Samples for Study

One-fourth of all the railroad mileage in the U. S. is in the hands of the courts. The Federal Government has loaned nearly half a billion dollars to keep the carriers afloat. Yet so far there has been no first-class public investigation of U. S. railroads. Last February the Senate, deciding it was high time, to have one, authorized the Interstate Commerce Committee to get busy. Last week Transportation Coordinator Joseph B. Eastman, at the invitation of the Senate, presented Commerce Committee Chairman Burton K. Wheeler with a list of 18 roads which he recommended for inspection as a "fairly typical" cross-section. It included nine in good condition and nine in bad. Of the 18, five are controlled by the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland. Mr. Eastman made it clear that the Senate should also delve into the operations of "financial interests which have been most closely associated with the railroads"--meaning principally J. P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and Speyer & Co. Warning that no railroad need think itself an "undesirable citizen" because its name was on his list, Coordinator Eastman wrote: "The object of the investigation, I take it, is not merely to exploit certain possibly malodorous or questionable transactions, but to appraise general railroad conditions. . . ."

The Eastman list:

Van Sweringen Roads:

Mileage Chesapeake & Ohio ... 3,120

Erie ... 2,305

New York, Chicago & St. Louis ... 1,690

Pere Marquette ... 2,253

Missouri Pacific* ... 7,349

Others:

Pennsylvania ... 11,500

Chicago & Eastern Illinois* ... 940

Wabash* ... 2,464

Delaware & Hudson ... 865

St. Louis-San Francisco* ... 5,792

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific .... 8,330

Chicago & Northwestern* ... 8,440

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul* ... 11,226

Kansas City Southern ... 883

Southern Railway ... 7,637

Illinois Central* ... 6,626

Central of Georgia*... 1,927

Florida East Coast* ... 812

* In the courts.

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