The Inside Story of a Railroad conspiracy
MUNRO, DAVID A.
The Inside Story of a Railroad conspiracy By David A. Munro Eg ANGELES^—Out in the Far Weat it doesn't make much difference which side you're on or which party you belong to, you will be...
...He wound up his letter to Crawford, the nation's No...
...The Railway Express Agency, owned by 70 railroads, secirfid contracts with the airlines to fix rates, snd to dictate routing...
...It was George Maury's thesis that if these factories are to be kept running, postwar enterprise must be "really free...
...Mexico has announced that, unlike many Latin American countries, it will pay its annual quota to the League of Nations...
...Though the Union of South Africa presents many problems in race prjudice, natives can now take medical training, and primary education for them has been msde free...
...They csn also train for social work and receive jobs when qualified in government-aided social "ervice sgencies...
...Louis and Chicago to New York, but un agreement was made by the Western Commissioner that "no business originating in California or in the Pacific Northwest would be delivered in time for departure from Chicago or St...
...It looks a little as though the competitive instincts of our railroad friends are again at work . . ." he wrote...
...Louis on the new trains...
...Swedeh's relief Fund for Norway is, among other things, providing for Norwegian children 85,000 pints of oat soup daily...
...1 car-builder, with this achievement in futility: "Perhaps the really wise thing to do would be to try to persuade the New York Central not to put on a new train...
...He said his work "frequently resulted in preventing the speeding up of schedules which would, in the end, not result in benefit to anyone, but would result in additional expense to all concerned...
...accounts, when idle workmen hung around these plants with nothing to do, and wb«n the railroads were rapidly losing business to autos and buses, then steadily improving...
...but in an agreement enforced in Denver, preventing the unloading of shipments until 5:.'I0 p. in...
...It was run by "the Committee of Directors, composed of businessmaa, bankers and financiers, which held regular meetings In the board room of the Bank of Manhattan Company, at 40 Wall Street...
...Our American aristocracy, froien in positions of perennial power, are no more Interested in open competition, per se, than arc Oriental despots...
...It is thought by the authorities that the new order will contribute to better care of vehicles in terms of safety, and will aid public morale...
...The public was demanding it, and it wa#highly profitable for the railroads to introduce it...
...But a part of the effort to prevent them from growing was represented by the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Co., Morgan-controlled and interested solely in preserving its monopoly position in railroad rolling stock.' In one derisive sentence Morgan partner Henry S. Sturgis, writing to Pullman president David Crawford, summed Up the Morgan attitude toward the struggles of lesser bigshots far down the slopes of Olympus...
...Worldover Press...
...An aspect of the same kind of activity was the extension of the Western Agreement principles to air cargo...
...The contracts, according to Kilgore Committee testimony, stated that the air rates should "never be less than twice the rail-express rates...
...Why was this strangulation practiced ? This is dimwit to answer...
...But it is out in the Far West, as indicated by Mr...
...Its avowed original purpose was "to avoid practices which will dissipate railroads' earnings in the Western District...
...As I say, only a psychologist could understand why terror-stricken men should enter into a conspiracy so widely destructive...
...As compared to newspaper writers in other countries, Chilean journalists are not well paid—their average yearly earnings in 1941 were about $571—but the social insurance has brought them advantages...
...Vehicles that are ramshackle or dirty or which for any other reason make an untidy appearance, will not be permitted to operate on the city streets...
...It is not merely that the Far West cannot exist without a cheap and good transportation system, but that the Far West factories, with their planes and ships, now make most of the nation's equipment for the carrying trade...
...Today we have proof that aircraft can carry express for less than the rate for express carried by the railroads, if done in enough volume...
...Maury, that the Western Agreement was most destructive...
...This was hitting close to h»SH...
...Now compare this with the frank testimony of Graver Loening of WPB...
...A traffic department order in Mexico City establishes something new in automobile care...
...Thus the head of J. P. Morgan A Co., Mr...
...The Commissioner warned the Rock Island and the Texas & Pacific "to avoid anything savoring of .speed contests" and to hold proposed changes in schedules in abeyance in l'JIii...
...Actual air-express rates," he said, "at present average 80 cents a ton-mile, which is from five to seven times higher than the railwayexpress rates...
...Henry Sturgis was "much disturbed" to find that the excitement over new equipment had Wsehed and affected President Frederick Williamson sf the New York Central...
...And this was the message Sturgis earned to the highest authority in the House of Morgan, senior partner George Whitney...
...It is worth noting that this fight was carried on at a time when much of the Pullman Co...
...In Chile, journalists have a government-operated special social insurance, covering superannuation, disability, voluntary retirement, survivors' annuities, etc...
...The Inside Story of a Railroad conspiracy By David A. Munro Eg ANGELES^—Out in the Far Weat it doesn't make much difference which side you're on or which party you belong to, you will be worried ikeut what win happen to the new industrial army Kgi peace knocks the props out from under the flit-'- industries—chiefly aircraft and shipbuilding, go the Union of Democratic Action of Los Angeles k«sjd George R. Maury, new head of the Antitrust Dirts)"1 office here, with approval when he discussed fy guilt of the railroads in preventing the developBeat of the West and warned that the railroads may rise again to strangle this great region of America...
...there was a speed-up of schedules east from St...
...News on the Four Winds To arouse opinion on behalf of improved housing in Glasgow, meetings and educational lectures are being* staged by the British Independent Labor Party, which, using official figures, is pointing out that infant mortality is far higher in Glasgow than in London, Manchester or Liverpool...
...on the day of arrival, regardless of the spoilage involved, one shipper brought suit and collected damages and thus threatened the whole structure of the Western Agreement...
...Nothing less than the Gobi Desert is the newest field for expansion of China's industrial cooperatives...
...Curiously enough, the sufferers from these acts included sot only the public, but the railroads themselves...
...Let's take a look at the correspondence as spread on tts record by Wendell Berge...
...Here, there are vast distances where single tracks are the rule, where slow freight is one of the headaches of the shipper, and where the baking deserts make air-conditioning most necessary...
...rolling stock was over-age according to its own figures, when the cost of the old cars had been entirely amortized, when the money to build new cars lay idle in Pullman Co...
...Maury was able to show, the Antitrust Division will play a vital part on the postwar West Coast...
...Cargo planes can he run at about 8 to 10 cents a ton mile Actually, railway-express rates—not air-express rates but ordinary rail rates—run from 10 to 15 cents a ton-mile...
...But the files of the Department of Justice give S quite different picture of the devotion of the Morgans to this basic economic freedom...
...The reasons are not merely economic but psychological, as well...
...J In recognition of the urgent need for better health education and protection throughout the West Indies, Jamaica has opened in Kingston a new health training center, which will send workers eventually throughout the Island and into various other West Indian colonics...
...Funds are being provided by the Medical Department of the Jamaican Government, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Colonial Development and Welfare Commission of Britain...
...Hubert W. Peet, editor of The Friend, London, reports a Bed-Time Prayer for a Modern Child quoted by the Bishop of Rochester in a diocesan letter: "Ble$$ the dear Clinic which weighed me witK 'care, And (he Nursery School teacher who toothcombed my hair, And the Youth Movement leaders, so careworn for me, And my Mother, God bless her, whom nsver I see...
...Streamlining, air-conditioning and high-speed travel *tra coming in...
...Rewi Alley, leader, has investigated the Kansu "panhandle" and asserts that in the oasis regions there are excellent opportunities for the establishment of coop organizations...
...Thomas W. Lamont, is one of the directors of the Committee for Economic Development, which makes louil public protestations of its devotion to free enterprise...
...Two million lives were lost in the Indian famine, according to a survey made by a representative of the Manchester Guardian...
...To avoid these "additional expenses," the Missouri Pacific was prevented from delivering California perishables in New Yolk 24 hours earlier...
...But the House of Morgan and the Western Agreement Steed in the way...
...The Western Agreement was signed by the lead tag American railroads in December, 1932, the latum year of the Depression, and it continued n affect an til April, 1943, when, according to testimony of Wendell Berge before the Kilgore Committee, "it was repatedly cancelled by the Siguier...
...How was the Western Agreement run...
...What was this Morgan partner so worried about...
...Thus, Mr...
...Referring to this slow-down agreement, the Western Commissioner, under whom the Western Agreement was administered, gave the modern version of a railroad man's "public be damned"—except that he exhibited an innocense of public responsibility childlike in its simplicity...
...KT the Western Agreement had time and again enforced restrictions which further glowed down freight ¦—particularly of perishables moving East from California, food producer for the nation...
...He wrote Crswford, in obvious fear over a dire •svelopment, "we are likely to wake up with a new Century, then a new Broadway, and then Baltimore & Ohio will have to do something, and thus it will make the round of the country...
...Out of the 285,000 houses in the Clydcside city, 97,262, or 33 per cent, have no inside toilets, and 165,201, or 58 per cent, no bath...
...What constituted avoiding dissipation of earnings is s list of actions so shortsighted and so dangerous It the community that it comprises a great and final Indictment of monopoly business management...
...The papers were full of stories of German and American experiments with improved rail transportation...
...The great railroads of America still would have grown, still would have expanded to take on their full responsibilities during the hopeless Thirties had it not been for the Western Agreement...
...railroads after the Department of Justice, having juat discovered ita existence, add reused an inquiry to the Western Commissioner...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 21
