“Last year the railways of the country earned about $1,000,000,000 net, a greater sum than ever before in their history. It was less than six per cent on railroad property devoted to the use of the public.
“The record earnings of the railroads in 1916 are being used and will be used to urge Government ownership. But how about the lean years? If in the most prosperous year of their lives the railroads of the country cannot earn six per cent, what happens in poor years? Ask the courts. They know.
“It is possible now, by right administration, to make particular railroads yield liberal returns to investors; but under Government ownership there could be no such incentive to careful management; the bad would be lumped with the good; the profits in one quarter would be required to meet the deficits in another; the Government would have to assume all necessary capital, and this would by so much impair the Government’s borrowing power.
“If the people of this country can once be brought to appreciate the importance of maintaining the quality and expanding the quantity of rail transportation they will see to it that private enterprise is supported, not hampered, in furnishing this most vital of public services. They will manifest overwhelmingly a wish that the roads be set free from the conflicting authorities of forty-eight masters and be controlled by only one, greater than all the rest put together. They will demand that the Federal Government allow such rates as will permit earnings sufficient to attract private capital actually needed to supply public service. They will insist that the Federal control and regulation of transportation shall be as constructive and helpful as Federal control and regulation of banking. It is painful to look at the Federal Reserve system and then to contemplate the plight into which haphazard regulation has brought the railroads.”—The New York Sun.