Before the great wave of war prosperity came upon us, the railroaders were showing their pressing need of immediate relief in the form of rate increases and were making a very good case for their necessities. They showed with unimpeachable exactness the steadily mounting cost of labor and of materials. Instance after instance they showed where the many regulating bodies had aided and abetted in raising costs of operation but had not granted any income increases with which to meet these costs. No matter how much the Federal board and the various state boards might conflict in other matters, they always have seemed to be in general and complete harmony as to laying increased burdens upon the back of the carriers. Under the whip of labor, Congress passed the sixteen-hour measure, a good bill for the railroaders but mighty expensive to the roads. The Full-Crew Bill, as we shall soon see, swept across the various states like a windborne conflagration across an open prairie. And after these the Eight-Hour Day! And all this while many of the states were also passing bills reducing the price of passenger transportation to two cents a mile. A most unfair type of bill this, considered from any reasonable angle. For if it were profitable to carry a passenger at this figure--which I very much doubt--this type of measure still would remain arbitrary, unscientific, illogical--reasons which, of themselves, should utterly condemn it. Yet here is a sort of railroad bill to which state legislatures are most prone--of which very much more in a moment. It was hopeless to expect this sort of a legislature to increase railroad rates--any more than the state regulating boards, which are the creatures of the various legislatures. The Federal commission down at Washington, did far better. With its usual breadth of judgment, it did not refuse to grant relief. After a careful survey by it of the entire subject, interstate freight rates were increased slightly; passenger rates much more generously. In fact it was the first time in years that many of the passenger fares had been given any very general increase. An old adage--which had become almost a fetish in the minds of the railroaders--was that the passenger rates were absolutely sacred; that any increases in the incomes of the roads must be borne by the freight. Increases in passenger tariffs probably would be greeted by roars of protest from the public, rioting was not out of the possibility.[15] As a matter of fact the interstate passenger rates were raised, and there was hardly a protest on the part of the public. The railroaders who had clung superstitiously to their fetish had overlooked one big bet--the American public will pay for service. For super-service it will pay most generously. Perhaps you do not believe this?