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Show Expresses Sentiment of South by Opposing Government Ownership: Owner-ship: Restore Credits. Believea Peace Treaty Will Be Ratified in Short Order and Favors Fa-vors Succor for France. By DAVID LAWRENCE. (Copyright. 1919. by New York Evening Fost, Inc.) BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 10. This city has often been ciiled the Piusburg' of the south because of its Ereat iron and steel industry, and, in many respects, it thinks I ke Pittsburg. H you want to start something when any roup of business men hf-re happon to be together, say you are in faor of keeplnp the telegraph arid telephone In the hands of the grovernmenl Cr else advocate gcver.iment ownership of railroads. The sentiment is aimost unanimous pgainsi anything of the sort. Senator Oscar Underwood of Alabama," who is one of the most conscientious and able nien who ever c:mc- to congress, is member of the senate interstate commerco committee which is goips to handle the railroad problem in tha next congross. Although he will be of the minority party, hip views carry weight on both sides of the political aisle. He has been testing t ut sentiment, not only in Alabama, but in most people hereabouts have Hie feeling that to sign a defense agreement with France against an unprovoked attack by Germany Is like underwriting an insurance insur-ance policy that will never have to be paid. the couth, and has come to the conclusion tint tho people v;ir,t the railroads re tifrcd to private hands Just as rapidly as can he. TO PUT ROADS ON OPERATING TABLE. But as the .-Via bams, fnntor pointed out to a cf-iiVf-ntion of the Southern Wholesale Growers' association, the railroads, when taken over,- were hospital cases and must be carried back on stretchers. "In a lew days' he said, "we are oin to the oncration rocm, the parient on the table wiil be the railroad: if we fail in the operation oper-ation it wil be reflected in your cash registers. "If we succeed. It will be shown In Increased In-creased prosperity. you ouht to get freight rates cheaper than you are getting them now. There are two things to be Considered. Adequate facilities of transportation trans-portation must b provided, and the next problem is the maintenance and operation cf the roads. "I want you to visualize how great are the problems. , One-twelfth of all the property of the United States is invested in the railroads of Arpurica. There are 260.0'i& miles of single traik. This means in continental United States you have one-half the railroad mileage of the world. ATERASE CAPITAL 67,000 A MILE. ' The movement of freight on these ra.il-roads ra.il-roads is more than twice that of the traffic traf-fic and ti ansportatien of any other two nations in the world. The average cani tal 'of the railrf'ads In America is $61,000 a mile. We think that's high, and in Rome places It is. There is probably, some watered stock, but i;ot nearly as much as jou might think by reading certain Journals. Jour-nals. "Vet the average capitalization of the railroads of other countries of the world is twice- of that here in the United States. Eastern railroads, I found, jLVraged 5.21 per cent on their capital"; southern railroads, rail-roads, 5.36 per cent. That doesn't look so bad, but the trouble is that It's an average, aver-age, "I cite two instances. I find the Chicago & Northwestern earned 6.13 per cent and the Chicago & Great "Western i.77 per cent. Tlioy are doing business in the same territory and serving the same business interests. One of these railroads is pretty neap death's door; the other is ptrong and healthy and prepared to go on Eerviny the public' PRICE TO BE PAID NOW WAR IS OVER. "Now, these rails must bo uniform by raising the rates. But the rates, bfiing uniform, then the Chicago &. Northwestern rates will' be raised, too. Now, how are you going to take care of the sick patient without letting one tot a lot of revenue to which it is not enthled, and wjien the rates are raised business men in that territory ter-ritory suffer accordingly? "We felt we couldn't have won. the war without taking over the railroads and we won the war. Now. we've got to pay the price, whatever it is. Records show an increased cost to shippers and packers of $S00. 000,000, yet th6ie was a deficit of, S?00,000,000. It is a stretcher case. What had we better try to do? I think you can't run these railroads unless' their credit is good. Why and how are we to make their credih good? We can restore re-store credit by fixing their capital, and when we have fixed U, give capital a fair return on its money. I "What do we get by fixing capital? ; We remove ail the friction and turmoil J that has been going on in these railroads j for years. I don't want govemmen- own , ership of ra-Uroads. I want private own 1 ers to run them and operate them in the . interests of the public, but I want to stop this endless fighting by saying that . no "more capital shall go into railroads ! without government consent. Tnerefore. 1 the issuance of railroad securities should ; be regulated. j Protection From Monopoly. "You know we adopted the Sherman ; antitrust law and, in tje main, 1 thinis ; it is correct. w must -protect the pub-; pub-; lie from monopoly, but I have come to ; the conclusion that the Sherman anti-i anti-i trust law as regards the railroads does nor function properly. Wa want to reju-! reju-! late these ra'ilroads by giving th in'.er etate commerce commission or some other ! regulating body complete powers of-recu-j lation. This body ought to have the j power to regulate the intake and to regu-I regu-I late the ouigo." In view of the fact that the Republican J majority in the next senate Is two and i that a change of one vote produces a tie, j with vico President Marshal! to cast the 1 deciding vote, It is not unlikely that the railroad problem will be handled as a (nonpartisan question, in which event I opinions from euch men as Senator Un-! Un-! derwood will be influential in shaping legislation. leg-islation. Mr. Underwood him. 'elf believes th,e peace treaty wiji be ratified a short time after it is submitted and that tho railroad problem wiii be tackled immediately immedi-ately thereafter. So far ai sentiment in i tnis part of the country is concerned, an ; early ratification of the peace treaty is favored. I Favor Aiding France. j The proposal tha t the United Eta tes i p. hail agree conjointly with Great Britain to come to trie aid of France in ca?e of an unprovoked attack by Germany Is approved ap-proved for two reasons. rlst, because people here understand It te the purpose of tha league- of nations to prevent "un-! "un-! provoked attacks" on any country, and thatlf there is any one nation to who.e i a;d the folks in this country would rather 1 come when in distress than any o'her it ib France. Second. t.eaue the United Stares has just aided Franc, upon whom Germany mude such an atf.j M:, ai if the L'nited itatoh was right in 1517. then the cannot cor;s:EtonIy do otherwise in the future. But, hriufiv, after reading the severe terms of tlv; pace rea 'y, especially the provision rendf;rini Germany impotent ; from a military and naval Point cl' view, i |