The Arena
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Saving from consolidation of depots and staffs, $20,000,000
Saving from exclusive use of shortest routes, 25,000,000
Saving in attorneys' salaries and legal expenses, 12,000,000
Saving from the abrogation of the pass evil, 30,000,000
Saving from the abrogation of the commission system, 20,000,000
Saving by dispensing with high priced managers and staffs, 4,000,000
Saving by disbanding traffic associations, 4,000,000
Saving by dispensing with presidents, etc., 25,000,000
Saying by abolishing (all but local) offices, solicitors,
etc., 15,000,000
Saving of five-sevenths of the advertising account, 5,000,000
------------
Total savings by reason of better administration, $160,000,000
It would appear that after yearly setting aside $50,000,000 as a
sinking fund, that there are the best of reasons for believing that
the cost of the railway service would be some $310,000,000 less than
under corporate management.
That $6,000,000,000 is much more than it would cost to duplicate
existing railways, will not be questioned by the disinterested
familiar with late reductions in the cost of construction, and that
such a valuation is excessive is manifest from the fact that it is
much more than the market value of all the railway bonds and shares in
existence.
Mr. John P. Meany, in the _Railway Review_ of February 7, 1891, says:
"It is safe to assume that the market valuation of the entire
$4,500,000,000 of railroad stock in existence, would not average more
than $30 per share, or, say $1,350,000,000 in all," and in his _Sun_
article he states that fully $500,000,000 of this stock is duplicated,
so that the "live" stock outstanding is really but $4,000,000,000,
which at $30 per share would have an aggregate value of
$1,200,000,000. Mr. Meany also states that there are duplications of
bond issues amounting to some $300,000,000 leaving the live
outstanding bonds at $4,500,000,000 and many corporations failing to
pay interest, some issues are selling as low as 12 per cent. of par,
making it safe to call the average market value of bonds 90 per cent.
of their face value, and their aggregate value would be
$4,050,000,000, to which add value of "live" capital stock,
$1,200,000,000, and the total market value of bonds and stock is,
$5,250,000,000, being at the rate of $32,800 per mile for the 160,000
miles in operation.
After many years of familiarity with the turgid and obscure statements
issued by American railway corporations, and which are usually of such
a character that the more they are studied the less the shareholder
knows of the affairs of the corporation, it is very refreshing to read
the report of the Railway Commissioners of any one of the Australasian
colonies, where every item of expenditure is made clear, and where
words are not used for the purpose of misleading.
The last Victorian report shows this new and sparsely settled country
as able to borrow money with which to build national railways, at
three and one half per cent. per annum. How many American corporations
are able to borrow money at such a rate? This saving in the interest
charge directly benefits the public, and is due to national
ownership, and a like saving will be made by the nationalization of
American railways.
This report also shows that while the country is so rugged that in
many cases the gradients are as great as one hundred and thirty feet
per mile, and the cost of labor and supplies more than here, the roads
are operated at less cost, as measured by the expense per train mile,
than in the favored regions of the United States. The Kansas City,
Fort Scott, and Memphis Railway is, admittedly, one of the best
managed and most economically operated railways in the West, and with
an abundance of very cheap coal;[11] low gradients and running more
trains than do the Victorian railways should be operated much more
cheaply, yet the cost of operating this road, as measured by the cost
per train mile,--and this is the best possible criterion of economy in
operation,--is one third greater than on the government owned railways
of Victoria.
[11] Coal on the line named is worth about $1.50 per ton at
the mines, while inferior coal is worth $3.75 per ton
at the mines in Victoria.
An excellent measure of the efficiency of the management is the number
of casualties, as proportioned to the number of passengers carried and
men employed, which is very great in such countries as Russia,
Roumania, and Portugal; but in Victoria, and other Australian
colonies, the proportion is far less than in the United States, more
attention being given to the adoption of such safety devices as
interlocking switches, etc., and all the stations and crossings are
provided with gates, and otherwise better guarded than with us, where
the corporations are much more intent upon paying dividends than in
serving the public, or in saving life and limb, while on the
government-operated railways of Victoria, the management devotes its
attention--with a due regard to economy,--to the convenience, comfort,
and safety of railway users, and employees having no bond or share
holders to provide for. In the United States one of the useless
traffic associations pays its chief umpire nearly as much as Victoria
pays her entire commission.
Those desirous of entering the railway service of Victoria are
subjected to such a rigid examination as to qualifications and
character, that but little more than one third are able to pass the
ordeal, and a high standard of excellence in the personnel of the
service results; when these servants are disabled or worn out by long
service, they are pensioned or given a retiring allowance, and this
system tends to reduce the inclination to strike, as a man who has
been years in the service will long hesitate before he forfeits his
right to a provision of this kind.
All the Australian reports and accounts which have come under the
observation of the writer, are models of conciseness and clearness,
and show that there is nothing inherent in railway accounts rendering
it necessary that they be made obscure and misleading.
Neither in the Australian reports nor in the colonial press is there
the least evidence of discriminations against individuals or
localities, and this one fact is an argument of greater force in favor
of national ownership than all that have ever been advanced against
it.
WHERE MUST LASTING PROGRESS BEGIN?
BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
To the calm observer there is nothing more impressive in society
to-day than the varied and multitudinous associations for the
amelioration of human poverty, ignorance, and crime; and nothing more
depressing than the seeming immense waste of force scattered in these
innumerable directions with results so intangible and undefined. From
all the discussions we hear in the halls of legislation, and on the
popular platform, on the relations of capital and labor, finance, free
trade, land monopoly, taxation, individualism, and socialism, the
rights of women, children, criminals, and animals, one would think
that an entire change must speedily be effected in our theories of
government, religion, and social life, and so there would be if a
small minority, even, honestly believed in these specific reforms. But
alas! our reading minds are yet to be educated into the first
principles of social science; they are yet to learn that our present
theories of life are all false. The old ideas of caste and class, of
rich and poor, educated and uneducated, must pass away, and the many
must no longer suffer that the few may shine. Our religion must teach
the brotherhood of the race, the essential oneness of humanity, and
our government must be based on the broad principles of equal rights
to all. A religion that seeks to make the people satisfied in their
degraded conditions, and releases them from all responsibility for its
continuance, is unworthy our intelligent belief, and a government that
holds half its people in slavery, practically chained where they are
born, in ignorance, poverty, and vice, is unworthy our intelligent
support.
The object of all our specific reforms is to secure equal conditions
for the whole human race. The initiative steps to this end are:--
1. Educate our upper classes, our most intelligent people, into the
belief that our present civilization is based on false principles,
and that the ignorance, poverty, and crime we see about us are the
legitimate results of our false theories.
2. They must be educated to believe that our present conditions and
environments can and will be changed, and that as man is responsible
for the miseries of the race, through his own knowledge and wisdom the
change must come. To-day, men make their God responsible for all human
arrangements, and they quote Scripture to prove that poverty is one of
His wise provisions for the development of all the cardinal virtues. I
heard a sermon preached, not long ago, from the text: "The poor ye
have always with you," in which the preacher dwelt on the virtues of
benevolence and gratitude called out on either side. Poverty, said he,
has been the wise schoolmaster, to teach the people industry, economy,
self-sacrifice, patience, and humility, all those beautiful virtues
that best fit the human soul for the life hereafter. "Blessed are the
poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Thus the lessons
of submission and content have been sedulously taught to oppressed
classes, in the name of God, with fair promises of heaven to come.
The rich must be taught that they have no right to live in luxury
while others starve. The poor must be taught that they, too, have
inalienable rights on this green earth, the right to life, liberty,
and happiness, and to the fruits of their own industry, and it is the
imperative duty of each class to concede the one and demand the other.
The apathy and indifference of the masses in their degraded conditions
are as culpable as the pride and satisfaction of the upper classes in
their superior position.
As the only hope for the lasting progress of the race and a radical
reform in social life lie in the right education of children, their
birth and development is the vital starting-point for the philosopher.
A survey of the various unfortunate classes of society that have
hitherto occupied the time and thought of different orders of
philanthropists, and the little that has been accomplished in our own
lifetime, to go no farther back, gives very little encouragement for
this mere surface work that occupies so many noble men and women in
each generation. In spite of all our asylums and charities, religious
discussion and legislation, the problems of pauperism, intemperance,
and crime are no nearer a satisfactory solution than when our pilgrim
fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, in search of that liberty in thought
and action denied in the old world. The gloomy panorama of misery and
crime moves on, a dark picture in this young civilization.
If we would use the same common sense in the improvement of mankind
that we do in the ordinary affairs of life, we should begin our work
at the foundations of society, in family life, in parenthood, the
source and centre of all these terrible evils whose branches we are
trying to lop off. A family living in an old house, on unhealthy
ground, with water in the cellar, a crumbling foundation, the beams
like sponge, the roof leaking, the chimney full of cracks, would not
spend large sums of money year after year, generation after
generation, in patching up the old house on the same old spot, but
with ordinary wisdom and economy, they would build anew, on higher
ground, with strong foundations, sound timber, substantial chimneys,
and solid roofing. True, they would patch up the old at as little cost
as possible, merely to afford them a shelter until the new home was
built. And all our special reform work to-day is but patching the old,
until with a knowledge of the true laws of social science we can begin
to build the new aright. There is much surface work we must do in
reform, for decency's sake, but all this patching up of ignorant,
diseased, criminal, unfortunate humanity is temporary and transient,
effecting no radical improvement anywhere. The real work that will
tell on all time and the eternities, is building the new life and
character, laying the foundation-stones of future generations in
justice, liberty, purity, peace, and love, the work of the rising
generation of fathers and mothers at this hour. Those of us who have
long since passed the meridian of life, can give you the result of our
experience and researches into social science, but with the young men
and women of this hour rests the hope of the higher civilization which
it is possible for the race to attain through obedience to law. The
lovers of science come back to us from every latitude and longitude,
from their explorations in the mineral, vegetable, and animal
kingdoms, from their observations of the planetary world, bearing the
same message. "All things are governed by law," while man himself who
holds in his own hand the key to all knowledge and power seems never
to be in unison with the grandeur and glory of the world in which he
lives. The picture of struggling humanity through the long past is not
a cheerful one to contemplate. What can be done to mitigate the
miseries of the masses? This thought rests heavily and with increasing
weight on the hearts of all who love justice, liberty, and equality.
The same law of inheritance that hands down the vices of ancestors,
hands down their virtues also, and in a greater ratio, for good is
positive, active, ever vigilant, its worshippers swim up stream
against the current. Could we make all men and women feel their
individual responsibility in the chain of influences that tell on all
time, we could solemnize in our own day such vows for nobler lives as
to make this seeming herculean work light as the wings of angels. If,
henceforward, all the thought, the money, the religious enthusiasm
dedicated to the regeneration of the race, could be devoted to the
generation of our descendants, to the conditions and environments of
parents and children, the whole face of society might be changed
before we celebrate the next centennial of our national life. Science
has vindicated our right to discuss freely whether our ancestors were
apes; let it be as free to ask whether our posterity shall be idiots,
dwarfs, and knaves, and if not, by what change, if any, in our social
institutions, such wretched results may be avoided. Gatton in his work
on "Heredity," says our present civilization is growing too
complicated for our best minds even to grasp, and to meet successfully
the issues of the hour, humanity must be lifted up a few degrees, as
speedily as possible. And where must this radical work begin? The best
hope for the progress of the race in political, religious, and social
life lies in the right birth, education, and development of our
children. Here is the true starting-point for the philosopher.
Let the young man who is indulging in all manner of excesses remember
that in considering the effect of the various forms of dissipation on
himself, his own happiness or danger, he does not begin to measure the
evil of his life. As the high priest at the family altar, his deeds of
darkness will inflict untold suffering on generation after generation.
One of the most difficult lessons to impress on any mind is the power
and extent of individual influence; and parents above all others
resist the belief that their children are exactly what they make
them, no more, no less; like produces like. The origin of ideas was
long a disputed point with different schools of philosophers. Locke
took the ground that the mind of every child born into the world is
like a piece of blank paper; that you may write thereon whatever you
will, but science has long since proved that such idealists as
Descartes were nearer right, that the human family come into the world
with ideas, with marked individual proclivities; that the pre-natal
conditions have more influence than all the education that comes
after. If family peculiarities are transmitted to the third and fourth
generation, the grandson clothed with the same gait, gesture, mode of
thought and expression as the grandfather he has never seen, it is
evident that each individual may reap some advantage and development
from those predecessors whose lives in all matters great and small are
governed by law, by a conscientious sense of duty, not by feeling,
chance, or appetite.
If there is a class of educators who need special preparation
for their high and holy duties, it is those who assume the
responsibilities of parents. Shall they give less thought to immortal
beings than the artist to his landscape or statue.
We wander through the galleries in the old world, and linger before
the works of the great masters, transfixed with the grace and beauty
of the ideals that surround us. And with equal preparation, greater
than these are possible in living, breathing humanity. Go in
imagination from the gallery to the studio of the poor artist, watch
him through the restless days, as he struggles with the conception of
some grand ideal, and then see how patiently he moulds and remoulds
the clay, and when at last, through weary years, the block of marble
is transformed into an angel of light, he worships it, and weeps that
he cannot breathe into it the breath of life. And lo! by his side are
growing up immortal beings to whom he has never given one half the
care and thought bestowed on the silent ones that grace his walls. And
yet the same devotion to a high ideal of human character, would soon
give the world a generation of saints and scholars, of scientists and
statesmen, of glorified humanity such as the world has not yet seen.
Many good people lose heart in trying to improve their surroundings
because they say the influence of one amounts to so little. Remember
it was by the patient toil of generations through centuries that the
Colossus of Rhodes, Diana's Temple at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at
Halicarnassus, the Pyramids at Egypt, the Pharos at Alexandria, the
Hanging Gardens at Babylon, the Olympian Zeus, the seven wonders of
the world, grew day by day into enduring monuments to the greatness of
humanity. By individual effort the grand result was at last achieved.
So the ideal manhood and womanhood, so earnestly prophesied, will
become living realities in the future. Remember it took three hundred
years to build an Egyptian pyramid. Allowing four generations to a
century we have twelve generations of men who passed their lives in
that one achievement. Was not the work of those who first evened the
ground and laid the foundation-stones as important as of those who
laid the capstones at last? Let us, then, begin in our day by the
discussion of these vital principles of social science, to even the
ground and lay the foundation-stones for the greatest wonder the world
is yet to see,--a man in whom the appetites, the passions, the
emotions are all held in allegiance to their rightful sovereign,
_Reason_. The true words and deeds of successive generations will
build up this glorified humanity, fairer than any Parian marble,
grander than any colossal sculpture of the East, more exalted than
spire or dome, boundless in capacity, in aspiration, limitless as
space.
[Illustration: Amelia B. Edwards (signed "Amelia B. Edwards")]
MY HOME LIFE.
BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS.
It has been suggested to me that an article descriptive of my ways and
doings at home might be acceptable to readers of this journal; and it
has furthermore been proposed that I should write the said article
myself. There is a straightforward simplicity of purpose about this
proposition which commends it to me. Also, it has the recommendation
of being quite novel.
As a rule, the person whose home life is to be made the subject of an
article is "interviewed" by a gentleman of the press, who
cross-examines the victim like an old Bailey counsel, and proceeds to
take an inventory of his furniture, like a bailiff.
Now, it seems to me that the conditions under which such a visit is
paid and received are radically unsatisfactory. The person interviewed
must be more or less uncomfortably self-conscious, and one cannot help
doubting whether the interviewer ever succeeds in seeing his subject
and his subject's surroundings in exactly their normal _dishabille_.
It would ask more than Roman virtue not to make the best of one's self
and one's house when both were sitting for a portrait; and difficult
as it is to look natural and feel natural in front of a photographer's
camera, it is ten times more trying _vis-a-vis_ of a reporter's
note-book. As for the temptation to "pose," whether consciously or
unconsciously, it must be well-nigh irresistible. For my own part, I
am but too certain that, instead of receiving such a visitor in my
ordinary working costume, and in a room littered with letters and
papers, I should have inevitably put on a more becoming gown, and have
"tidied up" the library, when the appointed day and hour arrived. Not,
however, being put to this test, I will do my best to present myself
literally "At Home," and in my habit as I live.
Westbury-on-Trym is a village in Gloucestershire separated from
Clifton by about a mile and a half of open down, and distant about
four miles from Bristol terminus. It lies in a hollow at the foot of
two steep hills, one of which is crowned with the woods of Blaise
Castle, and the other with a group of buildings consisting of the
parish church, a charming little Gothic structure known as "The Hall,"
and the national schoolhouse. The church is a fine perpendicular
edifice of considerable antiquity, with a square tower surmounted, in
true West of England style, by a small turret, having a tiny Gothic
spire at one corner. The parishioners are proud of their church, and
with justice. It contains some good stained-glass windows, two
interesting mediaeval monuments, and an exceptionally fine organ. "The
Hall" is quite modern, having been built and endowed, in 1867, by a
generous parishioner. The large room seats three hundred people, and
is fitted up with an organ as large and beautiful as that in the
church close by. Village concerts, penny readings, Lent lectures,
charity bazaars, and the like are held here. The building also
contains a reading-room and a small library for the use of the working
classes. My own first attempts at public reading were made on this
village platform, twenty years ago.
A little river flows through the valley, and is crossed by a single
bridge in the lower part of the village. This is the Trym,--an untidy
Trym enough, nowadays,--opaque, muddy, and little better than a ditch.
Yet it was a navigable river some centuries ago, and, according to
tradition, was not unknown to trout. On leaving the village, it takes
a southwesterly course through a pleasant bottom of meadow lands, and
thence between wooded slopes and a romantic "Coombe," much beloved of
artists, till it finally empties itself into the Avon, not far from
the mouth of that tidal river.
There are still some remains of a building at the foot of Westbury
Hill, which in olden times was second only in age and importance to
the church,--namely, "The College." This "College" was a religious
house, founded as far back as A.D. 798, and probably rebuilt some five
centuries later by that famous merchant and public benefactor, William
Canynge, of Bristol, who died there as Dean of the College, and was
buried in the church. Twenty-five years ago, when I first made its
acquaintance, this "College" (a large modernized building with corner
turrets) still presented a stately front to the road. At the back was
a square bell-tower covered from top to bottom with ivy, and a
spacious garden shut in by high walls. It was then a boy's school, and
the big garden used to echo with shouts and laughter on summer
evenings. The bell-tower is the most ancient part of the building, and
according to local tradition, a subterranean passage leads from the
cellarage in the basement to the church on the hillside above. The
story is likely enough to be correct; for a passage of some kind there
certainly is, and it leads apparently in the direction of the church.
A working-man who, with some three or four others, had once tried to
explore it, told me several years ago that, beyond the first few
yards, the tunnel was completely blocked, and the air so foul that it
put the lights out. Whether any subsequent attempt has been made to
force a passage, I do not know; but the whole place is sadly changed
since the time when I used to cast longing glances at the old green
tower from the lane that skirted the garden wall, wishing that I might
some day get permission to sit in a corner under a shady tree on the
other side of that wall, and sketch the tower. The school has long
since broken up for good, and boys and masters have gone their ways.
The old house, after standing vacant for years, was bought at last by
a little local builder, who ran up a row of smart shops in front of
the old turreted facade; let off the house itself in lodgings to poor
families; and re-sold the old bell-tower to the village blacksmith.
The garden wall being pulled down on that side, the tower now stands
at the end of a row of new cottages, forlorn and solitary in the midst
of alien surroundings, a forge and anvil in the basement.
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