"As a specific example showing how the cooperation of the railroad companies assisted the army, there may be cited the case of the first motor trucks purchased for the expeditionary forces in Mexico. Twenty-seven trucks were purchased under bid in Wisconsin on March 14. They were inspected and loaded in fourteen cars; the men to operate them were employed and tourist cars furnished for them, following which a train was made up which left Wisconsin at 3:11 a. m., on March 16. It arrived at Columbus, N. M., 1,591 miles away, shortly after noon on the 18th; the trucks were unloaded from the cars, loaded with supplies, and sent across the border, reaching General Pershing's command with adequate supplies of food before he had exhausted the supplies taken with him from Columbus."--From the report of Quartermaster-General Henry G. Sharpe, of the United States Army, as reprinted in the _Railway Age Gazette_. [15] "When railroads were started in England, they were influenced by stage coach precedents. They put the engineer behind the iron horse and called him a driver, they called the railroad car a coach or a van. They imitated the class distinction of the four-in-hand, and then charged by the mile. Coach travel cost by the mile. There were no terminal charges, no road upkeep charges. It was a piece rate proposition, a price per mile proposition as to revenues. The great difference between horse coaches and railroads was overlooked. Probably 90 per cent of stage coach expenses, whether of capital investment or operation, lies in the coaches, horses and harness. Even in the modern railroad, in the United States, only 20 per cent of the capital and 20 per cent of the operating expense are in the moving trains. Classified passenger and classified freight rates based on distance are founded on one-fifth of the real cost. This is not all. The cost of the other four-fifths has been increasing steadily from the start. Yard expenses are increasing far more rapidly than road expenses. The cost of terminals is growing with the square of the population. What is more serious, both will continue to rise. Getting so much for nothing, both passengers and shippers congregate in the big cities, and add still further to the congestion, to the increased cost of the part of railroading. "Every railroad man, every banker, every investor, every student of transportation knows that rates should be increased because the roads can no longer stand the drain of deferred obsolescence, or unremunerative investments, especially in terminals. "Rates ought to be based on four elements and probably a fifth added. The four basic elements are. (1) Cost of collecting the traffic; (2) Cost of transporting the traffic; (3) Cost of insurance or classification; (4) Cost of delivering the traffic.