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Show HOW DO THEY OPERATE? "Railroad legislation" is always a live topic and railroads are an absolute ab-solute necessity to the rapid development devel-opment of the West. From this standpoint the following paragraphs from the Pacific Reporter are worth reading to gain an idea of why the railroads were unable at this time to adequately serve the public; why less new railroad is being built for the last fifty years; why Congress finally decided to investigate the whole subject of railroad regulation with a view to improving existing conditions and why it seeniB necessary neces-sary to put an end to dual regulation by the states and the federal government govern-ment and place regulation of the railroads exclusively in the hands of the federal government. 15 states, by prescribing a minimum mini-mum movement of freight cars, or by imposing heavy penalties for delays, attempt to favor their own traffic 20 states, regulate hours of railway rail-way service, the variations running from 10 to 16 hours a day. 28 states specify headlight requirements without and approach to uniformity.. 14 states have dissimilar safety-appliance acts. In 41 states in 1909, 644 new laws affecting railroads were enacted. In 40 states in 1911, new railroad laws totaled 276. Between 1912 and 1915 upward of 4,000 bills affecting railroads rail-roads were introduced into Congress and our several states legislatures, of which 440 have become laws. 20 states has passed "stuffed crew" laws. 21 states, however, refused re-fused to enact such a law. 9 attempts at-tempts in 6 years have been made to secure Federal approval for such a law, but without success. The Missouri Mis-souri legislature passed a "stuffed crew" law, but, on a referendum to the voters of the state, the law was rejected by a vote of 324,085 to 159,593. "Stuffed crew" bills were vetoed by Governor Foss, of Massachusetts, Massa-chusetts, Governor Cruce of Oklahoma, Okla-homa, Governors Hughes and Dix of New York and Governor Harmon of Ohio. In the fiBcal year 1914, 166 railroads, rail-roads, operating 20,4,610 miles, reported re-ported an expense of $4,051,533 for compliance with "stuffed crew" legislation. legis-lation. This amount equals a return of 5 per cent on $80,000,000 of capital. cap-ital. These companies reported a total to-tal expense of $28,703,983 in consequence con-sequence of legislation regulating operation, equivalent to decreasing their basis of credit $570,000,000. Railroad statutes in force in New York, to end of l&Oti make np an octavo oc-tavo volume of 782 pages and in Pennsylvania, to end of 1907, more than 700 octavo pages. One state require" cuspidors on passenger cars. An adjacent state prohibits this practice. This state is travers ed by carriers parsing through the "cuspidor state". One state requiivs; screens on the y.'ndows of passenger passen-ger cars, and these cars traverse state where screen? are forbidden. IS states have legally as3?rted their right to confol bond and stork issues of railroads operating within their limits, and doubtless, this number num-ber will increase. In 1913 the Arizona Corporation Commission, by withholding approval for an intended in-tended sale of a 2-year note by the Southern Pacific, left that company no alternative but to issue 1-year notes, the result of this change in plans being a loss of $275,000 to the Southern Pacific. The railroad commissions com-missions of Kansas and Texas upon occasion have made their approval of certain railroad security issues contingent upon the expenditure of a fixed proportion of the proceeds within their respective borders. Re-. Re-. cently. the New York Central, which j has only a total right of way in Illinois Illi-nois of 142 miles, although it operates ope-rates 6.034 miles of first track, was taxed $600,000 by the state of Illinois Illi-nois as a condition precedent to its approval of an intended financing. |
