"There would be such an adjustment of rates that traffic would take the natural short route, and not, as under corporate management, be sent around by the way of Robin Hood's barn, when it might reach its destination by a route but two-thirds as long, and thus save the unnecessary tax to which the industries of the country are subjected. That traffic can be sent by these roundabout routes at the same or less rates than is charged by the shorter ones is prima facie evidence that rates are too high.
"There would be a great reduction in the number of men employed in towns entered by more than one line. For instance, take a town where there are three or more railways, and we find three or more full-fledged staffs, three or more expensive up-town freight and ticket offices, three or more separate sets of all kinds of officials and employes, and three or more separate depots and yards to be maintained. Under Government control these staffs—except in very large cities—would be reduced to one, and all trains would run into one centrally located depot; freight and passengers be transferred without present cost, annoyance and friction, and public convenience and comfort subserved, and added to in manner and degree almost inconceivable.
"The great number of expensive attorneys now employed, with all the attendant corruption with the fountains of justice, could be dispensed with, and there would be no corporations to take from the bench the best legal minds, by offering three or four times the Federal salary....
"Every citizen riding would pay fare, adding immensely to the revenues. Few have any conception of the proportion who travel free, and half a century's experience renders it doubtful if the evil—so much greater than ever was the franking privilege—can be eliminated otherwise than by national ownership. From the experience of the writer, as an auditor of railway accounts, and as an executive officer issuing passes, he is able to say that fully ten per cent. travel free, the result being that the great mass of railway users are yearly mulcted some thirty millions of dollars for the benefit of the favored minority; hence it is evident that if all were required to pay for railway services as they are for mail services, the rates might be reduced ten per cent, or more, and the corporate revenues be no less, and the operating expenses no more. In no other country—unless it be under the same system in Canada—are nine-tenths of the people taxed to pay the traveling expenses of the other tenth. By what right do the corporations tax the public that members of Congress, legislators, judges and other court officials and their families may ride free? Why is it that when a legislature is in session passes are as plentiful as leaves in the forest in autumn?...
"The corporations have ineffectually wrestled with the commission evil, and any number of agreements have been entered into to do away with it; but it is so thoroughly entrenched, and so many officials have an interest in its perpetuation, that they are utterly powerless in the presence of a system which imposes great and needless burdens upon their patrons, but which will die the day the Government takes possession of the railways, as then there will be no corporations ready to pay for the diversion of traffic.
"As a rule, American railways pay the highest salaries in the world for those engaged in directing business operations, but such salaries are not paid because transcendent talents are necessary to conduct the ordinary operations of railway administration, but for the purpose of checkmating the chicanery of corporate competitors. In other words, these exceptionally high salaries are paid for the purpose, and because their recipients are believed to have the ability to hold up their end in unscrupulous corporate warfare where, as one railway president expressed it, 'the greatest liar comes out ahead....'
"Government control will enable railway users to dispense with the services of such high-priced umpires as Mr. Aldace F. Walker, as well as of all the other officials of sixty-eight traffic associations, fruitlessly laboring to prevent each of five hundred corporations from getting the start of its fellows, and trying to prevent each of the five hundred from absorbing an undue share of the traffic. It appears that each of these costly peace-making attachments has an average of seven corporations to watch....
"With National ownership the expenditures involved in the maintenance of traffic associations would be saved and railway users relieved of a tax that, judging from the reports of a limited number of corporations of their contribution towards the support of such organizations, must annually amount to between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000.
"Of the six hundred corporations operating railways, probably five hundred maintain costly general offices, where president, secretary and treasurer pass the time surrounded by an expensive staff. The majority of such offices are off the lines of the respective corporations, in the larger cities, where high rents are paid and great expenses entailed, that proper attention may be given to bolstering or depressing the price of the corporation's shares, as the management may be long or short of the market. So far as the utility of the railways is concerned, as instruments of anything but speculation such offices and officers might as well be located in the moon, and their cost saved to the public....
"Railways spend enormous sums in advertising, the most of which National ownership would save, as it would be no more necessary to advertise the advantages of any particular line than it is to advertise the advantages of any given mail route.... A still greater expense is involved in the maintenance of freight and passenger offices off the respective lines, for the purpose of securing a portion of competitive traffic. In this way vast sums are expended in the payment of rents and the salaries of hordes of agents, solicitors, clerks, etc., etc....