Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/137

Rh 7. “On 14 roads, covering 17,600 miles, we have been able to compare the Interstate Commerce Commission’s estimated cost of reproduction new with the railroads’ estimated cost of reproduction new, based on 1914 prices. We find that the carriers’ estimate is 19.3 per cent higher on an average than that of the Interstate Commerce Commission. I am of opinion that the carriers’ figures are conservative and that the roads could not have been built in 1914 for the carriers’ estimate, and under no stretch of the imagination could they have been built for the Interstate Commerce Commission’s estimated cost.

8. “I, therefore, feel that the Interstate Commerce Commission’s estimated cost of reproduction new (1914 prices) for all the railroads in the United States will, if completed, be approximately 10 per cent over the present recorded investment in road and equipment ($20,040,572,611, Dec. 31, 1919). To obtain the carriers’ estimated cost of reproduction new (1914 prices) there should be added 20 per cent, or a total of 32 per cent, giving 26.5 billion dollars, and these figures are too low rather than too high.

9. “As to the effect on the properties of the administration by the Federal Government it is very difficult to get any information from Governmental sources, the Director General especially declining even to give the names of the carriers who have filed claims.

“Of the 169 Class I roads, 82, representing 168,856 miles, or about 73 per cent of the road mileage of such roads, have filed claims against the Director General amounting to $696,958,428. This would seem to warrant the conclusion that the claims of all the railroads of the country against the Government, growing