AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE
NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE BOARD
NEW YORK, OCTOBER 10, 1918
I
_GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF RAILROADS_
Paternalistic control, even when entirely benevolent in intent, is
generally harmful in effect. It is apt to be doubly so when, as
sometimes occurs, it is punitive in intent.
The history of our railroads in the last ten years is a case in point.
In their early youth our railroads were allowed to grow up like spoiled,
wilful, untamed children. They were given pretty nearly everything they
asked for, and what they were not given freely they were apt to get
somehow, anyhow. They fought amongst themselves and in doing so were
liable to do harm to persons and objects in the neighborhood. They were
overbearing and inconsiderate and did not show proper respect to their
parent, i. e., the people.
But the fond parent, seeing how strong and sturdy they were and on the
whole, how hustling and effective in their work, and how, with all their
faults of temper and demeanor, they made themselves so useful around the
house that he could not really get along without them, only smiled
complacently at their occasional mischief or looked the other way.
Moreover, he was really too busy with other matters to give proper
attention to their education and upbringing.
As the railroads grew towards man's estate and married and begot other
railroads, they gradually sloughed off the roughness and objectionable
ways of their early youth, and though they did not sprout wings, and
though once in a while they still did shock the community, they were
amazingly capable at their work and really rendered service of
inestimable value.
But meanwhile, for various reasons and owing to sundry influences, the
father had grown testy and rather sour on them. He cut their allowance,
he restrained them in various ways, some wise, some less so, he changed
his will in their disfavor, he showed marked preference to other
children of his. And one fine day, partly because he was annoyed at the
discovery of some wrongdoing in which, despite his repeated warnings, a
few of the railroads had indulged (though the overwhelming majority were
blameless) and partly at the prompting of plausible self-seekers or
well-meaning specialists in the improvement of everybody and
everything--one fine day he lost his temper and with it his sense of
proportion. He struck blindly at the railroads, he appointed guardians
(called commissions) to whom they would have to report daily, who would
prescribe certain rigid rules of conduct for them, who would henceforth
determine their allowance and supervise their method of spending it,
etc.
And these commissions, naturally wishing to act in the spirit of the
parent who had designated them, but actually being, as guardians are
liable to be, more harsh and severe and unrelenting than he would have
been or really meant to be, put the railroads on a starvation diet and
otherwise so exercised their functions, with good intent, doubtless, in
most cases, that after a while those railroads, formerly so vigorous and
capable, became quite emaciated and several of them succumbed under the
strain of the regime imposed upon them. And then, seeing their condition
and having need, owing to special emergencies, of railroad services
which required great physical strength and endurance, one fine morning
the parent determined upon the drastic step of taking things into his
own hands. And so forth....