Show SEEN and HEAR around tie 1 CAPITAL 4 NATIONAL fal by carter neld field 1 1 FA FAMOUS washington correspondent washington most congressmen an and d government off officials lic bals who have studied the situation a and nd practically all ba bankers akers will tell you I 1 privately that government ownership of the railroads is inevitable the financial situation of the railroads grows worse by the month more and more governa government ent money via the is being poured into the doomed finan financial cial structures which merely me means ans that they are tided over the immediate emergency whatever it may be in each individual case and therefore will have a harder row than ever to hoe from now on for there w will III be interest not to mention sinking fund tor for the additional dional debt so kindly advanced by the e government P politics being what it is no one can think of any solution not even president roosevelt who is more willing to be helpful to the railroads than to any other industry yet the a apparent fate of the railroad companies is actually bad news tor for nearly everybody it is very bad for the stock and bondholders bond holders of course and in turn it is bad for the people with whom these investors have been spending their money for obviously they win will spend less when the day comes it Is very bad tor for the treasuries and therefore for the politicians and taxpayers of every state in the unton union for at present the railroads are paying staggering amounts of taxes to state county and city governments ern ments it Is very bad for the federal treasury tor for not only do the railroads pay a huge load ol of federal taxes direct to the treasury but their officers high ranking employees and security holders sweeten their own individual income taxes no little because of the fact that the railroads are privately owned bad all around it is bad for the federal treasury and therefore every living person for everyone contributes heavily to the federal treasury directly or indirectly to an extent which very few realize for another reason scarcely a single government official or member of congress believes that federal operation of the railroads will be as economical as private management hence the prospect is that when the day com comes es the railroads will quickly become a burden on the government politics being what it Is no really drastic plan to avoid this approaching catastrophe seems likely of et adoption dop tion As a matter of fact none Is being proposed no man running for office for example would be likely to propose that the railroads be liberated from all regulation to follow their own judgment or that of their individual officers with a view to seeing if they could not work out their own salvation on the contrary there has been very little critic criticism ism of the interstate commerce commission tor for refusing recently to permit the railroads to increase certain rates despite the fact that the I 1 C C made its decision not because it did not think the roads entitled to the additional money but because it did not believe the proposed increases would result in additional earnings earning sl commissioner joseph B eastman dissented violently from the right of the commission to substitute its own judgment for that of railroad managers though personally he admitted he did not think the increases would provide more revenue every traffic man and most farmers know that if roads were permitted to juggle rates as they pleased they could often turn as a pretty penny by cutting rates on perishable crops providing they did not have to maintain the cut rates afterwards but the feeling that this would be against public interest ha has s prevented this ever being tried trie d though every store in the land can have a bargain tuesday if it likes problem for parley farley the problem confronting james A parley farley in pennsylvania this summer and tall fail is plainly shown in the figures of the democratic and republican primaries new de dealers alers of course arn ar hoping that many of the v voters 0 in the republican primary W who ho cast their ballots tor for gif ford Pi fichot will swing over to charles alvin alata jones in the election there was no such bittern bitterness cis against jones at any stage of we tile campaign as was manifested against his running mate gov george H earle who Is now the democratic nominee tor for senator in tact fact if L lewis had not been so dictatorial if he and sen joseph P guffey had been willing to take a beating with a smile and acce accept pt half a loaf they had their candidate lor for senator all selected the whole story might now be very different lewis at least could then have concentrated on Gifford pinchot in thi the republican primary no one can tell what would have happened in that case of course with hindsight it would seem doubtful that the lewis strength would have been enough to save pinchot but aler there are a good many shrewd pennsylvania politicians who believe that he reason pinchot was beaten so badly was that lewis moved heaven and earth to ge get t h 1 s re p u b 1 1 0 a n m min j n ers to change their t he i r a affiliations M H a t i 0 n g t BO 0 a ai s to vote tor for tom kennedy in the 1 democratic emo cratic primary and obviously almost every vote s so changed was wag a loss for pinchot not only because fit of lewis friendship tor for pin chot but because pinchot is as governor made warm friends of the miners this may or may not be true but it would not explain why lewis lawis made such a poor showing in the mining regions the vote in these ran just as strongly against kennedy as it did elsewhere want to beat davis the chief problem of the new dealers however Is to beat jim davis and this looks like an uphill job indeed for instance nearly I 1 votes were piled up for former charles J m r attorney general Marg margiotta Margio lotti Marg margiotti lotti had denounced governor earle during the primary campaign accusing him of taking money from the brewers it must be remembered that the total republican vote for senator was about in excess of the total democratic vote for senator this would b be a insignificant normally but it must be considered that most of the votes cast against sentor senator a davis were organization votes which normally can be expected to swing to the winner on election day out of the total democratic votes in the senatorial race however S davis wilson mayor of philadelphia piled up about during the campaign wilson attacked earle bitterly although he had been a former ally charging that earle had borrowed money from a state contractor conceivably something might be done which would bring wilson into the democratic camp conceivably wilson may even be making I 1 A speeches for earle before election day but the fight was so bitter that it Is very difficult to imagine all of wilsons Wll Wil sons supporters voting for earle ln in november some of them may inay have believed the plain intimation of the man they were supporting that earles actions in borrowing this money were not ethical to put it mildly zero in marching there has been a tremendous adous lot of marching up the hill and down again since last month when the opinion was ventured that Fol follow follows lowN the leader was no longer a ca cal I 1 necessity for senators and rep in voting on measures mea surest affecting business t but the net result of all the march ing Is pretty nearly zero pe pennsyl syl A vania where the new de deal 1 lost f not only its shirt but its rep reputation for infallible political prediction just about offsets florida where a strongly pro new deal senator triumphed in his primary over a new deal critic seeking his toga A good many more cards willbe played in various states before the picture is complete and it would be dangerous now to predict that new deal ideals will not be slavishly followed by a chastened chasteney chast ened congress after the primaries and the november election have recorded their mandates but present conviction in washington is that the results will be mixed with administration victories and defeats so counterbalancing that the net result will be next session that individual senators and representatives who want to be independent will be regardless of what may happen to the roosevelt prestige however it would seem next to impossible tor for john L lewis again to inspire the political fear in congressional hearts which has dwelt there tor for the last few years by the same token william green and the american federation of labor have regained the prestige and political power which they enjoyed until lewis and his C I 1 0 0 moved in on roosevelt political loser important now however is the tact fact that the labor outfit which has been dominating the new deal poll poli cies and appointments turns up as a 4 I 1 political loser since the pennsyl van vania la primaries congress Is paying more attention to william greens attack on the national labor relations board shrinking of the lewis political menace in the minds of our national legislators has also resulted in many members of the house and senate paying more attention to the flood of protests from manufacturers and other employers of labor as to the highhanded high handed arbitrary and discouraging methods ot of the NLRB now congress Is being told very emphatically that the labor P policy of the government is also a wet blanket on enterprise and particularly on any contemplated expansion sion in short that it Is one of the big contributing causes ot of unemployment up to now it has not 4 been a question of disbelieving this contention but individual congressmen with their eyes on the primaries and election this year were timid about making any move which might n bring a strongly organized group out against them in their districts or states 0 abdi syndicate service J |