OCR Text |
Show CONFIDENCE NECESSARY. As a result of the criticisms offered, the Cummins railroad bill is being amended and there is some hope that.it will bo put in shape for passage before the first of tho year. The solution of the problem is of tho most vital importance im-portance to all of tho people of the United .States. The roads should not only be returned, but it is also necessary neces-sary to restore public confidence in railway rail-way investment. Bearing upon this subject the following is taken ,from tho report of tho railroad securities commission, Arthur Twining Hadley, president Yale university, chairman, dated November 1, 1911:" "Thoro was a time when the efforts of the banking authorities in most of the states were directed toward getting tho discount rates as low as possible. The bank commissioners in thoso .days regarded tliemselves as the representatives represen-tatives of tho merchants who wauled loans. They made little or no attempt to safeguard tho stockholders and creditors credi-tors of the bank. Thoso were the days of wildcat banking. The country has pasted beyond that period not solely or primarily because it obtained a national na-tional banking law, but because it administered ad-ministered that law with due regard to the security of the stockholders and creditors of the bank as well as its customers. cus-tomers. Wo havo not developed our ideas of railroad management as far. as we .have developed our ideas of bank management. The subject is a more complex one. The apparent conflict of interests between the management and the customers is greater with a railroad than with a bank. As a result of this misunderstanding, .the necessary development devel-opment of railroad facilities is now endangered en-dangered by the reluctance, of investors to purchase new issues of railroad securities se-curities in the amounts required.. This reluctance is likely to continue until the American public understands the essential community of interest between be-tween shipper and investor and the folly of attempting to protect the one by taking away the rewards of good management from the other." |