THE SICK MAN OF AMERICAN BUSINESS

On a certain estate there dwells a large family of brothers and sisters. There are many of them and there is great variety in their ages. They are indifferent to their neighbors; they deem themselves quite self-sufficient. But, for the most part they are an industrious family. They are a family of growing wealth—in fact, in every material sense they may already be called rich. And their great estate is slowly beginning to reach its full development.

In this family there are several older brothers who long since attained a strength and dominance over some of the younger members of the family. It is one of these brothers about whom this book is written. It does not assume to be a story of his life. That story has been told by abler pens. It merely aims to be a brief recital of his present condition. For, truth to tell, this older brother has come upon hard times. After a long life of hard work, at a time when his service should be of greatest value to the estate, he has broken down. He has begun to fail—and in an hour when the greedy neighbors grow contentious and he may be of greatest service to his own big family.The Railroad is the great sick man of the American business family. He is a very sick man. Doctors may disagree as to the cause, sometimes as to the nature, of his ailment; they may quarrel even as to the remedies they deem necessary for his recovery. But there is no question to the fact that he is ill. Just at this time, owing to the extraordinary and abnormal prosperity that has come to the United States, largely because of the great war in Europe, he has rallied temporarily. But his illness continues, far too deep-seated to be thrown off in a moment. And the recent extraordinary legislation passed by Congress has done nothing to alleviate the condition of the sufferer. On the contrary, it has been a great aggravation.

I make no pretense as a doctor. But in the course of ten years of study of our American railroads certain conditions have forced themselves upon my attention—time and time again. I have had the opportunity to see the difficulties under which the railroads labor and some of the difficulties which the railroads have carved for themselves. I have had the chance to see how a mass of transportation legislation has acted and reacted upon these great properties. I have known and talked with their employees—of every station. And I have made up my own mind as to the great opportunity that still awaits the railroad in America. For I am firmly convinced that the great transportation organism of the United States has but scratched the surface of its usefulness. It is this last phase of the railroad that is, or should be, of greatest interest to every American.Within the short space of the pages of this book, I am going to try to show first the financial plight that has overtaken the overland carriers of our country. I am less of a financier than physician. But the figures upon which my premises are builded have been obtained by a veteran railroader; they have been carefully checked by expert auditors and railroad statisticians, and as such they may be called fundamental.

Given first the financial and the physical plight of our railroads as it exists today, we shall come to another great phase of its weakness—the labor question. Partly because of a disposition to put off the real solution of this problem to a later and apparently easier day, and partly because of conditions over which the railroads have had no control whatsoever, this problem has grown from one of transportation to one of politics—politics of the most vexed and complicated sort. We shall look at this labor question from the most engrossing angle—the human one—and we shall try to look upon it from the economic and financial angle as well. And we shall reserve our real opinion as to its solution until we have had the opportunity to look from the depressing picture of the railroad of today to the picture—by no means conceived in entire fancy—of the railroad of tomorrow.

Upon that second picture we shall build our opinion as to the present necessities of the railroads. Because, in my own mind, it is only as the railroad seeks opportunity, as it seeks to enlarge its vision, that it will be given the chance to live as a privately owned and managed institution. It is today close to the parting of the ways, and the men who control it have come now to the point where they will have to choose—the one path or the other. It will no longer be possible to delay the decision of a really vital economic question to a later, and an easier, day.

Around the bedside of this sick man of our great estate are gathered the physicians and the nurses. They are a motley lot. One of the nurses is called Labor, and at first thought you will think him well worth watching. Another nurse is more appealing at first sight. She is a slender spirituelle thing. We call her Regulation. Perhaps she is worth watching, too. Perhaps her ways should be mended. She is not bad at heart; oh, no! but she has had bad advisers. Of that you may be sure—at the beginning.

And it is quite certain that until she does mend her manners, until Labor, the other nurse, does likewise, the caller who stands around the corner will not come in the sick room. The invalid constantly calls for him. The man around the corner is known as Capital. He holds a golden purse. But you may be quite sure that he will not come to the sick man and thrust the purse within his fingers until both Labor and Regulation have changed their manners.

There are no two sides to such an argument.

With which statement let us turn from parables and toward plainer speaking. Let us begin consideration of the plight of the railroad.