"I have looked up the statement of about 80 per cent of the principal railroads of the country and find that during the last half of the year 1907, after the tremendous increase in expenses had become effective, while the gross earnings of the railroads increased $57,413,078 over the same period of the preceding year, their expenses increased $80,235,823, showing a net loss for the period, despite the tremendous business handled, of $22,822,745. "The converging lines of cost and compensation in railroad operation, which for years have been steadily approaching each other, are now separated by so narrow a margin that in order to pay fixed charges, taxes and operating expenses, with even a very moderate return to shareholders, there must be either _a moderate increase in freight rates_ or a very _substantial reduction in the wages of railroad employes_." (W. C. Brown, before the Mich. Mfrs. Assn., 6-22-08.) LESSON XV. WHICH SHALL IT BE? "Is it not better, Mr. President, that you and I, and tens of thousands of people who buy and use automobiles, should pay a dollar or two more freight on our machines than that the family of the engineer, the conductor, the brakeman, the switchman or the humble section hand shall be deprived of the actual necessities and comforts of life, which we know they must give up if the monthly pay check is reduced? "No question of greater importance confronts the people of the country today, for upon its righteous solution hangs the momentous issue of an early return of prosperity or a continuance of the depression of the past six months, emphasized and darkened by a struggle with organized labor such as this country has never experienced." (W. C. Brown, before the Mich. Mfrs. Assn., 6-22-08.) LESSON XVI. MORAL. "_Our prosperity came with the prosperity of the railroads; it declined when adversity struck the railroads. We do not believe we can have the full measure of prosperity again until the railroads are prosperous._" (National Prosperity Association of St. Louis.) PROGRESSIVE SAFETY IN RAILWAY OPERATION By A. H. SMITH, Vice-President of the N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co. An Address Delivered Before the National Association of Railroad Commissioners, at their Annual Convention, held in Washington, D. C., November 16, 1909. In examining into the state of an art of such far-reaching importance and such diversified nature as that of transportation by rail, it seems necessary to acquaint ourselves with its beginnings and growth; to determine the elements upon which its development relies and the necessity which has invoked the various steps of improvement in the plant devoted to transportation and the art of employing and controlling it in the performance of a public service.