Please do not forget this great point of growth--of development, you may prefer to put it. In my mind, men, institutions, nations, even railroads never stand still; they either grow, or else they decline, they shrink, they die. But the Railroad, as the greatest servant of a great people, cannot die without bringing death to the nation itself. Therefore he _must_ grow. He must plan. He must announce his plans. He must bring Public Sentiment to his aid. Law can do many things--but few of these latter ones. Public Sentiment may accomplish every one of them, and almost in a crack of a finger. No wonder that Capital--that conservative fellow--longs to have him stand at the bedside of the Railroad. The sick man is not without his ambitions--you may be sure of that. He sees his opportunities, perhaps more clearly than ever before in the course of his long life. He is anxious to be up and at them. But before this can be done, some of these things, which we have outlined so briefly here, will have to come to pass. There are reckonings to be made, huge doctors' bills to be met--and the American public will have to help meet them. The alternative? There are many panaceas suggested; but I fear that most of these are but nostrums. Ingenious, many of them are, nevertheless. And some of them come from men who speak with both authority and experience. One man proposes to have the entire Federal taxes paid through the railroad, which, in turn, would recoup itself through its freight and passenger rates. He makes an interesting case for himself. Another suggests a Federal holding company for all the railroads of the United States and makes his suggestion read so cleverly and so ingeniously that you all but forget that he is drawing only a thin veil over government ownership. Of government ownership I am not going to treat at this time; not more than to say that to almost all American railroaders--big and little, employers and employed, stockholders and bondholders--it represents little less than death itself to the sick man of American business. In my own opinion it is, at the least, a major operation--an operation whose success is extremely dubious. INDEX Adamson Bill, object and effect of, 235-239. Aliens, value of, in railroad work, 74 ff. American Railway Association, cooperation of, with government, 211. Arbitration, compulsory, 240, 258; in wage disputes, 57 ff. Architectural problems in relation to increase of passenger traffic, 107 ff. Atlantic coast, service of railroads in defense of, 192. Automobile: effect of the, on railroad traffic, 134 ff.; as a freight feeder of the railroad, 158; operated on railroad tracks, 151. Betterments and additions, amount needed for, 18 ff., 22, 26. _See also_ Railroads. Branch-lines and their relation to automobile competition, 142; opportunities neglected by railroads, 152, 156.