training and her leaders. These are
instances of the exercise of world power
upon Japan by the United States.
The Awakening of China
" i here is, at this moment, being born
into the world a vastly mightier fact than
the fact which is named Japan. The
name of this nighty fact is China.
China is waking up, and the waking
up of China is the most momentous
thing in modern history. We forget,
gentlemen, we forget for the most part
that China contains one-quarter of the
population of the world ; and the con¬
sensus of the competent is that the
Chinese are a people of greater re¬
sources, of greater firmness, of greater
bottom, of greater staying power, of
greater capacity, than are the Japanese
people. China is going to advance faster
in the next fifty years than apan has
advanced in the last fifty, and that ad¬
vance will mean vastly more for the
world. And in that advance the part
taken by the United States has been and
is momentous. Our relations with China
are happily all friendly; there is no back¬
ground of an opium war between the
United States and China. There is no
background of seizures of territory such
as have marked the history of Germany
and France in China. It is all friend¬
ship ; and never was there such a useful
exercise of that friendship as in the re¬
turn to China of the surplus of the in¬
demnity which we assessed upon her
after the Boxer uprising. You will re¬
member that after that uprising all the
nations of the West assessed heavy in¬
demnities upon China for what their
people had suffiered. 1 he indemnity
which our government assessed was
twenty-five million dollars. But when
the claims had all been met, when the
American bills were all in and settled, it
proved that half the money still remained
in our treasury—and we turned it back
32
Ety Ûltig CCDlutr Hulkttn
to China. 'Common honor,' you say,
'common honesty, simply what we ought
to have done.' Yes, gentlemen, that is
true ; but I wish to say to you as one
whose business it is to study interna¬
tional activities, that such exhibitions of
common honor and common honesty in
international dealings have not been so
common up to date that they are as yet
a drug in the market, so that when a
conspicuous illustration occurs it is not
worth taking note of. I have not read
of any return of indemnity to China by
Russia or Japan or Great Britain or
France or Germany. I cannot say that
there have not been any such returns.
I am not exactly informed ; I am not the
bookkeeper of those nations, nor the
keeper of their conscience or their purse.
I have not heard that they have returned
any surplus indemnity ; and we know
that the United States did return its sur¬
plus indemnity, about twelve million
dollars. What was the result? Never
was there a more conspicuous illustration
of the fact that honesty is the best pol¬
icy. What did China do? China said,
'because the United States has done this
generous thing, we propose to devote the
income of this twelve million dollars
to maintaining in the American colleges
and universities our picked young men,
to study the literature and language
there, to study the law and politics, to
study the commerce and trade, to study
the industries and education, and come
back here, with their acquired wisdom,
every one of them a shuttle in the weav¬
ing of the great web of good under¬
standing and good will between the great
republic of the West and this great re¬
public which we are trying to make out
of China.' Now, my friends, that is a
wonderful thing (applause)—that is in¬
deed a wonderful thing. And those
young men have already begun to come.
The stream is already flowing, in addi¬
tion to the great stream already long
flowing into our colleges from other
sources in China ; and when they are all
here there will be permanently main¬
tained out of that fund in our American
colleges and universities four hundred
Chinese students, the picked young men
of China, to study all that is best here
and to carry it back to China, which so
deeply needs it. There are over eight
hundred Chinese students in our Ameri¬
can colleges and universities today—
twice as many as in all the universities
of Europe. More than one-half of the
revolutionary cabinet of Sun Yat Sen
were men who had been educated in for¬
eign universities, largely in American
universities. A large proportion of the
members of the present government of
Yuan Shi-kai are men fitted in universi¬
ties outside of China, largely American
universities. The Chinese revolution has
been a revolution by scholars ; and those
scholars got their inspiration and their
self-governing ideas in high measure
here in' the universities of the United
States.
"I was speaking last night at the Uni¬
versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and
1 dined there with their Cosmopolitan
Club. I learned to my surprise that
there are in the University of Michigan
sixty Chinese students—more in the
University of Michigan than in any other
single university—and several of those
men are supported out of the indemnity
fund. We have some of them in Mas¬
sachusetts, at Harvard and elsewhere,
and they are scattered all over the coun¬
try. I wish that you knew these men
as well as it has become my privilege
and happiness to know them. Twice
recently we have had a dozen or fifteen
of them in our home ; and could you
talk with these young men, could you
mark their beautiful spirit, their gentle
manners, their high-mindedness, their
thirst for knowledge, their public spirit,
their ambition to serve China and carry
over there all that is best in the United
States, you would realize how immense
the influence of the United States as a
world power has been and may be in the
making over of China.
"I say I know of nothing in human
history more impressive, more moment¬
ous, than the fact that, at the same time,
through the force in such high degree
of American ideas, the Turkish tyranny
should be thrust out of Europe, and a
federal republic be set up in China by
men who profess as their highest ambi¬
tion the establishment in China of a fed¬
eral republic like the United States of
America. My friends, beside this the
talk of the United 'States becoming a
world power because it sunk half a dozen
Utyp (City CElub 15uU?tin
33
second-rate Spanish gunboats a dozen
years ago—why, my friends, that is so
trivial, is such levity, that it makes seri¬
ous and sober Americans blush with
shame.
The International Scope of Cosmopolitan
Clubs
"I spoke of having dined in Ann
Arbor last night with the Cosmopolitan
Club. I don't know how familiar many
of you are here with the Cosmopolitan
Club movement in American universi¬
ties. It is, to my thinking, one of the
most' hopeful movements in modern edu¬
cation. That movement started only
half a dozen years ago up at the Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin. It spread next to
the University of Michigan, then to Cor¬
nell University—and there are now such
Cosmopolitan Clubs in thirty American
universities. The largest one is at Cor¬
nell, a club of 250 members already, with
a club-house of its own costing thirty
thousand dollars, dedicated last year by
a noble speech by Andrew D. White, the
Nestor of the great international move¬
ment in the United States. Now what
are these Cosmopolitan Clubs of stu¬
dents ? They are clubs made up two-
thirds of foreign students and one-third
of American students. It is a wonderful
witness to the cosmopolitan character of
our university constituencies that we can
have clubs of 150 or 200 members in
our universities, two-thirds of them for¬
eign students. They hold regular meet¬
ings—this week a Japanese meeting, a
fortnight ago a German meeting, a fort- ,
night hence a Chinese meeting. These
young people coming together to learn
of the customs, songs and sundry usages
and ideas of the different nations, are
leagued together, now 2,500 of them
in our American universities, to promote
international good understanding and
good will. They publish their monthly
magazine, issued up at Madison, Wis.,
and I assure you, gentlemen, that there
is no magazine which comes to my
desk that I read more faithfully than
that I read it every month from be¬
ginning to end, and there is nothing big¬
ger with hope and with prophecy than
this little magazine issued by the Cosmo¬
politan students, the record and program
of their movement.
"The Cosmopolitan Clubs have reached
out to Europe and affiliated with similar
organizations there. Two years ago one
of the splendid Cornell men went over
to Berlin to carry on his higher studies
in physics and electricity; and he carried
with him his Cosmopolitan Club enthusi¬
asm. He found fifteen hundred foreign
students in Berlin, and he set to work
and organized a Cosmopolitan Club
there ; when I was in Berlin a year
ago I found it had two hundred mem¬
bers. I went to Leipsic, which was my
own German university, and there was
another ; and since then one has been
organized at Munich and another at
Gottingen, and another at Heidelberg,
and another at Bonn. Already, I dare
say, a thousand German students are
leagued in this great movement, and this
through the work of this young Ameri¬
can, carrying on his part of the influence
of the United States as a world power.
Last spring that devoted young Ameri¬
can scholar started out on a missionary
tour, going to Prague and Vienna and
Budapest, and down through the Bal¬
kan states, meeting little groups of
students at Belgrade, Sofia and Bukarest,
and founding a Cosmopolitan Club at
Robert College. He stirred up the
young men of Athens, inviting them to
send delegates over here to the Interna¬
tional Congress of Students, which, for
the first time, meets this year in America.
I had a letter only a fortnight ago say¬
ing that already they have in sight thirty
German students who are coming over
to that noteworthy gathering.
"Now, my friends, the pregnancy, the
power of this movement which is taking
hold of the young students of the world,
so largely through American influence,
the pregnancy and power of this thing,
I say, are incalculable. But the greatest
Cosmopolitan Club in the world is the
United States of America itself. Never
since time began was there such a popu¬
lation as this of ours, made up of all
races, yet all pulling together, working
together in harmony in the main, for
common purposes and common ends.
How the Tidings of American Freedom
Reach Distant Lands
"Having spent several years of my
student life in England and in Germany,
LIBRARY
BUREAU OF RAILWAY ECONOMICS.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
34
Gttp (Eitg (Elub Bulletin
maintaining always close touch with both
countries and loving both, I have
watched with pain and sorrow the strain
between those countries in the last six
or eight years—I am glad to say less
now than it was—and I have felt con¬
strained to say when my English friends
have said to me, 'If the worst should ever
come to the worst, and there should be,
which God forbid, a war between Eng¬
land and Germany, we should count
upon you over in the United States to
stand by the mother country'—I say I
have felt it a duty to reply, 'Do you know
what the mother country of the United
States is ?' Speaking of the year 1900—
and I suppose the proportions have not
much changed since, although the num¬
bers have increased—but speaking of
1900, we have some twenty millions of
people of English blood, eighteen mil¬
lions of German blood—very little dif¬
ference—whole states like Wisconsin
three-quarters of whose people are of
German blood, great cities like Milwau¬
kee, St. Louis, and I think your own
Chicago, predominantly German ; we
have fourteen millions of Irish and
Scotch blood; half as many Swedes as
in Sweden; half as many Norwegians
as in Norway; half as many Danes as in
Denmark; New York the fourth Italian
city in the world with 500,000 Italians,
the fifth German city in the world, the
greatest Jewish city ever heard of in
human history—the Jerusalem of Isaiah
and John the Baptist was not in it
with New York city. I don't know
whether you realize it, but more than
one-half of the total number of Jews in
the United States are in the city of
Greater New York—a million of them.
New York, you see, is the New Jeru¬
salem. I say, out of this conglomerate
are we made. And the greatest influence
of all has not been these spectacular
things which I have hastily run over ; it
has been the silent, pervasive influence
of the thousands and millions of letters
which during the last two generations
have filled the mail bags, going to the
old homes from the new homes here, and
falling like snowflakes into the little
homes and the little villages beside the
Rhine and the Elbe and the Danube and
the Po, telling the old folks at home of
a new land where there are free schools.
and free churches, and a free press, and
free assembly, and free libraries, and
free speech, and all the other great in¬
stitutions which make up this free coun¬
try.
"My friends, talk of the influence of
the United States as a world power—
this has been the thing which has been
leavening the world and sowing every¬
where the seeds of that democracy which
we believe is destined everywhere to tri¬
umph, and through whose triumph alone
universal peace will come. Because,
friends, there will never be universal
peace in this world until there is justice,
and there will never be justice in the
world until men have their rights, un¬
til there is self-government, until there
is some approach to a dominant democ¬
racy.
The Peace Movement
"We are thankful that the great peace
movement had its origin here. The
founders of this republic, Washington
and Jefiferson and Franklin, were the
most illustrious group of men in the
world in their great time, who stood for
the substitution of the system of law for
the system of war in the settlement of
international disputes. The first peace
society in human history was the Penn
Society of New York, and the second
was founded in my own city of Boston,
both of them not a century ago, in 1815.
From these two American centers the
great peace movement has spread around
the world, until at last we have come to
the day of Hague conferences made up
of the official representatives of all na¬
tions, simply seeking to organize the
family of nations as we here have organ¬
ized this family of states. This is not
simply an American claim ; it is Euro¬
pean tribute to America. I have heard
it repeatedly from German and French
and English leaders of our movement—
that all that the world needs for inter¬
national organization is to have just such
an application to world affairs of the
three principles of interstate free trade,
an interstate supreme court, and inter¬
state federation, as we have instituted in
this family of states in our national sys¬
tem.
"I think we all owe a great debt to
President Taft for his splendid effort last
(Ettg Club Sulkttn
35
year for the unreserved treaties of
arbitration with Great Britain and
France (applause), an effort tempo¬
rarily checked. But it is for us to see to
it that such treaties do not long wait,
that this country continue to lead the
world as it has led in the past in the
great work of arbitration. Let us see
also that the logic of the situation is
respected, and that the machinery for
settling international disputes by force
is made to decrease in proportion to the
great increase of the machinery for the
settlement of disputes by law and by jus¬
tice. Let us put a stop to the big navy
craze here in the United States. • There
is no proper place for it in this republic.
Let us raise public opinion against this
attempt on the part of certain men in
Congress to pass the militia pay bill—an
attempt to bring the whole militia of the
country under payment from the na¬
tional treasury, making our militia a part
of a national army. This country has
no excuse for things of this kind ; they
are un-American, undemocratic, false to
the true principles of progress, false to
our struggling sister nations. We have
a great record in constructive things, and
we ought to lead the nations of the
world in the reduction of the tremendous
armaments which are exhausting the
world.
"We are the strongest and safest of
nations ; never so safe as today. We
can afford great experiments and bold
policies. The principles of our federal
republic are the principles which need to
be expanded into application to interna¬
tional affairs to give us the kind of or¬
ganized world which we want. Our
very constitution is a prophecy ; our his¬
tory an inspiration. The whole world
looks to us for leadership, and it is for
us to work ever more and more to make
the United States a true prophecy and
preparation for the united world." ( Ap¬
plause.)
3 5556 041 292624
This book is a preservation facsimile
produced for the Northwestern University Library.
It is made in compliance with copyright law
and produced on acid-free archival
60# book weight paper
which meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper)
Preservation facsimile printing and binding
by
Acme Bookbinding
Charlestown, Massachusetts
2012