[22] "No one who has traveled about the world will seriously contend that there is any other country where the quality and quantity of rail transportation is so good or so abundant as in the United States. In most European countries rail transportation is furnished by the government at great cost to the public, both directly in the form of heavier taxes and indirectly in the form of high rates. In this country it is furnished by the investment of private capital. This capital is supplied by about 2,000,000 persons. It is absolutely at the mercy not only of the Federal Government, but, within their boundaries, of the legislatures of forty-eight States. How much it may earn depends upon the whim of these masters. How much it may lose has never been determined; for when a certain point is reached the courts step in and administer the bankrupt's business. "Last year the railways of the country earned about $1,000,000,000 net, a greater sum than ever before in their history. It was less than six per cent on railroad property devoted to the use of the public. "The record earnings of the railroads in 1916 are being used and will be used to urge Government ownership. But how about the lean years? If in the most prosperous year of their lives the railroads of the country cannot earn six per cent, what happens in poor years? Ask the courts. They know. "It is possible now, by right administration, to make particular railroads yield liberal returns to investors; but under Government ownership there could be no such incentive to careful management; the bad would be lumped with the good; the profits in one quarter would be required to meet the deficits in another; the Government would have to assume all necessary capital, and this would by so much impair the Government's borrowing power. "If the people of this country can once be brought to appreciate the importance of maintaining the quality and expanding the quantity of rail transportation they will see to it that private enterprise is supported, not hampered, in furnishing this most vital of public services. They will manifest overwhelmingly a wish that the roads be set free from the conflicting authorities of forty-eight masters and be controlled by only one, greater than all the rest put together. They will demand that the Federal Government allow such rates as will permit earnings sufficient to attract private capital actually needed to supply public service. They will insist that the Federal control and regulation of transportation shall be as constructive and helpful as Federal control and regulation of banking. It is painful to look at the Federal Reserve system and then to contemplate the plight into which haphazard regulation has brought the railroads."--The _New York Sun_.