All this is bound to result soon in a very great increase in the railroad’s pay-roll. It is an added cost that must be met before the railroad can come into its own once again. It is quickly obvious that the great pay-roll must be equalized, that in these days of steadily mounting cost of living, its unorganized labor—its trackmen, its carmen, its shopmen, its clerks, its station agents—must be given a fairer chance in the division of its wages. It needs to pay better salaries to its minor officers, and it is today handicapped for lack of these.
It is obvious also that it is going to be extremely difficult, to say the least, for the railroad to reduce the wages of its organized labor. Put this statement to the ones that have gone before and you can quickly see the need for very great increases in the railroad’s pay-roll in the immediate future. It is going to be compelled to seek a larger share in that great portion of the nation’s outgo that goes to pay for its labor of every sort. It can no longer postpone the pressing demands of its unorganized workers.
The failure to increase their portion of the pay-roll, with its consequent tendency toward the depreciation, if you please, of much of the human element in the operation of the railroad, may yet prove to be a problem, larger and more serious than the failure not alone to increase but to prevent the physical depreciation of the railroad.
This physical question—the financial plight of the railroad, its great and growing depreciation account, the consequent deterioration of its lines, particularly its branch lines—we already have discussed. To that plight now add the labor plight. No wonder that the great man of American business lies sick upon his bed. Already we have learned that from a purely material point of view, the railroad is nine years back of 1917 instead of nine years ahead of this date. Its involved, delicate, unsettled labor problem shows that nine years is a small lapse indeed between the tardiness of its labor relations, together with the real understanding of its human problem, and the general understanding of labor and social conditions in other lines of American industry.
Yet it is not too late to mend. And just to show that this is possible, that it is worth while bringing the sick man of American business back to health again, just for the opportunities of development that stand before him, I am going to take your time to show you a few of the larger possibilities of the railroads of the United States.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE RAILROAD
In the past decade the United States has progressed mightily. Have the railroads of the land made equal progress? The past decade of American progress will, in all probability, pale before the coming of the next—particularly if we are cool-headed and smart-headed enough to take critical reckoning of our weaknesses and to use such a reckoning as a stepping-stone toward supplementing our great inherent and potential strength. Will the railroad during the coming decade move forward to its opportunity? And what is the opportunity of the railroad?