An expert railroader of my acquaintance takes this great figure--considerably exceeding the cost of the Panama Canal--adds to it as representing a carefully ascertained deficiency in the replacement of rolling stock an almost equal sum--$445,940,586. To these he further adds the dividends paid by the solvent roads out of their surpluses during the seven hard years--$784,563,406--and the depreciation of the value of the securities of the roads in bankruptcy during the same period--$719,528,328. The total of these four great items is $2,441,820,320--a sum instantly comparable with that of the national debt. There is, however, from a bookkeeping standpoint, at least, an offset against these losses in the equipment account of $394,736,506 which has, under a wise ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission, been charged to expenses during the seven years and set up as a reserve to meet the accruing deficiency of equipment. However, there have been no restrictions as to the maintenance of this fund, or how it should be handled. The very prosperous lines--representing some 100,000 miles, or less than half the total mileage of the country--probably have their contribution to this depreciation fund as an asset. In the case of the poorer roads--speaking financially--it doubtless has been applied to other purposes, in order to help them maintain their bare existence. It has come home to these, and with great force, that the governing conditions which make their income fixed take little cognizance of the vast annual increases in material, in tax, and in labor costs. In rough figures--decidedly rough, it seems to me--it has been estimated that the losses of our railroads during the past ten years alone have amounted to approximately one-half the entire cost of the Civil War. That figure is impressive--it is little less than appalling. Even with the depreciation accounts of the American railroads deducted as an asset, we still have this awe-inspiring total of $2,000,000,000 confronting us. Some of this--the unpaid dividends of more than seven attenuated years--is water that will never come to the mill again. But the neglected rights of way, the ancient buildings, and the bridges needing rehabilitation on some of our railroads, the locomotives and the cars travel-racked and fairly shrieking for repairs, are all of them physical matters that must be set right before the sick man of American business can stand firmly on his feet once again. And when these things are done, the railroad will stand physically just where it stood from eight to nine years ago. And who can deny that it should stand nine years ahead of 1917 instead of nine years behind it? CHAPTER III ORGANIZED LABOR--THE ENGINEER