The Washington times. [volume], January 24, 1918, FINAL EDITION, EDITORIAL PAGE, Image 20

About The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939

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EDITORIAL PAGE
OF THE
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JANUARY 24, 191S
WASHINGTON
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THE NATIONAL DAILY
ARTHUR BRISBANE. Editor and Oiroir
i. GDQAR D. BHAW, Publisher
' Catered as eeeond class matter at the Poitofflce at Waahlngtc-n. D. C.
'i Published Every Evening; (Including: Sundays) by the
yshmgton Times Company, Munsey Building, Pennsylvania Ave,
ICafl. Subscriptions: 1 Tear (Inc. Sundays). $7.00. 3 Month. 11.75. 1 Month. 0c
THURSDAT, JAKUART !4, lilt.
Let Government Pay If Govern
ment Compels Workmen
To Lose Wages
An Earnest Letter From a Sincere Man.
': The man who writes the letter published below- is a
rather unusual combination In American citizenship.
i- He is a radical, believes that Government should really
concentrate on greatest welfare of t.Vm mn.inrit.tr rmiioooa tiiot
tiff rich should bear their fair share of taxation, and, this
&& remarkable part, he himself is a rich man, owning at
least-, one million dollars and probably a small collection of
. Intelligent readers will follow closely his communica
titn which follows:
" - Who Is To Blame !
For the coal situation, for the
Staffer, shivering and sickness of
arillte&s of people In the North
M'lEast, for the. unemployment
4afi6 Mr. OarBeld's order, and
OTJSr. Garfield's order Itself,
come one Is to blame.
, That some one Is not Mr. Gar-
l teld, for Mr. Garfield Is only act-
f tec M the'ageht of' Mr. McAdoo
uiA 'the Democratic Admlnlstra-
iUoiu, That, some one Is also not
JtrwMcAdoo. or the Democratic
Administration. Who then is to
Mamat"
iuij'tex -from the pitiful break
down of the railroads In attempt
tofclo haul coal, one might sup
"jetfth&t the railroads and their
tecfesle! operators were respon
JW .But they also are not re
'spfiMtble. To place the blame, we
3ptV u to .follow the trail sUH
'fifthKf back.
V6 Battroad Cream Gene.
fi the last two Tears, the bank-tag.'-srprld
has come to realize that
the cream has cone ont ot railroad
T4jlcGoTe rumen t regulation has.
d V3ehiderahle extent, prevented
excessive rates.
Publicity, the fear of Investiga
tion, etc, has lessened the fre
Qseaer of those Immensely pro
fitable dealings that used to Une
the bankers pockets through
steck-Jobblnc wrecking and the
various mysterious processes of
railroad high finance.
BaUroadlng is no longer a bank
ffi gold mine or paradise. The
result has been that the bankers
have cat the credit of the rail
roads. Because they could not
Bake the profits they were used
to, they have starved the railroads,
, they have refused loans and turn
: down nnderwrltlngs; they have
lent deaf ear to the appeal of
the technical managers of the rail
roads, who have been unable to
procure from the bankers funds
necessary to keep the rolling stock,
asd especially the locomotives, at
an efficient point.
And meanwhile, as the bankers
&ave refused credit, they have
also insisted on dividends from
roads whose condition did not
warrant them.
'(Belusb, Short-sighted Wall Street,
fin short, a state of things has
('been 'brought about, not through
Mr. Garfield or the Administra
' tion of the railroads' technical
' heads, but by a selfish and short
sighted Wall Street control,
"Sphere a little cold weather add
ed to the unusual strain due to
tie war, has thrown the country
Into "a. position ol extreme danger, i
' Years ago Louis D. Brandeis,
SWfoW the Interstate Commerce
Commission, brought out the fact j
ititft'tthe railroads had become
little; more than the white slaves
cf jthe Wall Street bankers.
JThejbankers give die railroads
a -minimum of equipment, and
tell them to go out and earn
money. If the railroads do not
bring home the money there is
trouble. Brandeis tried to free
the railroads from white slavery,
and no one was so grateful to
him as the -technical railroad men,
who, in nine cases out of ten, are
efficient and devoted to their
business of operation in the in
terest of the public
Another consideration enters
in. In the last two years the
bankers have resented the inter
ference of the Government in
railroad management And they
have not only protested against it
themselves, but have been quite
willing to let the condition of the
railroads likewise argue against
Government interference.
In other words, they have let
the railroads go to the devil, then
pointed to their lamentable state,
and said to the public: "You see
what Government meddling has
done. If you, the public, don'l
help ns cast off the Government
yoke, the result will be bad ser
vice and high rates."
Immediate Government Ownership.
From all this, one thing arises as
clear as morning sunlight The
cure for the present situation and
the prevention of its recurrence,
lles'ln never letting the railroads
go back to the bankers, I. e., we
must have Immediate Government
ownership.
In the meantime, according to
John Mitchell, the unemployment
caused by Mr. Garfield's order,
which Is not his fault, but that of
the bankers, Is costing the wage
earners In New York State alone
some five million dollars a day. I
believe that this figure Is too low.
But whether It Is or not the wage
earners certainly cannot afford
that loss. But the Government can.
In fact we might say that the
Government la honor bound to
make good the wage-earners' loss
es, because it has not already
taken over the railroads and there
by prevented the disastrous situa
tion that the bankers have caused.
Government Pay Workers Loss.
If we are spending twenty thou
sand millions of dollars this year
for the ar (and we shall spend
a good deal more than that) It
would not seem unreasonable that
the loss caused br the railroads'
failure to haul coal, which finally
forced Mr Garfield's order, should
be borne by the Government up to
the sum of a few paltry hundred
millions.
Of course, too, every employer
who is not stone broke should
keep on paying his employes. In
the meantime, those who starve
and freeze will bae an oppor
tunity to congratulate theniseHes
on the great brains that control
industrial and political America.
AMOS P1NCHOT.
Today's World Struggle
The- Fight for Money Is Still the Fight of the Universe.
Money-Making Mania One Phase of Human Advancement.
Far off in the distance shines the goal of present human
ambition.
It is a shining, golden light. Toward that light the mil
lions struggle, trampling each other, sacrificing everything
in the harsh fight for the dollar.
'. Here and there a preacher thunders, here and there a
jhllcopher proses against the money struggle. But they
lilght as well whisper at the brink of Niagara. And often
the preacher changes his thundering when a rich church
caUa-him, often the philosopher grasps the first chance to
forget philosophy in Wall Street.
The men admired today are the men who have made
Bullions some are admired because they find excitement in
giving the millions away, others because they silently pile
more millions upon the others alreadv gained.
HAUNTED
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A Snow-Shoveling Editorial
SaperiateBdeat Paitea, of the Street CleaaJar DepartawHt, Malm s '
SrgertJe-WlH It Wk?
By EABL GODWIN.
Superintendent Paxton of the Street Cleaning Depart
ment makes the suggestion that people should not sweep
the SBowfrom the sidewalks, but that they should wait for
the District's snowplow brigade to attack the problem.
I trust this suggestion will 'result in nrmrmt Action hv
the Street Cleaning Department on AT.L the streets, but I
I Jnl, it-
Otherwise Washington will relapse to its almost regu
lar winter state of complete glacial submergence, which was
a national joke until a few newspaper writers began tojjioint
out the intolerable condition.
Superintendent Paxton makes the suggestion that Dis
trict snowplows -shall clean sidewalks rather than the do
mestic snow shoveler, because the homemade brand of snow
cleaning results in piling the gutters with snow and ice.
When I was a schoolboy and had to shovel the jsnow
from in -front of my parental home, on Capitol Pill, I had
to clean out the gutters and keep them clear of snow and ice,
else a policeman called to ask why.
Now' it is no. hardship on the ordinary householder to
clean off a few feet of snow; nor to shovel a little trench
through the gutter. It is bully good exercise. A little mors
of that kind of outdoor work and all of us would feeTbetter.
It's as good as sawing wood and better than staying indoors,
smoking an imitation cigar and playing poker.
Also, I doubt' very mnch that Superintendent Paxton 's
men are in numbers sufficient to clean off all the sidewalks
and gutters. Also, If he has any spare labor, why not turn
it over to the Fuel Administration' or to somebody who will
get some coal into people's empty b-nsl
HEARD AND SEEN
afternoon at 1:30 the drafts were
open and that coal hardly- heated
WILLIAM A. SCHLOBOM. of 120S
Crittenden' street, has In his cellar
one ton 01 son coat wnicn ne aenea
any power on earth, or below, to
bum.
Ha says he will gtre $50 to any
charity if anyone can make it burn,
properly.
I myself -saw a part ot his efforts.
He uses one of THOMAS 80MEH
VILLE'S hot water furnaces, and
they are pretty good. From Monday
morning at o'clock until Tuesday
Itself to a glow.
And Schlobcm paid $10 for thai
"coal."
When RAYMOND PULLMAN was a
little tad he used to play around old
No. 4 engine house in South Wash
ington and the "Big Fellow"' who
nsed to bounce Ray upon his knee
was JAMBS KELIHER. now First
Battalion- Chief Wonder if the chief
rememberi those happy days.-
From the Public to the Editor
Commercial Germany is fully aware of the fate which thre atens it It would regret a lost trade even more than a lost war.
Waste Will Bring Want
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Tfae Old Me Not Wasted
Oftea W Hare Written Caeral
Bla, Often Wi Shall ftu
Abat Ilba Again.
Editor, Washington Times
Dear Sir Your editorlU. Monday,
as to srraT- hair old men and what
to do with and ror then-, deserves
more consideration than t. Is likely
to receive Why not reurn to the
snblect. od aire your readers a
series, like those very ru'jable edi
torials you are glTlns; upon "The
Wisdom of Napoleon?"
It has been stated that there are
today fully five million men In this
republic, from fifty to seventy years
of age; that Is, men with ray hair,
as you pnt it. You are Terr correct
In saying these men "are not
wanted." as a nil?, in mort of the
places where the work of the country
la being done, today.
Why are they not wanted? Ton ex
plain. In part very correctly. But Is
It the fault of these men! Is not the
ge to blame, tnojtr Ha "progress"
outsped thera, or has progress sim
ply railed to learn how best to use
them?
It Is a' problem of no mean Import
ance; but It is not so d'.flcult. It
has not been serkusly o- scientific
ally analyzed. We have evaded It,
and gone the easier way, the more
selfish-war. as a people. Cut by our
evading It, or Ignoring It. we find now
unsolved a problem that war compels
us to consider.
Take this single phase of it; here
Is sn asset of the republic: the man
power In those Ave million men from
nfty to seventy years TLey are 8
per cent of the country's population
and not less than 10 per -ent of its
earning power, economically pos
sibly twice that. In son-e respects
the most valuable element in the na
tion. Men of mature ysars. of ripe
Judgment, good physical rnd moral
habits, as a rale, their age being,
evidence of it; men of experience;
careful thinkers, not faddists nor the
orists. Men who have "tetn over the
road." and know the way safe men.
And these men. as a n'e. do not
I wui to m nuna, witn or wiinout a
pension. They prefer a nlae In -the
ranks, at work. Not ten hour nor
eight hours, as whan younger, but
such work aa they can do BEST, at
THEIR age. best for thm and for
the work.
This can be arranged. Those whe
say no. have said no to many things
we are now doing. But some men
physically able- to work oaly four or
five hours out of twenty-f. ur. can do
work. In that abort time. Worth mora
to their country than they could ta
twice the time when they were but
half so old.
It should be so arranged that they
could do It. and let the country have
their services. To riaehelr power
of trained thinking and experiences
la the idea, because trey are worth
It not discard them because they
have gray hair!
At work the man la nor contented,
his health U better, and heTT live
longer. In fact these men prefer to
"cease at once to work a-(l live." to
die "IN the harness;" to fall "wltt
the ARMOR ON."
My dear Brisbane, it neods only the
eloquence ot your editorial pen; to
atart this discussion. Yo will find
a response In every home in the land;
In every patriot heart who la guilty
of having gray hairs. These men
have been hustlers; they do not ask
Idleness; when titry ounce c' human
energy should be employed In this
world crisis. Yours respectfully.
JAMES HUGH KEELET.
Washington, D. C, Tuesday, Jan. IS.
Today's World Struggle
(Continued from First Column.)
in America, of those with much money.
Literary success depends upon the money which the
writer accumulates.
The man talked about is he who has sold a hundred
thousand books.
The rich boy at school is follow? i by toadies. In col
lege he learns contempt for human nature from the syco
phancy of others.
"Eepresentatives" of the People may be found dogging
the footsteps of those who need to buy laws, or to steal the
people's rights.
The struggle for money is the struggle of the whole
world today. And of the money-making movement, as of all
world-wide movements, there is a side that is good and
necessary.
Divine wisdom guides the world, and the human race,
working out its destiny in seeming blindness, is not allowed
to wander from the track of actual progress.
The money-making mania is one phase of human ad
vancement. This is the age of industrial progress. Money is simply
the means of perfecting industry. It is human labor con
densed and put into compact, transferable shape.
The man with the hundred millions can build the great
railroad across the continent. There is no more important
work now than the building of that road.
The man with the thousand millions can control the
great Oil trust and a dozen other trusts. He taxes the peo
ple but the hundreds of millions do an important and neces
sary work.
It is well for us all that such a man has sacrificed health,
digestion, happiness, and all idea of self-indulgence to the
accumulation of a vast industrial army of dollars.
The scramble for money, looked at without under
standing, is a horrid sight But horrid also is the sight of a
battle that free alav- '
Si
" society, tne ciass devoted to pleasure, consists now, ,
' 1 . Continued in Last Column.) '
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