, . .J " .i./.j . .
.
, & - > ;
Che Conservative.
VOL III. NO. 44. NEBRASKA CITY , NEBRASKA , MAY 9 , 1901. SINGLE COPIES , 5 CENTS.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY.
OFFICES : OVERLAND THEATRE BLOCK.
.T. STERLING MORTON , EDITOR.
A JOURNAL DKVOTBD TO THE DISCUSSION
OF POLITICAL , ECONOMIC AND SOCIOLOGICAL
QUESTIONS.
CIRCULATION THIS WEEK , 12,300 COPIES.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
One dollar and a half per year in advance ,
I postpaid to any part of the United States or
{ Canada. Remittances made payable to The
Morton Printing Company.
Address , THE CONSERVATIVE , Nebraska
| City , Nebraska.
Advertising rates made known upon appli
cation.
Entered at the postofflce at Nebraska City ,
Neb. , as Second Class matter , July 20 , 1898.
According to the
RAILWAYS AND statistics of the
THEIR RELATIONS. Interstate Com
merce Commis
sion , there were in operation on June
80 , 1899 , 189,294 miles of railroad , with
21 miles additional in the territory of
Alaska. These figures do not include
the Philippines , Porto Rico or Hawaii.
The "Railway Age" and the "Railroad
Gazette" furnish figures of later con
struction , but THE CONSERVATIVE is not
able to produce them at the present
moment. It is safe , however , to state
roughly , upon the authority of Mr
H. T. Newcomb , the able editor of the
"Railway World" at Philadelphia , that
up to January 1 , 1901 , 6,000 additiona
miles of operating lines had been addec
to the foregoing.
Much complaint has been made of the
overcapitalization of railways. Never
theless , the capital
The Coat. ization was , on
June 80 , 1899
$60,556 per mile. Of that amoun
$80,267 was stock , common and pre
ferred , and $80,289 was funded debt
including income bonds and other obli
gatious as well as mortgage bonds.
THE CONSERVATIVE believes that the
enhanced value of terminal propertie
i belonging to the great lines of railroad
i brings that sort of property up to very
t nearly , in some lines , the entire capital
ization of the companies. In any event
it is quite within bounds to say that the
present lines and properties of railroads
could not be reproduced for less money
than1 they are capitalized at , in the
> i ' . ; United States.
, & > ' On Juno 80,1899 , there were employed
> y railroads in the United States more
than four men per
Number of Railmile of line , and.
way Employees , the total number
working for rail
ways was 928,924 persons. Of this num-
) er there were general officers , 4,882 ;
other officers , 4,294 ; as clerks in general
offices , 29,871 ; station agents , 80,787 ;
other station employees , 88,910.
There were at the same date 89,970
ocomotive engineers ; 41,152 firemen ;
28,282 conductors ;
Mechanical and brakemeu and
Operating. others in the train
service , 69,497 ;
machinists , 80,877 ; carpenters , 42,501 ;
other shopmen , 108,937.
In the United States , on the date
named , there were 81,697 section fore
men ; and other
The Track. workers upon the
track , numbered
201,708 , together with 48,686 switchmen ,
flagmen and watchmen. To safely dis
patch trains over all these miles of rail
way in the United States required the
services of 23,944 skilled telegraph
operators and train dispatchers.
In addition to the foregoing there are
many steam ferries which are the
property of railways and are operated
by them , and these are called the floating
equipment of the various lines and
employ 6,775 men , while miscellaneous
employees aggregate annually in the
railway service of this country 107,261
people.
From the above it will be observed
that there are salaried men numbering
205,370 , and per diem , or wage , men
numbering 728,554 , the salaried men
being limited to the general officers ,
other officers , clerks , station agents ,
conductors , telegraph operators , and
train dispatchers , all other workers of
the Railway service being paid by the
day or hour or by the mile run.
In 1899 the general officers of railways
in the United States averaged a salary of
$10.08 per day , and
Their Pay. the other officers
made an average
of $5.18 for the same time. Clerks in
the general offices earn on an average
$2.20 , station agents $1.74 , other station
men $1.60 , engine men $8.72 , firemen
$2.10 , conductors $8.18 , other train men
$1.94 , machinists $2.29 , carpenters $2.08 ,
other shopmen $1.72 , section foremen
$1.68 , other track men $1.18 , switchmen ,
flagmen and watchmen $1.77 , telegraph
operators and dispatchers $1.98 , em
ployees of floating equipment $1.89 , and
all other employees and laborers in the
railway service $1.68 per day.
THE CONSERVATIVE would be pleased
to give the number of station agents in
eacli state and in each county of each
state , but finds it impossible to reach
that data with accuracy at the present
time.
On June 80 , 1899 , there were in opera
tion in the United States 848 absolutely
independent railroad corporations. In
addition to that , there were subsidiary
companies , the properties of which were
leased or controlled by traffic agreement
by the independent companies , above
referred to ; so that the entire number
of railroads doing business in the United
States at that time was 1,064.
During the past ten years , in nearly
all the states of the Union , raids have
been made against
Raids on Railroads , property in the
form of railroads ,
by partisans seeking political offices.
They have appealed to the envy , the
malice and the avarice of humanity in
their endeavors to arouse antagonisms
and bitterness towards these incorpora
tions. In nearly every state they have
attempted to fix the maximum rates for
carrying passengers and freight. Thus
in nearly every commonwealth the
legislature has attempted to divorce the
right to own property from the right to
control it. Even the national legislature
has several times attempted to decree
a divorce between ownership and con-
trollership.
The railways of the United States
offer to the general public a composite
service. It is made
A Composite up of all the iute-
Service. grals of human ex
ertion , intellectual
and physical , of which the race is
capable. When the railway offers to
carry our persons and property from one
point to another , with celerity and
security , it tenders us the services , first ,
of the civil engineer who laid out its
lines ; of the miners who got out the
mineral from wlu'ch its rails are made ;
of the woodsmen who out its ties in the
foi'est ; of the miners who dug its coal ;
of the smiths and machinists who worked
and molded its metals ; of the manu
facturers of the best time-keepers , clocks
and watches ; of the best mechanical
engineers ; of the highest grade of trust
worthy , alert and sleepless train dis-
K. - , * '