Show EFFECTS OF CROP SHORTAGE B F Yoakum chairman n of the Rock Island board is quoted as saying Okla homas wheat wh at crop will only be about half as much as expected this year but that the damage elsewhere in Rock Island territory will not be as heavy as estimated The other fall faU wheat states all report injury from weather condi conditions conditions conditions or pests and It is generally be believed believed believed the decrease In the total harvest willbe will be very large running into the millions of bushels Just what effect this decrease will have upon upon general financial conditions may not be predicted with accuracy but it needs no prophetic vision to see i that the revenue of the railroads In the I territory affected will be cut down ma materially materially materially The farmer will be compensated compensated sated to a degree by the increase in price for such wheat ashe as he raises the merchants will get their share of the high price for grain millers and manufacturers man manufacturers manufacturers of ot foodstuffs generally will willmarie mark marie mark up prices to insure their usual profit but the transportation lines will have no such means of making up their loss Although they will have less freight to haul there Is little chance that hat they will be permitted to advance the rates on such wheat as offers Their wage wages scales s ales their fuel costs their operating and maintenance expense go right along on ort the same basis as If It the ton tonnage tonnage tonnage nage available were normal The Thee only possible decrease In cost to them will willbe willbe I i be b in the reduction of crews needed to haul freight and no railroad manage management mana management e ement ment enjoys that because it means a reduction in gross revenue and a necessity necessity necessity sity for tor economy In Improvements and extensions Whatever the ultimate effect of the crop shortage it promises to afford a demonstration of the fact that It is un unjust unjust unjust just to compel railroads to carry freight at st rates established by the earnings of the th most moat prosperous years ye the country N has lias ever known without considering also the possibility of ot years when nat natural natural natural ural causes are certain to reduce the earning power of or those same lines No business bushless can be carried on successfully through a period of years If It it Is corn com compelled c m pelted pellet to base its charges on its maxi maximum maximum maximum mum earning capacity capacity and on the aver average average average age pf earnings p for that pe ape nod dod yet et the th proposal now before the country involves exactly this proposition a I lion tion to establish transportation transport charges both bath passenger and freight on the basis of the showing for the past few years the most phenomenally prosper prosperous ous period the United States has ever known Confronted by the probability of a crop shortage covering a large area of the most productive region in Ameri America ca the people will learn that such a proposal has no equity no exact justice In it ft and that the chief sufferers will wil wilbe Ill be benot not the men who control the trans transportation transportation transportation lines but the whole nation and an particularly the small stockholders who depend upon dividends for their Income |