Railroads: Rates and Regulations

Railroads: Rates and Regulations

This treatise is the outcome of a continuous personal interest in railroads, practically coincident in point of time with the period of active participation of the Federal government in their affairs. During these years, since 1887 when the Act to Regulate Commerce was passed, as the problem of public regulation has gradually unfolded, opportunity has offered itself to me to view the subject from different angles. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as instructor of embryo engineers in the economic aspects of their callings; in service for the United States Industrial Commission in 1900-01, in touch alike with government officials and, travelling all about the country, with shippers and commercial bodies during a period of acute unrest; and finally ripening the practical experience, thus gained, in the favoring atmosphere of Harvard University, seeking to imbue future citizens with a sense of their civic responsibilities; through all these years, the conviction has steadily grown that, as one of the most fundamental agents in our American economic affairs, the subjection of transportation to public control was a primary need of the time. An earnest effort has been made to set down the facts concerning this highly controversial subject with scientific rigor and with fairness to all three of the great parties concerned, the owners, the shippers and the people. If bias there be, it will in all likelihood be found to favor the welfare of the "dim inarticulate multitude,"that so inert mass of interests and aspirations, too indefinitely informed as to details and too much occupied in earning its daily bread, to be able to analyze its own vital concerns, to give expression to its will, and even sometimes, as it seems, wisely to choose its spokesmen and representatives.[Pg vi] It is this helpless and unorganized general public, always in need of an advocate, which, perhaps, most strongly appeals to the academic mind. If there be lack of judicial poise in this regard, it is, at all events, palliated by free confession in advance. Nor is the history of the assumption by public authority of its inherent right to control railroads, as narrow an interest as it at first appears. Transportation, as a service, is the commodity produced by common carriers. The manner in which the price of this commodity has been brought under governmental regulation has a direct bearing upon another problem just beginning to open up; namely that of the control by the state of the prices of other things. It is not unlikely, in my judgment, that the final solution of the so-called Trust Problem in the United States, whether for good or ill, may ultimately contain as one important feature, the determination by governmental authority of reasonable prices for such prime necessities of life as milk, ice, coal, sugar and oil, when produced under monopolistic conditions. This view is shared by my colleague Professor Taussig in his "Principles of Economics." It is also distinctly set forth by President Van Hise of the University of Wisconsin, in his recent "Concentration and Control." When the seed of such an industrial policy is planted, as I believe it possible in time, the soil will have been richly prepared for its reception by our experience in the determination of reasonable charges for the services of railroads and other public utilities. A word of explanation may also be offered to the reader who finds in these pages an almost exuberant mass of illustrative material. Possibly, even, it may be alleged that in places so thick are the circumstantial trees of evidence that one can scarcely perceive the wood of principle. But, under the circumstances, it is almost inevitable that this should be so. The method of inquiry adopted has been mainly inductive. Text books and theoretical treatises have been used only by the way. I hold them to be merely of secondary importance. The principal reliance has been upon concrete data, painstakingly[Pg vii] gathered through many years from original sources. In this present excursion in the far more complex domain of the social sciences, an endeavor has been made to adhere strictly to the same scientific method pursued in the field of natural science in writing "The Races of Europe." A search far and wide for every possible bit of raw material had to be made at the outset. To this succeeded the classification and realignment of the concrete data thus obtained. The last step of all, was the formulation of the governing economic principles. But an almost indispensable result of this mode of work is a plenitude of reference and example. One might almost say that under such circumstances it becomes second nature to demand concrete illustration for every economic theory or principle laid down. Such a statement, however, would be fallacious. It would misrepresent the true sequence of events as above outlined. Rather should it be affirmed, that, inasmuch as the concrete examples are the sources of the reasoning, no theory can be held valid for which somewhere or somehow, positive illustration drawn from practice cannot be found. Such an ideal is, indeed, difficult to attain; but it may be stated as a cardinal principle to be always kept in mind. And it ought to excuse an author from the charge of over-elaboration of detail in illustration. The only crimes for which no verbal atonement will suffice are that the chosen illustration does not fit the principle, or else that the facts have been distorted to serve a preconceived idea. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 47831
Author: Ripley, William Zebina
Release Date: Dec 31, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English