New Britain Herald Newspaper, February 6, 1919, Page 10

ffer. stru ¥ ¢ physical strength, but developed:one . of the keenest minds'i*American rail- roading His Rapid Rise At thirty-one of a he was vice president railroad; a little later chairman of the board of another and one of the greatest raiiroad attorneys in the na- tion; now, at forty-cight, he occupies the most important railroad all the desk in America, the “hoss” of his former chiefs and ure in a natiof become the next presidential Mr. Hines is a victim of the peculiar prejudice yers.” S a ver stitutions rascality man associx ed likewise. Sc view. Un general v < 1 by associates, central f al controversy that may factor in controlling the election. Anst | “corporation law- once painted corporations as in- greed, corruption vith hearts of stone. Eve them was brand- » people retain that new directe me apt reformer of and 1 witl those who reviewed his persor “reactionary raiiroad” That's all wrong Such a 3 his lowing, exj on the tions, st “Probably no hout studying h priest of the sect. ation hardly gibes with views on government as the fol- cssed by him in an address weaknesses of State institu- many students feel that rious may be the scattering of govern we should en evils through governmental evils dus to the ment counte the concentration of power “In its last analys upon thie view that the be t a power use of it o to responsibil even greater the fear rests people cannot and that their hampered, at t exemplified by our State e writer’s answer to that the power or ultimate s complete power That hardly though down were with least 1c at whether one thinks ought to with not, the fact is that in the *nse the people have full and will nr sounds like reactionary and the words cannot be set political because they written long before he became associated with the Government or had any thought of being railroad administrator. There was a widespread bellef among his former associates in the management ‘of the Louisville and Nashville and the Santa Fe Railroads that Mr. Hines would be opposed to any continuance of Federal control of railroads after the war. This con- ction was pronounced in some eircles that there was an agitation agalnst the appointment of a “rail road organization” man to succeed Mr. McAdoo and the object of that opposition was thought to have been Mr. Hines. Speaks With Authority Then about the middle of December Mr. Hines, speaking as associate direc- tor general, appeared before a special committee of the Chamber of Com- merce of the United States to discuss the railroad problem. He came out flatly for the five-year control plan, which later was explained in detail by Mr. McAdoo to the Senate Commit- tee on Interstate Commerce. Mr. Hines holds that program to be the most practical and satisfactory solu- tion yet presented. Mr. Hines approached the subject of five-year control strictly from a business standpoint. He does not argue or plead; he presents a simple gtatement of facts, leaving his hearers to form their own conclusions as to policy Coming from a man of long assocla two railroads which rank Pennsylvania lines as the in the country, Mr. Hines's views as to government con. trol or regulation are held carry greater weight than those of any other man who might have been selected for the post of director gencral Mr. Hines is a plain-spoken He has the happy faculty of sceing the other fellow’s side of a question, and accordingly Is able to present an argu ment calculated to cover every point at issue people trusted and exercise as cant, s0 tion with with the best managed to man e “yp ness think the very natural restive- the country has shown as to the inconvenicnces of the last twelve months has operated in an unconscious the picture conditions and war necessities. s I look at it, sort of way to constitute of war “So that the choice, now presented is not between the sort of burdensome requirements that ex- isted during the last the one hand and, on the other, the return to private control, but it is a form of IFederal control adapted to peace con- of which there has been so test, on the one hand, and re- private control on the other year on ditions, far turn hand. “Looking private control I think it is important for us to try to remember what has happened in the past and not look to private control as something in the abstract. Take for example the fall of 1916. I made a trip out through the West. Through the eastern half of Kan the side tracks were filled with loaded freight cars destined to the Atlantic seaboard. They could not move beyond that point because of the congestion at all points, Chicago and East. “There almost paralysis of transportation. There was the great- est waste of the available car supply, the greatest impediment to the move- ment of traffic. As you came East and passed the great railroad terminals you saw a perfect sea of freight cars that could not be gotten rid of. It was hard to handle them because of the great quantity. It was hard to get trains in and out of yards. Those conditions were due to a lack of uni- fied control of railroad operation. It may be they avoided under private management, but we then had the of private manage- ment and inducement on the part of the to avoid that congestion had the conges- tion. no to the was can be condition very railroads Yet we Some of His Arguments “Now no such take the fall of 19 condition. The railroad yards were kept free except where special and temporary conditions brought about temporary congestion. The contrast as compared with 1916 is of the most striking character. Cer- tainly unified control does admit and has produced in fact a movement of freight instead of a congestion of freight. It has cnabled the railroad administration to apply the plan of the traffic at the source and of preventing the loading of traf- fic when it cannot be gotten rid of. “Under private management and under the competitive conditions which seemed inseparable from pri- §. There was controlling Btter to have ‘avoid these 2 “ situation, we @Ons which existed Eontrol—the inability [s] =7k of the railroad companie to and the rep- resentatives of labor agree on a program, and the menace that existed during so much of the time as to what was going to happen to transportation In the ab- sence of some remedial legislation, the if there was no agreement. question is whether we would go back immediately to a corresponding men ace if private control would be re- sumed at the present time. This is a very important thing to consider. “Look at the matter from the in- vestors’ standpoint. The conditions toward the end of private control were most embarrassing from the stand- point of the investors. They felt their condition was exceedingly critical. If Federal control had not supervened, especially in view of the unprecedentea winter, it is obvious that many rail- road companies, which ordinarily coula meet their requirements, would have gone into bankruptcy. Now, if the railroads go back into private control without remedial legislation, a ques- tion to consider is whether there will be a repetition of these conditions of uncertainty and embarrassment, due to the many different and urcontrollable factors which seemed to be operating together in the reduction of net in- come. Two Elements Involved “There are two clements involved. One is the question of service rendered by the railroads to the public and the other the question of clear thinking on the ultimate solution of the prob- lem. Relative to service, the question is whether going back isting conditions without any will be able to The public is that. ‘I do not believe service Federal controx can be to the public during the dubious and rapidly vanish- ing months, in the midst of constant speculation as to what is so soon to happen to the management and therefore to the individual, and in the midst of the ferment and uncer- tainty and in the face of the practical of any improvement pro- the* railroad: under e remedial give a greatly legislation good interested in service. under satistactory twenty-one paralysis gram “I believe that private management would be relieved of many of these dis- advantages, and by comparison would give the public a better service during this ambiguous period. The other question is, Which way will help the think more clearly on the public to proposition? “Jt seems to me the extension of five years gives the opportunity for a by Public Ledzer Co. The public o private test. has had a long test management. It has had no test of Federal control under peace conditions. The public would be more enlightened if there were a period of unified composure and reasonable continuity to contrast with the long experience of private control. The public would have a larger asset in the way of clear thinking to have the two tests, one the long experience with multiform private management and the other an experience of unified control under peace conditions.” control under conditions of Remedial Legislation Mr. Hines, in considering pro gram of the railroad executives for prompt turning back of the roads as soon as remedial legislation, eliminat- ing various encumbering features of the competitve basis of operating here- tofore required under State and Fed- eral statutes, asks the question: “Is it this time to remedial legislation?” His answer is in the he adds “There is advantage in talking about turning back the railroads with remedial tion if the conditions are such as to make the remedial leg- islation impossible. “In facing question,” he con- tinues, “I think will all concede that there is no crystallization of the thought of the country as to what is the proper remedial legislation. I have given a of thought to the subject and have tried to formulate in my own mind the remedies that ought to be prescribed to provide adequate protection for all the elements that are involved in the railroad business—the public which is to be served, the labor which is to adequately compen- sated and properly in its relations to the operations and the in- vestors who furnish the capital—and what has impressed me in my thought on this matter is that every point that comes up bristles with doubts and dif: ferences of opinion. Everything is de- batable Take the that must be considered in a scheme of remedial legislation. Take the ques- tion as to the extent to which there shall be any State control or whether there shall be State control in respect of railroad rates or railroad improve- ments or railroad We find there are the most pronounced differ- ences of opinion on that subject. The National Association of Railroad Com- missioners has made it very clear that it is opposed to the climination of State control. A great many other the possible at set negative, and no legis! that we great deal be considered some of leading points service. "TOR GENERAL interests are too strongly in favor of eliminating that control. ake the question of overcapitaliza- tion. A great many people who have given prolonged attention to this sub- ject believe that one of the insur- mountable obstacles to satisfactory has been the large part of regulation in the past settled on a the shipping public and on the part of labor that were heavily overcapitalized and that all the tngs made by the railroad companies as to need for additional revenue were based false premises because they based on overcapitalization. There has been no crystallization of sentiment on that subject, though there have been a great many charges and counter. “That linked with the question of the valuation of the rai A valuation has been pro- vided and it is well under way but not been completed. There is nothing definite indicating how the valuation, when completed, shall be applied in dealing with this problem overcapitalization. There are a great many people who have studied this subject carefully who are firmly convinced that there can be no ade quate solution of private operation without Federal incorporation as a substitute for State incorporation. There again we have a question, fun- damental in character, which must be met and disposed of and which cannot be disposed of without prolonged con- suspicion railroads ow- were harges. subject is closely ds. for has oz of sideration Anti-trust Laws “There is a further question as to the expediency of having in this coun- try 100 different ducting the public service about 180 ra as Class 1 operating revenues of more a year. About 100 of definite importance. of them would regarded as rall roads of such that they could not be eliminated from any plan which contemplated the of the principal railroad organizations of the country “It has been sugge say, railroads con There are ire known hich have $1,000,000 or of them are Perhaps fifty Iroads which roa that is, he importance preservation sted that the sy tem of n railroads should be replaced by a system of a few regional railroad companies, upon which thero would be representation perhaps of the public as well as of owners, the being that ach of these re- gional companies would own and oper ate all the railroads in a given region. The questions relating to that sup- ject are S0 numerous and perplexing that it is confusing to try to list them. merous idea WALKER D HINES New director gen- cral of railroads “The transition of the present owner- ship by many corporations with a re markable variety of different capital structures to new organizations with of the new a new scheme capitalization, securities of the of the old and the exchange of company for those of capitalization and the rep- resentation on the board of directors are questions of the very greatest im- portance, which cannot be decided without the most thorough capitali- zation. “Then there is the question of the antitrust laws. Shall they continue to apply to railroads as in the past? The attitude of the public must be considered. The public has appeared to have very definite views in the past, and yet the question arises whether these views ought to continue to be applied to railroad management, if rivate operation is to be resumed.” Mr. Hines holds, with Mr. McAdoo, that the return of the railroads at the the twenty-one months pro- the railroad administration act is entirely unsatisfactory, not alone for its effect on the morale of the railroad organization but because of the incomplete state of improve- ments undertaken by the Government. “The railroads of this country are not complete and never can be com- plete,” said Mr. Hines. “The raflroads must continue to grow to meet the demands of traffic and increasing de- of the public for adequate Therefore, the question of expenditures is one of para- mount importance.” On the question of morale Mr. Hines points out the twenty-one-month pe- basis close of vided by mands service. capital riod would be far from one of “politl- cal composure,” that the question to “a large extent will be coincident with a presidential campaign.” “There will be,” he holds, “conditions of political agitation which the railroad ques tion will in issue and the conduct of these operations will be In issue.” If the railroad question is not settled in be by a return to private ownership be- for the elections of Novemb 1920, which he argues is next to impossible if remedial legislation is demanded, it Wwould mean, according to Mr. Hines, that there would be a change of man- agement through a change of Presi- dents d then a further change of managements when the remedial leg- islation is secured and the roads turned back to their owners. One of Two Courses Summarizing the problem as it ap- pears to him, Director General Hines holds the real choice must be between the immediate return of the railroads without remedial legislation or the continuance of Federal control for the five-year period recommended by Mr. McAdoo. The railroad executives are opposed to both plans. “Undoubtedly a great many people whose judgment is sound on this sub- ject would far prefer to turn the rail- roads back with adequate remedial legislation,” he said. “But that is not a practicable thing. The twenty-one months’ solution is not a practical thing and will simply pile up condi- tions which are unsatisfactory now and which would grow increasingly unsatisfactory in the twenty-one months, so that the practical choice is: Is it better for the railroads to g0 back to private control promptly uu- der the old conditions or is it better to have a five-year extension of the present control with provision for the continuing improvement of the prop- erties and with conditions which will make for a satisfactory morale in the railroad organization? No other alter- natives are available as a practical matter.” Such are Mr. Hines's views. He speaks with the authority of long association with railroad management. He has been connected with the rail- road administration almost from the day the roads were taken over—De- cember 28, 1917. He was assistant to , director general, then associate di- rector general. He knows the prob- lems of Federal operations When he left his private law prac- tice in New York to take part in the Federal management of the railroads Mr. Hines was chairman of the board of directors of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, a position he obtained in September, 1918, after having been chairman of the executive committes of the board of directors from 1908 and general /counsel from 1906. During the last fifteen years of his association with the railroads Mr. Hines retained a private practice, so that he was not primarily a “railroad lawyer.” Mr. Hines went to New York from Louisville, where he had been con- nected with the Louisville and Nash- ville for many years. His first posi- tion with Milton Smith's road was in 1890, when he was secretary to the assistant chief counsel of the Louis- ville and Nashville. After working at that post for two years, he entered the University of Virginia and emerged with a law degree in 1893. He returned to the Louisville and Nashville as an assistant attorney in the legal de partment, but the strain he had im- posed upon his eyes during long hours of study so weakened his sight that he was forced to take a six months’ rest in 1894, He became as- sistant chief attorney in 1897, and four years later, when thirty-one years old, first vice president of the Louisville and Nashville, in immediate charge of the legal department and assistant to President Smith in supervising tratfic. Began as a Stenographer Mr. Hines began life as a stenogra He was He was pher when fourteen years old. forced to leave school then. without funds and was obliged to aid his mother. When sixteen he became official stenographer in Warren County for the State Circuit Court. He re- turned to school two years later, enter- ing Ogden College, at Bowling Green, Ky. Upon leaving college he was a stenographer in Bowling Green several months, then went to Trinidad, Col., where he continued that kind of work. The new director general is not strong physically. The tax he placed on his strength in early manhood is telling on him now. It was generally believed here that he would not accept Mr. McAdoo’s post because of the con- dition of his health. He has a wife and daughter. See Black and Dismiss Pain R. W. H. well-known physician BATES, a York, covered a new way to get rid of pain. It beats of New has dis- “mental healing” and other methods hollow. All you have to do to make the pain to “see black.” It is quite simple, but you learn how. ‘Well, then, shut your eyes; cover them with the palms of your hands, so as to exclude all light, and pres. ently you will see a perfect black. When the black is seen perfectly, a temporary, and perhaps a permane relief from pain always follows “By this means,” says Doctor Bates, “gurgical operations have been per. formed painlessiy and teeth extracted without suffering. Distress from cold, heat, hunger, fatigue and even disease such quit s must symptoms—such as fever, weakness and shock—have been relieved in this way. If soldiers could grasp the idea, not only suffering, but many deaths, might be prevented. “A soldier in a trench full of water, if he can remember black perfectly, will not suffer from cold. He may suc- cumb from weakness on the marcn, but will not feel fatigue. He may die of hemorrhage, but he will die pain- lessly. The method would also obviate the for using morphine te relieve pain.” When once a person has been taught to see black, says Doctor Bates, he can easily learn to remember biack at will Merely to remember black will dismiss, all pain. P Why not try it and see how it works? necessity F RAILROADS < for °