To avoid these dangers a regime of confidence and fairness on the part of the public toward the railroads must be restored, and to accomplish this we must place our case, as it were, before the legislators and the people and make clear our difficulties and the complications which beset us. Few, after all, understand the railroad problem, and we have not made it plain to the people, either because it was the fashion not to do so, or because we could not realize that things simple to us were not understood by the public. We must not stop at one statement, but discourse upon and elucidate every subject which the public misunderstands. Let us be frank and take the public into our confidence as fully as is consistent with the proper conduct of our business. Let us approach the subject with the feeling that the railroads are not absolutely perfect, that we have to some extent brought this condition of affairs upon ourselves, and that we should govern ourselves in the future accordingly. Let us undertake to go frankly before the people and present the actual facts in connection with our affairs. THE PENNSYLVANIA AS AN ILLUSTRATION. Let me illustrate: The Pennsylvania Legislature is in session. Numerous bills have been presented, of a most radical nature. It is our purpose to appear before every committee that will hear us, and tell our side of the story. I doubt very much if the average legislator--and certainly not the average citizen--understands whom he is injuring in unjust acts towards the railroads. Take our company, for example. It is not a small group of rich capitalists; it is not Mr. McCrea and myself and a few others; the Pennsylvania Railroad is owned by more than 50,000 people, 30 per cent of whom live in Pennsylvania. Forty-seven per cent of our shareholders are women; and in many cases the dividend is their only source of income. Then there are thousands of bondholders; beyond them are nearly 100,000 employes in the State of Pennsylvania dependent upon the prosperity of the Pennsylvania Railroad for their livelihood. Therefore, by the usual computation, it is safe to say that approximately half a million people--men, women and children--are actually dependent upon the welfare of this company in the State of Pennsylvania alone. Upon the Pennsylvania Railroad's prosperity depends the prosperity of the other lines in its system, and including the employes of these lines, there are 200,000 men, who, with their families, constitute an army of a million or more. Behind them, again, are the thousands of men, with their families, who produce the coal and other materials which the railroads use. Anything that cripples the railroads injures every one of these people.