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The Springfield Republican says that “the proposal, embodied in the and insisted upon by the railroads if they must put up with new legislation, is to make the United States courts the larger factor in applying public control of rates.” Continuing, the editor says:

“Does this proposal grow out of a sincere belief that a federal judge is more competent fairly. to pass upon what are and what are not reasonable rates, than a commission giving its whole time to the subject: or does it rest upon the impression that the federal judges will prove more amenable to the railroad influence and interest? It certainly cannot be founded on a belief in the superior competency of men who are giving their attention chiefly to questions wholly foreign to those of railroad rates. There is no sense whatever in the view that federal judges are infallible, while every other tribunal of government, is subject to the limitations of human nature.”

It may well be that the alleged railroad proposal does not rest on either one of the two suggested theories. Other things being equal, it is obvious that a commission devoting its time to rate-making would be more competent than one engaged a part of the time in law questions connected with non-railroad matters; but other things are not equal. The first qualification in a man who is to decide a rate question, or any other public controversy, is an impartial mind; but the Interstate Commerce Commission has been accused—and not alone by railroad men—at being conspicuously deficient in this respect. This accusation may have been aimed more particularly at one or two commissioners; but if the other three or four are so complaisant as to be nonentities, the defect is the same as though it existed in every member. A railroad officer who desires to make a judge lean toward the railroad side of a case is wrong-minded; but in his efforts in that direction he has, just now, the co-operation of many right-minded persons; for many such believe that the judge in question—i.e., the commission—leans too far away from the railroad side. It is not necessary to assume that the judges of the Federal courts are looked upon as infallible, in order to explain the sentiment of railroad people in their favor. They are all fallible men. But insofar as infallibility can be imparted from without, the people of this and other enlightened countries have endeavored to impart it to the judges of their higher courts; while in the case of the Interstate Commerce Commission one of the most important of such outside measures—life tenure of office—has been omitted. The appointing power has also almost invariably ignored railroad experience, which is another grave defect. The commissioners may “give their whole time to the subject”; but that may be insufficient. In other matters of similar importance we usually try to find men who have given their whole lives to the subject.

In the discussion by the Western Railway Club of the necessary qualities for a successful fireman, brains were properly given precedence over muscle. The man capable of shoveling the largest amount of coal into the firebox with the least degree of physical exhaustion may be, even on the largest locomotive, a much inferior fireman to the less muscular man who “uses his head” in his work, It was related of one master mechanic that he held great physical strength in firemen at a discount, giving as a reason that the weaker men were not so apt to put too much coal into the firebox. That the man who has a knowledge of combustion, and of the principles of the machine he is firing, will have a distinct advantage over the one who, though excelling him in brute strength, lacks this knowledge, needs no argument. Yet, it has been said by men who are in a position to know, that a large percentage of enginemen, as well as firemen throughout the country, lack the knowledge of fuel and of what occurs within the fire-box that is essential to intelligent firing. The paper of Mr. Pratt, printed this week, expresses the belief that the time will soon come when leading railroads will demand a knowledge of combustion and the theory of firing, and will examine applicants on these subjects before employing them. Already, some roads employ fuel inspectors, whose duties include the instruction of the firemen in regard to fuel and its economical combustion. With the knowledge that the cost of the fuel forms 30 to 40 per cent. of the cost of running the engine, the importance of the saving in expense possible from a reduction of wasteful firing will be the more fully appreciated. Or, to quote Mr. F. P. Roesch’s original remark on this point, the place to begin saving coal is “at the wooden end of the scoop,” rather than in refinements of design, mechanical appliances, etc. It is noticeable that there was almost no reference to automatic stokers in the discussion, although the contention was made that there are simple labor-saving devices, such as fire-door openers, the use of which is a very material help to the fireman enabling him to fire to better advantage, and which should therefore be helpful in relieving present conditions.

In view of the tremendous gains of recent years in the economy with which freight is moved, it is noteworthy that in handling passenger traffic the tendency has been the other way. Magnificent terminal stations, luxurious trains and fast schedules, once viewed as extraordinary inducements, have come to be demanded as a matter of course, so that they have less and less of the advertising value which has been claimed for them. This is particularly true in heavy suburban traffic, where congestion at the terminal and extremely low commutation fares leave a very narrow margin of profit over cost; a margin so small that terminal enlargements in great cities, to permit of increased suburban service, are often undertaken rather on account of the building up of the territory, with the resultant long haul traffic, than in the hope of making better net profits from the suburban business itself.

The last meeting of the New York Railroad Club, an account of which was printed in the, was devoted to the consideration of two radical methods of increasing the net profits of passenger business, one of these methods, electrification, finding its field where traffic is very dense and the other rail motor cars, where