Socialism and American ideals

by William Starr Myers

This failure of Socialism especially is true as applied to Germany. The un-souling of the people has come as the direct result of the use of Socialism by the military autocracy for its own selfish purposes. Also its failure is repeatedly seen in its actual working, and in spite of the German boast of efficiency. The best illustration of this, because the one most used by the Socialists on the other side of the argument, is that of the railroads.

Most of the railroad lines of importance in Continental Europe are owned and operated by the various governments. I can say from my own personal experience and observation that the only railroads that are really well run, so far as I have traveled, are those under private ownership and direction, as in Great Britain and the United States. I have tried the various trains de luxe and Blitzzüge of Continental Europe and their slow progress and often indifferent accommodations make one long for an English or American express train. And then to hold first-class tickets in Germany, and be refused admission to first-class compartments still empty "because some officials may want them," as was my experience in going from Nürnberg to Mainz, does not add to one's desire for governmental control. The best European trains do not for one moment compare with those of the privately owned British and American railroads.

According to statistics published in 1913, the railroads of the United States were capitalized at $60,000 per mile under private ownership; the government-owned German roads at $109,000 per mile, and this in spite of the far cheaper costs of building. Railroad rates in the United States, both freight and passenger, under private ownership have been among the lowest in the world. The first thing that our government control has brought about is a raise in rates that exceeds by far what the private managements would have dared even to imagine, much less ask of the Interstate Commerce Commission. And this has been accompanied by a marked deterioration of service, all of which can by no means be blamed upon conditions resulting from the war. Poorer service at higher cost is the almost universal experience, in the long run, of government-owned public utilities both here and abroad.

The Boston Commercial in 1913 called attention to the fact that in France the year 1912 was marked by the largest increase in gross receipts on record, for both government and privately owned railroads, but the privately owned roads showed an improvement in net earnings almost three times as great as that of the nationalized railroads. These failings noted above are almost inevitably found wherever the government owns the railroads or other utilities, or else these utilities are run at a loss and the difference made up in the tax bills of the people. Government control never is as efficient and economical as private control, even though all questions of political power and influence be omitted from consideration.[^[10]]

The important testimony of Mr. W.M. Acworth, an English authority upon railroads, which he gave by invitation before the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce at Washington, has not been fully appreciated by American public opinion. The National City Bank of New York rightly stressed the importance of this testimony in one of its bulletins during the year 1918. Mr. Acworth was in this country during the early part of 1917 as a member of the special Canadian Commission on Railways, and he told the Senate Committee that "while American companies have revolutionized equipment and methods of operation, Prussia has clung to old equipment and old methods. This is typical. In all the history of railway development it has been the private companies that have led the way, the State systems that have brought up the rear. Railroading is a progressive science. New ideas lead to new inventions, to new plant and methods. This means the spending of much new capital. The State official mistrusts ideas, pours cold water on new inventions and grudges new expenditure. In practical operation German railway officials have taught the railway world nothing. It would be difficult to point to a single important invention or improvement, the introduction of which the world owes to a State railway."

Is it not a rather significant fact that with all their boasted advance in science and learning, the Germans have failed utterly in the two realms of politics, as shown in the preceding pages, and of railroading? And these are the two most extensive fields of the influence of German Socialism.

The American citizen has before him in clear outline the sure result from a continuation of governmental ownership or control as a permanent policy in the United States after the war. As regards railroad personnel, if the positions from top to bottom were filled with Mr. Bryan's "deserving Democrats," as was the case with our diplomatic and consular service in 1913, the results would be as striking, though perhaps in a different and even more serious way.

Of course the Civil Service, which has been a solid measure of reform and one from which we dare depart only at our peril, would probably be called into use and be evaded in exactly the same way as it has been in the past. And even if it were not evaded, we must remember that the Civil Service examinations and rules are not a guarantee of efficiency or excellence. The best that can be said for them is that they are a protection against absolute incompetence and, to a certain extent, against political spoiling. But in a positive sense, the Civil Service is merely a guarantee of mediocrity. And mediocrity never yet made a success of a great transportation or productive system such as our railroads or industrial corporations. The political possibilities of a "railroad vote" of several million employees of the government need only be referred to, to be feared.

Perhaps no one would suffer more from a policy of government ownership than the present force of railroad employees in the United States. They have won their present positions for the most part by individual achievement, but their future advancement would depend not upon the continued successful handling of their work, but upon either the injustice of political favoritism or the undiscriminating rules of the Civil Service. That some of the employees have not failed to grasp the political possibilities is shown by my own recent experience upon a train between Philadelphia and New York. I had a difference with one of the train crew who was collecting the tickets in my car, and which was caused by carelessness and indifference on his part. The employee finally answered my protests by remarking—"Oh well, we don't care so long as Woodrow Wilson is in the White House." The truth or untruth of this statement is not the important thing, but the fact that he made it.

The personnel would tend steadily to deteriorate in efficiency. The successful government employee is the one who follows most closely the beaten track of precedent and past experience. If he departs from this track, he inevitably arouses the opposition of his fellow-employees or of the unthinking part of the public, who usually desire no change. He also takes all the risks of experiment and if he succeeds, the rewards are uncertain and small; if he fails, he personally bears all the consequences. This is the reason for the tendency toward steady deterioration on the part of all public service. Employees of the State must follow the path of absolute conformity to the past. This deadens individual initiative, ambition and inventiveness.