We come now to the consideration of the high cost of living as outlined by the railroad magnates in their plea for an advance in freight rates. The high cost of living had advanced wages; the cost of operating the railroad was greater, while the rates from time to time had been lowered until the receipts had almost reached the vanishing point where dividends might be declared; and to the point where more capital could not be enlisted for betterment and extension of the lines to keep pace with the vast increase of traffic. The burden of these speeches for an hour and a half was for a higher freight rate and a plea for a more friendly feeling on the part of the general public towards the railroads.
I had expected to hear something said about some method of reducing the cost of living, but nothing whatever was said on that point; or of economizing in the cost of operating the railroads, but on that point the speakers were silent. These five speakers were together probably drawing a hundred thousand dollars annual salary, but no hint was given of expecting to take less. However, many of the points were well taken, and ably stated by the speakers, and received the serious consideration of the four hundred business men who were present, and of thousands that read the account of the proceedings published in the current issues of the newspapers of the day. I mused. If because of the high cost of living wages advanced, and because wages advanced freight rates advanced, how long would it be until another advance for all hands round would be demanded? This in turn brings to the front the question of whither are we tending? Some honestly, while others with better knowledge insolently, charged the "Robber Tariff" as the cause of the high cost of living. The tariff has been revised downward and yet the cost of living advances. The demand for labor has lessened and bread lines for the unemployed threatened, and with it the cost of low living has become a vital question.
Referring again to the banquet room and to the woeful waste going into the sewers of Tacoma, may we not pause for the moment to ask, How many of these banquet rooms, great and small, hotels, kitchens of the idle rich as well as the improvident poor, are pouring like waste into the sewers and the deep sea in the United States? If all were collected in one great sewer, the volume would stagger the imagination. One authority would have it the volume would equal that of the water pouring through the channel of the Ohio River. Whatever the volume, all will realize that could this wilful waste of food be stopped, that food would become more abundant, the general public better fed while the cost of living would be lowered. The American people have this sin to answer for, and the question will remain with them until answered and atonement made.
May we not properly ask the railroad magnates to look inwardly and see if some methods of economy can not be introduced in their management that will reduce the cost of operating while not lessening the efficiency of the services. Not one word was said by the speakers on this point. I do not allege that much can be accomplished in this direction, but I do say that it is incumbent upon railroad managers to search the way and come before the American people with clean hands and they will be met with hearty response for the square deal. Some of the speakers emphasized the fact that once the people eagerly welcomed the railroads until they got them, and then turned against them apparently as enemies. The speakers seemingly forgot the time when the railroad managers had become arrogant and acted, some of them, somewhat as expressed by that inelegant phrase, "the public be damned", and treated the railroads wholly as private property the same as a farm or a factory or the home. One might easily read between the lines of some of the speeches that this doctrine of ownership without restriction as to the duties due the public was still lurking in minds of the men making them.
These speeches and kindred efforts, however, will do a good work, will clear the way for a better understanding, and will in the end accomplish the coming together of the people and railroads. More than once in the banquet speeches, government ownership was spoken of as the result of present tendencies, and one might almost say welcomed by the speakers, anyway, flippantly spoken of as a possible if not probable event. I could not help but feel that there was a vein of insincerity running through these expressed opinions, and that the words were intended for effect to hasten the day of reconciliation as between the public and the railroads. To my mind such expressions coming from such a source were ill advised. One can scarcely imagine a so-called railroad man that in his heart would welcome government ownership of railroads in this great nation of freedom. These lines are penned by the hand of one born before the advent of railroads in the United States. Perhaps, to be exact, we might note that at that time (December 29, 1830) twenty-eight miles of a so-called railroad (a tramway) were in operation in the coal mining district. Now we are told there are over two hundred and sixty thousand miles, requiring a tremendous army to operate and maintain. The day the policy of government ownership of railroads in the United States is adopted, that day will see the germ planted that will eventually grow to open the way for the "man on horseback" and the subversion of a free government. The reader may conclude this belief comes from the pessimistic mind of an old man, and not worthy of serious attention. The writer will cheerfully submit to be called elderly, but will emphatically disclaim being a pessimist and will claim this thought expressed as to government ownership of the railroads deserves very serious consideration as fraught with great danger. But this is a digression and now let us get back to the subject of the high cost of living.
A few weeks ago much was written and published about the high cost of eggs. Finally the ladies of Seattle hired a theater and more than a thousand of them assembled to listen to speeches made and to vote for resolutions presented denouncing alleged speculation in eggs by the cold storage people, forgetting the fact there was no surplus and that the law of supply and demand governed. As before written, I hesitated to criticise mine hosts, the Commercial Club, and how shall I dare brave the danger of the displeasure of this particular thousand ladies and of millions more of the same mind to be found in other parts of the land? Notwithstanding all these resolutions and denunciations, the hens refused to cackle and the price of eggs advanced. If these same ladies had, during the season of abundance and reasonable prices of eggs, provided themselves with suitable earthen jars and a small quantity of water glass they might have had a supply in their own larders so near in quality that only a connoisseur could tell the difference, just as healthful and at moderate price, and thus contribute one factor to keep down the high cost of living. God bless the fifteen million housewives of our nation. It is with diffidence I venture, even in a mild criticism, and so let me assume the role to question and leave conclusions to the ladies themselves. How many of these ne'er-do-well housewives look closely to the garbage cans? I would ask, what percentage of the food that comes on to the table is carried off and not eaten—in a word, wasted? If this waste, even to a small degree, was stopped, the effect would be instantly felt, not only in each particular household, but likewise in the larger way to cut off a portion of the demand in the markets, and this would tend to lessen the general cost of living.
Again, we hear much charged against the "middlemen", as not only conducing to the high cost of living, but as being the real cause; that the producer gets scarcely fifty per cent. of the price paid by the consumer, hence a great wrong is being perpetrated upon a suffering public by a class who are unmercifully denounced for their alleged wrong conduct. Indeed, here is one factor that gives us most trouble, that is, I mean to say the gap between the consumer and the producer, not the middlemen.
As with the ladies and the eggs, where words had no effect, denunciation of middlemen is ineffectual. A sufficient answer to clear the middlemen's skirts is, that as a class they do not build up great fortunes, and in fact a large percentage of them either fail in business or barely make a reasonable living.
It is the system we must look to for the real cause of our trouble and not the instruments carrying out the mandates of the public demand. If we insist upon having the products of the farm in season and out of season, some of which must be transported for long distances, cared for, much of it in refrigerating cars and in cold storage, all of which costs money, of course we must expect an increase in the cost of living. I am not decrying against this so much as simply noting the fact, to point the way to one real cause of our complaint. A more real cause of this great disparity lies with the consumers who demand their supplies delivered in small portions, always wasteful and expensive, put up in attractive, costly packages—all of which must come out of the pockets of the consumers. If the good lady of the household telephones to her grocer to send her a pound of some new named stuff (and which comes in a neat but expensive package), how can she expect to get the same value at the same cost as if bought in original form and at the counters? She must not only pay for the cost of delivering but often for the new name of an old-time material in a different dress. It is the demand of the consuming public that makes possible the waste of small purchasers and incidentally the additional cost of delivery.
There is another phase of this question of high cost of living that has so far received scant attention, which we may properly write as Fast Living. I do not mean this in the sense of the profligate spendthrifts, the joy-riders, the senseless wanderings of the idle rich traveling thousands of miles to drive away the ennui incident to the sin of indolence, although this has an appalling effect upon the vital question under consideration and of the welfare of the nation, and must be treated in another chapter. What I mean now is the legitimate fast living which adds so greatly to the general cost of living. If, for instance, the physician using an automobile can visit twenty patients where before he could only see ten; or the business man utilizing this rapid transit means for quick dispatch of business can transact as much business in a day as otherwise would take a week; travel thousands of miles where before he could make but hundreds, then he becomes a fast liver and with this a high cost liver. If a locomotive hauls a train but twelve miles an hour (the original standard of high speed) manifestly if the speed is increased to sixty miles for the same period of time, the cost of coal must be much more than at the lower speed. And so with the fast liver; his expenditures for a given time will be far greater than if content to move at lower speed. This principle as applied to individuals is equally applicable to communities, and becomes a factor in accounting for the high cost of living. We are as a nation fast livers, and to an extent high livers, and must needs suffer the penalty of higher cost of living than our forbears who led the simple life and practiced frugality as a cardinal virtue.