who make day hideous on the stock exchanges,
would be abrogated, as then there would be neither railway share nor
bond for these harpies to make shuttlecocks of, and this would be
another economy due to such ownership.

Railways spend enormous sums in advertising, the most of which
national ownership would save, as it would be no more necessary to
advertise the advantages of any particular line than it is to
advertise the advantages of any given mail route. From reports made by
railway corporations to some of the Western States, it appears that
something over one per cent. of operating expenses are absorbed in
advertising, aggregating something like $7,000,000 per year, of which
we may assume that but $5,000,000 would be saved, as it would still be
desirable to advertise train departures and arrivals.

A still greater expense is involved in the maintenance of freight and
passenger offices off the respective lines, for the purpose of
securing a portion of the competitive traffic. In this way vast sums
are expended in the payment of rents, and the salaries of hordes of
agents, solicitors, clerks, etc., etc. Taking the known expenditures,
for this purpose, of a given mileage, it is estimated that the
aggregate is not less than $15,000,000 yearly, all of which is a tax
upon the public, that would be saved did the government operate the
railways.

Under government control, discriminations against localities would
cease, whereas now localities are discriminated against because
managers are interested in real estate elsewhere, or are interested in
diverting traffic in certain directions; again, under corporate
management, it is for the interest of the company to haul a commodity
as far as possible over its own lines (with the government owning all
the lines this motive will lose its force), and thus traffic is forced
into unnatural channels. For instance: much of the grain from Kansas
should find its way to foreign markets via the short route to the
Gulf, the distance to tide water by this route being less than half
what it is to the Atlantic, yet so opposed to this natural route are
the interests of the majority of the corporations controlling the
traffic associations, which now dictate to the people what routes
their traffic shall take, that the rates to the Gulf are kept so high
as to force the traffic to the Lakes and to the Atlantic; and as all
the railways leading to the Gulf have lines running eastward, the much
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