and boot-repairing machinery. You will require a boot plant for making and remaking boots and for the utilization of the waste material, at least as big as the Pennsylvania Railroad depot. Think about his spades for digging and his pickaxes; the tons of barbed wire and of corrugated iron for the roof of his hut; the oil stoves and electric stoves. What, too, about his washings? Is that to be done in France, or sent back home? Our army is equipped with the very latest steam laundries on scales that daze one. The amount of washing required for a hospital of one thousand beds is a surprise to the civilian. In one of our series of hospitals we have thirty thousand beds.

But your boy wants more than these things, in addition to his hospital, which you will have to bring with you and erect. Has it ever occurred to you that he must be amused? He must have moving pictures, talking machines, books, magazines, home newspapers, each of them occupying valuable tonnage and ships. The Y. M. C. A. looks after most of these, and does it wonderfully well.

So when you look at your gallant American boy starting for war, think of some of the things he will have to bring along. I could continue the list, but it would weary you. If you come into the war thousands of American women will be busy making aërial observation balloons, which have proved very useful; thousands of American mechanics will be making moving kitchens on wheels; every tent-maker in the United States will be busy.

Your American boy will need to bring his own locomotive and track not only for narrow-gage railroads; but for just such trains as those in which I travelled many thousands of miles in your country. The more often I go to see this modern war work, the more I realize its immensity and complexity."

Major General Leonard Wood has brought out the intimate connection between the fighting force and the supporting industrial army by a very happy comparison. He likens the Army and Navy to the keen cutting edge of a sword blade,

and industry to the blade itself. As the edge of a blade is drawn out of the metal of the blade, so the military force is drawn from the industrial force. As the cutting edge acts upon the material to be severed and becomes dulled thereby and must be renewed from the blade, so the Army and Navy engage the foe, suffer injury and must be recruited up to strength from the men still in industry. As the edge is useless and cannot exist without the strength and stiffness of the blade behind it, so the Army and Navy are useless (in fact, cannot exist) without industry's support.

No Degrees of Honor

Where there is such interdependence there can be no degrees of usefulness or honor.

No one must think that the work of industry is not a man's job. To serve the nation in the shops and factories will require as much strength of body and will, as much throwing of oneself into the task, as is required by any military duty. It is probable that some men who read these lines and whose hair is now youthful in color will be greyheaded before their task of making war supplies is finished. It is possible that others who select industry as their place of service will enter early graves because of the strain and stress that the coming months will place upon them.

Is not such a service of equal honor with that of the fighting army? The answer is indeed, "Yes." For there is no degree of honor or esteem in national service when the task is undertaken with the purpose, Where I can best serve, there I will serve with honor.

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES OBJECT TO

EIGHT HOUR DAY

Nine hundred employees of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing have passed resolutions asking Secretary McAdoo to rescind his order putting into effect the eight hour day. Speakers declare only a small percentage of the workers in favor of shortening the work day.

THE RAILROADS AND THE GOVERNMENT

A Short History of Railroad Development and the Injustice of Present Regulation

There are many problems pressing upon the railroads today which might be discussed to advantage, says Francis H. Sisson, Assistant Chairman Railway Executives Advisory Council in the Oklahoma Employer for May. The labor problem, in varying aspects, offers a critical situation, and the menace of a paralysis of transportation still hovers over the country. The car shortage problem has furnished much food for thought during the past few months and the losses and annoyances it entails are still with us. For the railroads, the work of valuation, under the direction of the Interstate Commerce Commission, is proceeding along lines which give their executives grave concern and inspires unwarranted charges of overcapitalization. From many quarters we hear the agitation for government ownership, as a panacea for all of our ills and on all sides the efforts of state and national regulative bodies continue to harrass and cripple the transportation lines.

Underlying all of these problems is the fundamental problem of regulation, which, because of its faulty character, contributes in whole or in part to all of these other problems. The railroad has been characterized as "the sick man in the American business family," and while many minor complaints have contributed to this condition, his chief ailment is undoubtedly that of faulty regulation.

In a united effort to improve the credit and efficienty of the transportation business in this country, over ninety per cent of the railroads have joined in the work of the Railroad Executives' Advisory committee, which is now addressing itself particularly to the solution of this fundamental trouble.

It may fairly be said, in view of the results, that the present system of railroad regulation is a failure.

Briefly, the suggestion made by the railroads as offering a possible solution for the situation are as follows:

First. Federal supervision of railroad securities.

Second. Federal incorporation of inter-state carriers.

Third. Federal regulation of rates.

Fourth. A regional functional division of the work of the Inter-state Commerce Commission.

Fifth. Restriction of rate suspensions to not more than sixty days.

Sixth. Giving the Inter-state Commerce Commission power to prescribe minimum as well as maximum rates.

It is the belief of the railroad executives, that if the railroads can be relieved of the conflicting, wasteful and inefficient regulation of forty-eight States and the federal body, and if this regulation be unified under one head with regional subdivisions, that a great part of their present difficulty will be removed. Upon this platform the railroads have taken their stand and ask for public co-operation, not in their interest, but in the public interest, because the business of this country can prosper only as it is adequately served by efficient transportation.

Periods in Railroad History

There have been three important periods in railroad history. The first, that of construction, from the date of the first railway in 1828 to 1875; the second, that of competition and expansion, from 1875 to 1906; the third, that of regulation, from 1906 to date. In the hope that there may be before us a fourth period in railroad history, which will be one of co-operation between all the various parties interested in and dependent upon transportation, the railroads are attempting to explain their situation to the public, still holding the faith that when the public clearly understands the problem, public co-operation will be assured.

Too long the attitude of the public toward the railroad has been one of detached criticism and punitive legislation, treating the railroad interests as though they were something apart from itself, from which it might properly wring the last possible ounce of service at the lowest possible cost, with eyes fixed solely upon immediate, local and selfish interest.

That policy could have but one effect, which is today glaringly apparent. Impaired railroad credit, reduced efficiency and transportation facilities inadequate to the needs of commerce, are the harvest we are reaping from the sowing of these ten years of discord, often unintelligent, many-sided and punitive regulation.

So far has this been carried that we find that even in most the prosperous year in their history, and in the face of tremendous profits in every other line of business, the railroads earned a net return of less than six per cent upon the property they devote to the public use; and a shortage of equipment, terminals and facilities has brought stagnation to commerce and crippled the earning power of the country's business.

Today, in the face of constantly rising costs of material and labor, with rapidly growing taxes, and facing ever-increasing restrictive laws and regulations, the railroads turn to the business men of the country, and ask them to consider this problem, not in the interest of the railroads, but in their own interests in the interest of commerce, for the protection and development of the nation and the nation's business. For, in the final analysis, this transportation problem is the public's problem is your problem. All America pays toll to transportation and to a greater or less degree, all America is dependent upon transportation for its very life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and profit. This country can prosper only as its railroads prosper, and its railroads can prosper only as their credit is maintained and their regulation and management made efficient. One person in every ten in the United States derives his or her living from the railroads, and every person in the United States is involved in their well-being. The transportation problem is a universal problem, from which none of us can escape, and in which all of us are vitally concerned.

Only last week, in Washington, a committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States pledged its efforts "to make certain that the transportation facilities of the country may be stabilized, improved and extended to meet and keep pace with the needs of commerce and the entire country." That we conceive to be the reasonable demand of business, and in that