CHAPTER III
THE UNITED STATES RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION (CONTINUED)
I bear no brief for Mr. McAdoo. On the contrary I have been one of his most persistent, although, I trust, consistent, critics. In the columns of the “Saturday Evening Post” and other widely circulated publications I have tried to set down fairly, impartially, and thoroughly both the accomplishment and the shortcomings of that remarkable organization, the United States Railroad Administration. And with this final chapter written I shall close for myself, I hope forever, the recital of its history.
It is but fair to say that even though McAdoo’s great economies of operation through radical consolidation and reroutings were obvious, it took courage, none the less, to put many of them into effect. Tradition, the sentiment built up through long years of hot competitive practice, local pride and local spirit here and there and everywhere, had to be met and overcome successfully, even though the war-time issue was to come into the reckoning. McAdoo has never been known for lack of courage. He reached out here and he reached out there and generally he attained his desires.
“You talk about Fairfax Harrison. Of all the men in authority in Washington, it was McAdoo who really played the lone hand.” So speaks a man who from the very beginning of the war overseas made a careful study of the Administration and its human components. He speaks the truth—and does not.
“The trouble with McAdoo,” says a radical who is immensely interested in the entire railroad situation, “was that he was in the hands of the old railroad gang and controlled body and soul by them.”
He also speaks the truth, and does not. I presume that we may translate the “old railroad gang” into the group of experienced and very able and honest railroad executives that the first director-general gathered about him, and who without exception rendered him efficient service. Mr. McAdoo himself says this. And he ought to know.
In the preceding chapter we saw some of the sweeping changes and economies that were wrought in the freight operation of the railroads under governmental control; the passenger ones were even more dramatic. We have already seen how at a fell swoop the excellent service between New York and Washington was smashed almost into smithereens, and how the good horse-sense of the first director-general came to the rescue then and there and restored a service that would enable men to travel back and forth between these cities on their war-time errands in a degree of comfort sufficient at least to render them best able to carry on their press of unusual duties. Other services were not so restored. The Broadway Limited, the crack twenty-hour train of Mr. Rea’s Pennsylvania railroad, was an early sacrifice. In May, 1918, Mr. McAdoo approved of a sweeping economy in the western portion of the country, the territory west of Chicago and St. Louis. In this great slash alone estimated yearly savings of 11,728,000 passenger train-miles were made. These savings were accomplished chiefly by abandoning duplicate and expensive fast train services (please also note this for future reference) between Chicago and the Pacific coast cities and assigning, supposedly to the shortest and most direct route in each case, the fastest through service. Under this scheme the Santa Fé became the preferred route between Chicago and Los Angeles; the quite logical grouping of Chicago and Northwestern, Union Pacific, and the former Central Pacific division of the Southern Pacific, from Chicago to San Francisco; the Burlington and the Northern Pacific to Portland, and the Milwaukee to Seattle.
These selections were made arbitrarily. They cost many heartaches, however. The Rock Island—the shortest route between Chicago and the important railroad gateway of El Paso, and but thirty-five miles longer between Chicago and Los Angeles—watched the decapitation of the Golden State Limited, which it had worked so hard to upbuild, with feelings of great bitterness and regret. It felt down in the bottom of its heart that it had been discriminated against. When peace came again—if ever it should come again—and the railroads were restored to their private operators—if they ever were to be restored again—the Golden State Limited would have to start once again at the very bottom of the ladder.