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Show CALVIN'S WORDS. President E. E. Calvin of the Union Pacific railroad las taken occasion to denounce in vigorous terms the proposed pro-posed law limiting the number of ears in trains. He calls attention to the fact that such a law would be especially especial-ly vicious at this time, when the railroads rail-roads are trying to move the necessaries neces-saries of life. It would have the effect ef-fect of providing an additional difficulty diffi-culty which would intensify the evils resulting from car shortage and snow blockades. Fortunately, the snow blockades block-ades will end with the coming of spring and the open weather will tend to relieve the food crisis. In Austria-Hungarv. Austria-Hungarv. where much suffering has been caused by food scarcity owing to the shipment of military supplies to the exclusion of other freight, thawing weather has made it possible for the railroads to operate with greater facility facil-ity and thus to move larger quantities of the necessaries of life. President Calvin discloses the real power behind the limitation' measure when he says: "It is a well-known fact among the officers of the railroads, aud the employees also, that the proposed pro-posed legislation is solely to force the railroads to employ more men by running run-ning more trains." The move recalls the agitation in England during .the eariy . years of the nineteenth century, when attempts were made to get rid of the labor-saving machines which temporarily displaced workmen. It was the beginning of that marvelous era of machinery which was to employ hundreds of thousands of men where only thousands had been employed before. The workmen who want shorter trains would throw the railroad business back fifteen or twen-- twen-- ty years. Heavier rails, stronger bridges, longer curves,, better roadbeds road-beds have made it possible to run bigger big-ger trains and to transport greater quantities of freight more rapidly and at cheaper rates than would be possible with shorter trains and more train crews. Thus the railroads have attempted to keep pace with the gigantic growth of the country. And yet today they find themselves somewhat behind in the race because of the war crisis, which has suddenly swollen the trade of the country coun-try out of all normal proportions. In such a crisis radical legislators would weigh the roads down with a wholly unnecessary burden. The senate, we are informed, has dropped the car limit clause from its public utilities measure, but in the house there is a car limit bill. There are so few reasons why such a bill should be passed and so many reasons whv it should be killed that the sober second thought qf tho legislators, we feel confident, con-fident, will persuade tbem to eliminate it altogether. "The passage of such legislation at this time," as Mr. Calvin says, "would be little short of criminal." |