Is it not evident that these contradictions never can be reconciled by untrained men? I believe that for the American railroad the time has gone by when illiterate men will be put in charge of millions of dollars' worth of machinery and other property. We are in a new era. Railroading is rapidly coming to be a profession. We are necessarily in all things doing more and more specializing. Why not insist that the regulation also shall be in accordance with ethical principles and not determined by political expediency?
The great over-shadowing problem of reconciling private capital and the users of railroads, and the contradictions which I have mentioned, are the inheritance of this generation of railroad men; and I have no doubt that this generation, like all previous ones, will be equal to the task put upon it. Out of the painful processes of the last four years, we have emerged with some gains. In the first place, the country now realizes that the one million, five hundred thousand employes and officers of American railroads are not surpassed in integrity by any other similar number of business men. During the four years hardly a voice has been lifted to say this, and so I am glad to have this opportunity to raise my own in their commendation. In the second place, it is easier for shippers and railroad traffic men to be honest than it ever was before. The stoppage of rebates is a distinct gain, morally as well as financially. In the third place, it has been demonstrated, I think, that our Government ought always to be bigger than any corporation, or any man, or any set of men, and this is a good thing for us never to forget.
Already publicity has brought about a friendlier feeling between the people and the railroads, and along certain paths I have no doubt we shall find our way out of our difficulties, for the American people are not unfair when they understand a situation.
Upon one occasion I was making a trip over a division of road where there was no competition and where we therefore enjoyed one hundred per cent of the business. There was an unexpected stop for something and a brakeman went to the rear to protect the train. Presently a wagon-load of girls came in sight. The brakeman took out his handkerchief and initiated a flirtation. Then discovering that I had seen the performance and evidently desiring to square himself, he said without hesitation, "If we make friends of these people they ride on our road." One could hardly convey better than that brakeman did to me, an idea which we should never abandon, namely, that one of the best assets a road can have is friends, and I suggest that probably our first duty is to keep in good humor and be considerate one for another. That involves and includes good service to the public, and nothing will help more to keep the public in good humor. The people of this country already have the lowest rates and the highest wages in the world. They are the best people in the world and are entitled to the best service in everything. I believe they should insist upon having the best railroads, and when they so insist, and realize that our population has thus far doubled every thirty years and will soon be one hundred million, and not very long after that one hundred and twenty-five million, and that our transportation necessities double faster than our population does, they will set about finding out what is necessary to obtain adequate railroads, and then we shall probably hear less about rates and more about efficiency and safety. When the people do this they will soon discover that it is no more disgraceful to make money in building railroads than in selling land or in merchandising or in manufacturing or in mining. They will also discover that although the courts have said railroad investors are entitled to a reasonable return upon a fair value, no court—not even that great tribunal, the Supreme Court of the United States—can finally say what is a reasonable return. This question would still be unsettled because we have not yet gotten away from our dependence upon private capital. What is a reasonable return must be answered by the investor as well as by the commissions or the courts, because it always takes two to make a bargain, and money, like its human owners, will go where it has the best prospective reward and the greatest liberty. The people will find that what we need in this country is not more bureaucratic government by untrained officials with brief tenures of political office, or more power to commissions, but more responsibility upon boards of directors. If statutes are necessary to insure this, well and good; but if regulation is general in character and national in scope, is directed against oppression and discrimination, and designed to promote safety and efficiency and faithful accounting, the people will get better results from intelligent and honest directors than they will from the best governmental management which can be devised; and so long as the railroads are owned by private investors, those investors will doubtless insist upon their directors having more and more to do.
I am aware that there is a socialistic trend all over the world. There is more and more disposition to prescribe medicine for other people to take, but no amount of legislation will change the fundamental laws of the universe. The fact is,—notwithstanding our Declaration of Independence,—men are not created equal. It is a fine thing for all of us that they are not. There is a diversity of gifts; money-making is one of them, but a man may have the talent for making money and be totally unable to build a bridge or paint a portrait or lead an orchestra or an army, and if fortunes are acquired under the laws which we ourselves have made, why should we be envious? Unless a rich man hoards money like a miser, it is—if not alarmed—continuously at work for all of us, through the banks or otherwise, in spite of anything he can do, and the cheaper it can be had, the greater the economy to society as a whole. It is impossible to reduce everybody to a dead level, and how monotonous it would be if we could! We don't satisfy everybody even in our form of government, which we are prone to think is the best in the world. For example, at the last election six and a half million people did not get what they voted for. Part of them got what they really wanted, but on the face of the returns, six and a half million were disappointed, and yet the country goes happily on, apparently to greater prosperity than ever.
But how much happier and how much more prosperous we might be if there were not so much untrained meddling—if there were not so many brakes upon the wheels of our progress! A brake, we all admit, is a good thing in its place, but it has no propulsive power, and the efforts of the time to combine in one man or in any one body of men the four functions of prosecuting attorney, judge, jury and executioner, must sooner or later give way. First, because it is un-American, and where such a condition exists, as Alexander Hamilton pointed out to the people of New York, "There is no liberty." Second, because it will not work practically.
Reconciliation of private capital and the users of railroads might, of course, be brought about by government ownership, because if there were a deficit the people could pay it in their taxes. Even then railroad rates could not be made mathematically consistent, for government is never mathematically consistent. For example, if I mail a letter to San Francisco or London, I pay two cents, and if you mail a letter to Evanston you pay two cents. But nobody seems to want government ownership, although many people contend that that would be much fairer and more honest than governmental control of railroads without financial responsibility. Perhaps a middle ground may sometime be worked out by a profit-sharing arrangement, as in Chicago between the city and the street railway companies. That would have its advantages. Among the advantages would be cheaper money for railroads, if the government would guarantee a minimum return on agreed valuations. But of course this would be much more complex than to work out an arrangement with corporations like street railways, which do a single kind of business at one rate, instead of a business affecting every commodity of human consumption and stretching through forty-six states and two territories. However, I think there is food for thought for all of us in what has been accomplished here in Chicago, and the professional intellect present tonight may well think it over.
Finally,—while a man has as good a right to increase his fortune by investing in railroads as in any other manner, no matter what it may be, I believe we shall find a solution for some of the puzzles that beset us,—not through the gospel of tyranny on the one hand, nor the gospel of equality on the other hand, but through a gospel of stewardship. Let us all feel that although the acquisitive faculty is undoubtedly planted in the human breast for some wise purpose, we are not here primarily for personal aggrandizement. We are here for service, and the greater our talents or our wealth or our opportunities the greater our responsibility. We are trustees—for the users of our railroads, for our employees, and for investors; and let us welcome all the additional responsibility which may be put upon us as directors or salaried officials. I am sure this sentiment will commend itself to all of you, because there is no body of men in the world which has a higher code of ethics and which has demonstrated personal fidelity in a higher degree than the Engineers of America.