“Not for any length of time.”
“The people would have a fit if anything like that were attempted,” said a member of the manager’s staff.
“You have no attempts to secure preference, then?”
“No it is not even attempted.”
If those who employ and discharge the traffic managers desire discrimination or aim at results which can be forwarded by discrimination, then discrimination will exist unless the public control is strong enough to keep the big shippers and the people in possession of the railroads from carrying out their purposes.
If, on the other hand, those who employ and discharge the traffic men are sincerely opposed to discrimination and aim at results that can only be secured by just and impartial management, then the traffic man who is guilty of favoritism will lose his job, and the utmost possible discouragement is put upon unjust discrimination.
Once more the vital conclusions seem to be, the necessity of the dominance of public interest, and the value of being in possession or having your own servants in possession instead of merely giving orders to the servants of another in possession who may or may not obey, and who are in no danger of losing their positions by disobeying you and may gain greatly by it—the value of having public interest at the helm to steer the vessel in a safe course, instead of keeping private interest at the wheel while public interest stands on a steam tug with a big whistle and shouts orders through the fog to the steersman on the passenger liner who is more than half inclined to steer the ship as he pleases, and gets his pay and employment from men who do not wish the public orders carried out, and whose instructions vary widely therefrom. You cannot expect the servants of others to obey your orders as well as your own servants, especially if the said servants of others are employed by persons whose interests are largely contrary to your own. Neither can a commander be as sure of winning a victory at the head of an army trained in the camp of the enemy owing allegiance to them, and constantly receiving orders from them, as he could at the head of his own proper troops.[[424]]
Is it fair to try to control in your own interest property that does not belong to you? It is fair to try to exert sufficient control to secure impartial treatment of persons, places, and industries; but can this be done without fixing rates, and if this is resorted to will it not result either in squeezing the life out of railway enterprise or in a vicious struggle for mastery with new evasions of law and further intensification of political evils, and corporate control of Government? You will either deprive the owner of the right to determine the price at which the product of his plant shall be sold, thus controlling his profit and sapping his energy and incentive, or you will put a premium on political corruption by making it necessary for the railroad owner to control the Government in order to control his business and its profits. You will check the development of railways and drive capital into industries where the owners are free to fix prices, or you will check the movement toward political purity. Public control in some form is absolutely necessary in order to safeguard the public interest. The only question relates to the form and degree. Is effective and adequate public control of transport, with the unity, freedom, and hearty co-operation that should characterize all business ventures, possible without public ownership? And if not, isn’t it true that the economic and governmental changes necessary to make public ownership safe and successful constitute the essence of the ultimate railroad problem?
If the railways were united into a national system under a great leader like James J. Hill, or A. J. Cassatt, free to operate the roads on business principles, untrammelled by the spoils system or any political control, backed by a public interest that would not tolerate favoritism, partyism, political influence or graft in any form, working with public aims and public motives instead of private aims and motives, managing the roads for the whole people as stockholders instead of for a small part of the people as stockholders, paid, in common with the whole body of employees, on the basis of a fixed remuneration plus an additional compensation proportioned to efficiency, and in constant consultation with local and national councils representing commercial, manufacturing, mining, labor, and agricultural organizations and interests, we should have a railway system and management whose efficiency would astonish the world, whose methods would bear the light, and whose administration would be an honor to twentiethcentury civilization.