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Show GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP. Advocates of government ownership point with pride to the postoffice department as an example of what may be done by the system which would make the federal government the custodian of all public utilities. Xobody questions that there is a certain amount of efficiency in the postal affairs of the nation, that the service is being extended by rural free delivery routes so that practically everybody in the country is a beneficiary, but to claim all this as a result of government ownership is a fallacy. It may be that all these things are accomplished in spite of governmental control. It is not for the purpose of questioning the principle prin-ciple of public ownership, but to show .the fallacy of the claims made by advocates of that principle that attention is directed to another institution which has belonged to the people since the foundation foun-dation of the government the inland waterways of the country. The rivers belong to the people, and they present a free right of way for the transportation trans-portation of freight and passengers. The only expense ex-pense attached to this transportation is the cost of boats, wharves, labor and keeping the channels in navigable condition. Congress has appropriated vast sums of money for the improvement of rivers and harbors, and probably has got as much for the monej as was j i 1 - expected, but the river;; 'lack mucn ;n affording facilities to relieve the r lilroad congestion reported from time to time to ;xist in cities situated on navigable streams. Rai lroad rights of way belong to private corporations, which expend millions of dollars to keep the roadj beds in condition to carry the traffic. With all th$ agitation against the railroads, rail-roads, it must be confessed that the service rendered ren-dered is no more lameaitably inefficient than that of the river systems, f Senator Warner recently made the assertion that for $20,000,000 the channel of the Missouri river between St. Louis and Kansas City could be deepened deep-ened and made to have a freight carrying capacity many times greater than that of all the railroads between those two cities. If he is right, and his assertion is based on investigation and careful estimates, esti-mates, the permanent improvement of that stream seems an economic necessity. Indeed, the work should even now be completed, and the benefits derived by the people at the present time. In the past many times the cost of this improvement was appropriated by congress, in the form of land grants, to the railroads. The railroads being private pri-vate enterprises and the water courses public property prop-erty may afford the explanation why the latter have not received the attention which their importance deserves. So in the consideration of public ownership of public utilities, the river improvements, with appropriations ap-propriations to meet the demands of congressmen seeking re-election rather than the accomplishment of the public good, may be pointed out as a horrible hor-rible example. The theory is good, but the practical prac-tical working out of the theory requires more than the mere demonstration of the idealist. |
