To drop the style of story-telling: Individual enterprise has given us
what is admittedly the most efficient railroad system in the world. It
has done so whilst making our average capitalization per mile of road
less, the scale of wages higher, the average rates lower, the service
and conveniences offered to the shipper and the traveler greater than in
any other of the principal countries.
It must be admitted that in the pioneer period of railroad development,
and for some years thereafter, numerous things were done, and although
generally known to be done, were tolerated by the Government and the
public, which should never have been permitted. But during the second
administration and upon the courageous initiative of President
Roosevelt these evils and abuses were resolutely tackled and a definite
and effective stop put to most of them. Means were provided by salutary
legislation, fortified by decisions of the Supreme Court, for adequate
supervision and regulation of railroads.
The railroads promptly fell in line with the countrywide summons for a
more exacting standard of business ethics. The spirit and practices of
railroad administration became standardized, so to speak, at a moral
level certainly not inferior to that of any other calling. It is true,
certain regrettable abuses and incidents of misconduct still came to
light in subsequent years, but these were sporadic instances, by no
means characteristic of railroading methods and practices in general,
condemned by the great body of those responsible for the conduct of our
railroads, no less than by the public at large, and entirely capable of
being dealt with by the existing law, possibly amended in nonessential
features, and by the force of public opinion.
Unfortunately, the law enacted under President Roosevelt's
administration was not allowed to stand for a sufficient length of time
to test its effects. The enactment of new railroad legislation in 1909,
largely shaped by Congressmen and Senators of very radical tendencies
and hostile to the railroads, and acquiesced in by President Taft with
ill-advised and opportunist complacency, established, for the first time
in America, paternalistic control over the railroads. It was an
unscientific and ill-devised statute, gravely defective in important
respects and bearing evidence of having been shaped in heat, hurry and
anger. Mr. Taft himself, it seems, has since recognized its faultiness,
for he has repeatedly and publicly protested against the
over-regulation, the starvation and the oppression of the railroad which
were the inevitable and easy-to-be-foreseen consequences of its
enactment.
The States, to extent that they had not already anticipated it, were not
slow to follow the precedent set by the Federal Government. The
resulting structure of Federal and State laws under which the railroads
were compelled to carry on their business, was little short of a
legislative monstrosity.