THE ROYAL GORGE, GRAND CANYON OF
THE ARKANSAS, COLORADO
The most remarkable chasm in the world
traversed by a railroad.
The effect of the railroad pass upon the dishonest newspapers was only a little less potent than upon the dishonest politician. Put in its kindliest light it was a softening influence in the editorial sanctum. When it was gone a sterner spirit began to assert itself in a large portion of the press. The railroad was being called to account for its sins more sharply than ever before. And a smarting politician who went before a legislature with some measure striking hard at a railroad could be reasonably assured of a large measure of support from the Fourth Estate.
In the golden age of journalism both editors and reporters spent their vacations in delightful, but distant, points. It was a pretty poor sort of journalist who paid his fare when he wished to ride upon the cars. Generally his own office took care of his rather extensive and extravagant demands for travel. If, however, he happened to be employed upon one of the few honest newspapers who had conscientious scruples about accepting free transportation, either wholesale or retail, from the railroads, he generally had recourse to the local politicians. There were aldermen in New York, in Philadelphia, and in Chicago, undoubtedly politicians in numerous other cities, who carried whole pads of blank railroad passes in their pockets. It was only necessary for them to fill these out to have them good for immediate transportation. The effect of this transportation upon the political welfare of the railroads in city halls, in courthouses, in state capitols, even in the national capitol itself—can well be imagined.
There was another evidence of this golden stream of free transportation. It was having a notable effect upon the passenger revenues of the railroads, particularly in the relation of these revenues to the cost of operating the trains. It was no unusual thing for a popular evening train from some state metropolis up to its capital, to be chiefly filled with deadheads. The railroads grew alarmed at the situation. It was beginning to overwhelm them. They looked for someone to help them out of it. They found that someone in Railroad Regulation—that spiritual young creature who had been brought into the world and clothed with honesty and idealism. Railroad Regulation came to their aid. Railroad Regulation abolished the pass—the illegitimate use of the pass, at any rate. Long before this time she had made rebating and bribery cardinal and unforgivable sins.
The effect upon the dishonest politician as well as the dishonest newspaper was pronounced. The reaction was instant. If this new creature, Railroad Regulation, possessed so vast a strength, the roads should be taught to feel it. They would be shown exactly where they stood. And so it was that viciousness, revenge, and a crafty knowledge of the inborn dislike of the average human mind to the overwhelming and widespread corporation seized upon Railroad Regulation.
Now the railroads were indeed to be regulated. The spiritual creature was given not one iron hand but eventually forty-six. In addition to the Interstate Commerce Commission down at Washington, each of forty-five separate states gradually created for themselves local railroad-regulating commissions. The efficiency of these boards was a variable quality—to say the least. But if each of them had been gifted with the wisdom of Solomon as well as with the honesty of Moses, the plan would not have worked, except to the great detriment of the welfare of the railroads. No railroader today will deny that it has worked in just such detrimental fashion. He will tell you of instance after instance of the conflicts of authority between the various regulatory boards of the various states through which his property operates; of the still further instances where these conflict with the rulings and orders of the Federal board at Washington.
Railroaders have large faith in the Interstate Commerce Commission. They believe that is both fair and able, a great deal more able than most of the state regulatory boards. Yet even if all the state boards were as efficient as those of Massachusetts or Wisconsin—to make two shining examples—the system still would be a bad one. Today these state boards, in many cases under the influence, the guiding power, or the orders of erratic state legislatures, are imposing strange restrictions upon the railroads under their control. In sixteen states there are laws regulating the type of caboose a freight train must haul. Linen covers are required for head rests in the coaches in one commonwealth; in another they are forbidden as unsanitary. Oklahoma and Arkansas are neighbors, but their regulations in regard to the use of screens in the day coaches of their railroads are not at all neighborly. In one of them screens are required; in the other, absolutely forbidden. It, therefore, is hard work to get a train over the imaginary line which separates Arkansas and Oklahoma without fracturing the law. According to a man who has made a careful study of the entire subject, thirty-seven states have diverse laws regulating locomotive bells, thirty-five have laws about whistles and thirty-two have headlight laws. The bells required range from twenty to thirty-five pounds and one state absolutely insists upon an automatic bell-ringing device. The five-hundred candle-power headlights that are good enough for Virginia may be used across the border in Kentucky, but not in North Carolina, which will not permit lights under fifteen-hundred candle-power. And South Carolina insists that the headlight shall be ten-thousand candle-power or a searchlight strong enough to discern a man at eight hundred feet. Nevada goes still further and says that the light must show objects at a distance of a thousand feet.
Even the lowly caboose, the “hack” of the freight-trainmen, has not escaped the attention of state legislators. While many states are quite content with the standard eighteen-foot caboose mounted on a single four-wheel truck, thirteen of them demand a minimum length of twenty-four feet—Missouri twenty-eight and Maine twenty-nine—while fifteen insist that there must be two of the four-wheel trucks. The legislators at eight commonwealths have solemnly decreed that caboose platforms be fixed at twenty-four inches in width, Illinois and Missouri require thirty inches, while Iowa and Nebraska are content with eighteen and with twenty inches respectively. A legislator’s lot cannot be an entirely happy one when it comes to determining these details of railroad equipment. But then compare his lot with that of the man who must operate the railroad—who finds that one state compels the continuous ringing of the locomotive bell while a train is passing through one of its towns; despite the fact that an adjoining state makes such an act a criminal offense. The life of a man who must operate a railroad over some seven or eight of these states is certainly cast upon no bed of roses.[18]