Mr. Dowe, President of the Commercial Travellers' National League, testified[135] that "35,000 salesmen had been thrown out of employment by the organization of trusts and 25,000 reduced to two-thirds of their previous salaries.... The Baking Powder Trust has replaced men at $4000 to $5000 a year by others at $18 a week.... The displacement of travelling men represents also large loss to railways, amounting, on the estimate that each traveller spends $2.50 a day for 240 days, to $27,000,000, while the loss to hotels would be at least as much as to railways." Adding up these losses, we reach the following result:
| 35,000 salesmen at an average compensation (including commissions) of $3000 each a year | $105,000,000 |
| Loss in railroad travelling | 27,000,000 |
| Loss in hotel expenses | 27,000,000 |
| Together | $159,000,000 |
In the few industries, therefore, in which competition has been diminished by the trust system, an economy of $159,000,000 was estimated to have been already effected in the employment of salesmen alone. And this was ten years ago. These figures enable us to appreciate the enormous economy that would result from an elimination of competition from our industries. An economy that constitutes a loss to commercial travellers, railroads, and hotels under the competitive system would constitute a pure gain to a Socialist community; for it would mean so much more labor for production. Our present system then encourages useless expenditure, whereas Socialism would eliminate it.
Another important economy would be made in the running of public enterprises, through the absence of the necessity of collecting revenue therefrom. In municipal tramways, for example, one-half the force could be dispensed with, for the functions of the conductor are practically confined to collecting fares. A similar economy would be practised on railroads; in telegrams; no stamps would be required for postage; no costly corps of clerks for bookkeeping.
Under our system gas is furnished to our cities by gas companies, each one of which tears up the streets at great detriment to public convenience and health, to lay its mains for the mere purpose of competing with existing companies, with the result of forcing a consolidation which tends to make gas dearer instead of cheaper to the consumer. Professor Ely estimates[136] that the consolidation of gas companies in Baltimore has cost eighteen millions, of which ten millions represent pure loss.
Much the same thing is true of railroads. Professor Ely quotes a railroad manager who states that if the railways of the United States were managed as a unit instead of by competing companies, such management would effect an economy of two hundred million dollars a year; he cites, as an instance of useless paralleling of roads, the numerous railroads which connect New York with Chicago. He estimates that these lines cost two hundred million dollars, and that the maintenance of the useless lines involves perpetual loss. To-day, when railroads have doubled in length and traffic, the possible economy may well be estimated at twice this amount. He is obliged, however, to admit that the paralleling of railroads results in considerable accommodation, when parallel lines pass through different places and occasion some advantage in the time-table. With many lines in the United States this, however, is not the case. The Colorado Midland parallels the Denver and Rio Grande, passing through virtually the same places, and as both are subjected to the necessity of connecting and forwarding passengers to lines at their extremities, both are obliged to run trains at the same hours. There is in this case no advantage either to the time-table or to new places.
Nor does the competition of parallel roads always furnish better accommodation to the public. Between Chicago and Denver one line is able easily to run trains from place to place in twenty-four hours; but for the purpose of avoiding a freight war with competing lines, it has entered into an arrangement with them under which it agrees not to run passenger trains in less than thirty-six hours. The public, therefore, instead of gaining, loses an advantage of twelve hours, thereby learning at no small inconvenience that competition does not always compete.
What is true of the railroads and gas companies is also true of telegraph business. The Western Union was capitalized at one hundred million dollars. It is estimated that the cost of laying the lines actually used by the Western Union was not more than twenty millions; eighty million dollars, therefore, have been wasted by the existing system, which encourages private companies to construct lines with the result of compelling other companies to buy them up. Professor Ely adds that "it cost England nearly as much to make the telegraph a part of the postoffice as it did all the other countries of Europe put together, because in these the telegraph has been from the beginning a part of the postoffice, and the wastes of competition had been avoided."[137]
Another most wasteful feature attending our present system is the expense of distributing goods; for example, the articles which enter most into our daily life, milk, bread, butter, eggs, meat, fish, and vegetables. Compare the method of distributing these things with that for distributing letters adopted by the postoffice. The fact that the government is the only instrumentality through which letters are distributed permits it to effect economy in time, labor, and expense by sorting the letters beforehand according to streets and confining the distribution in any one street to a single carrier, who distributes the letters door by door.
This is the economical system for distributing all things in regular use that would be adopted by the Socialist plan. Compare this now with the plan necessitated by the competitive system. Every block is served with milk by a number of milk dealers instead of by one;[138] every block is furnished with bread by a very large number of dealers instead of by one; every block is furnished with meat by a very large number of dealers instead of by one; and so on through every article which enters into our daily use.