"'For instance, in the case (of an important subsidiary property), I know that for a long period we had to defer selling bonds on more than one occasion, although the construction work was proceeding, because market conditions were not favorable. Its mortgage bonds would be guaranteed by (its owners), but in lieu of selling them, we temporarily authorized short-term borrowing at lower interest rates. For the period 1908 to 1915 the general experience of most of the railroads was that they had not sufficient business, or earnings, to furnish a credit basis to make proper additions to their property and equipment, nor was there sufficient prospect of any increased traffic to justify proceeding with any great expenditure program. During this period, short-term financing had to be resorted to because of the impossibility of selling capital stock on any basis, or mortgage bonds, except on onerous conditions.'"--_Railway Age Gazette._ [6] "The bitter fight now raging as to the content and enforcement of the Adamson Act should not make us lose sight of certain things which are more fundamental in railroading than either wages or hours. The transportation service of this country has been the best in the world, partly because it gave us a free field for able and ambitious men. Rising from the commonest sort of day labor, these executives command the respect and obedience of the rank and file, but sometimes forget to cooperate. That is the root cause of the present-day troubles. It is natural that a corporation president should stand for the interests of the company, but if the men are to be bound up heart and soul in loyalty to the work, then their interests are, and must be, part of the interests of the company. A railroad cannot be run exclusively by presidents, superintendents, and managers; there must be engineers and firemen of training and long experience. As a practical matter, this means that these occupations must hold many capable men during their entire working lives. In a country of free institutions this situation cannot be held down by autocratic rule. If the men have no say in the company, they will try to get one in the union. The great mistake of American railroad presidents during the last thirty years has been to force this growth of factionalism, to make it plain that the union was the means by which the men could get ahead. The railroad brotherhoods secured one concession after another in hours, wages, and operating rules, concessions which the nonunion men could not get. The limits of this method have about been reached. Cannot railroad executives save the future by definitely abandoning this policy of quarrel and drift, by making themselves the true leaders of all their men? We think they can. They have had too much of a caste point of view and have been too much absorbed in other things. It is time to change. The general alternatives have been well stated by Edward A. Filene, a leader of the