Items of Interest November 8, 1913 Issue

Items of Interest

Government ownership of railroads as a remedy for high finance, low wages, and high rates, was brought forward in the discussion of railway physical valuation at the twenty-fifth annual convention of the National Association of Railway Commissioners at Washington, by Clifford Thorne of the Iowa commission. "Private ownership of American railroads," he said, "is costing us more than four hundred million dollars a year. The northeastern railroads are today asking for a 5 per cent increase in freight rates, amounting to approximately forty million dollars annually. This percentage applied to all railroads would total about one hundred million dollars. If it were possible to purchase the outstanding securities at market prices or at par, and issue 3 per cent bonds to get the money with which to do it, we would save enough money yearly to allow all this increase asked by the eastern roads, and to extend the same advance to all the other railroads, and then double that amount again, putting three times as much as they are asking for into better property, and then have one hundred million dollars to distribute in wages to labor every year. We could do this and not raise freight rates one penny. More than four fifths of the civilized nations of the world own and operate their railroads."

At the National Pan-Hellenic Congress, which has just closed in Chicago, and which was attended by nearly five hundred women representing many college sororities, the following important resolution in regard to high school societies was adopted: That no fraternity represented in the National Pan-Hellenic Congress bid a girl who has been a member of a so-called sorority or other secret or Greek-letter society of similar nature existing in a high school or other school of equivalent standing, whether such society exist openly or secretly. This ruling is to apply to a person who shall either accept or retain membership in such society after September, 1915. This action was the direct outcome of a paper read before the congress last year by John Calvin Hanna, principal of the high school at Oak Park, Ill., and is in line with the policy of Mrs. Ella Flagg Young. The congress, which was organized in 1902, by seven of the oldest national woman's fraternities, now represents eighteen nationals, with an aggregate membership of nearly fifty thousand women, whose chapters are located in eighty-seven colleges and universities.

The railway commission of California took decisive action recently on is long-projected scheme to compel every interurban electric road in the state to institute the block system in the interest of public safety. The Pacific Electric Railway Company, which operates about nine hundred and fifty miles of rapid-transit lines in southern California, was called upon to furnish the necessary data for the equipment of its entire system. A few of its lines now operate under the block system, but it is calculated that a perfect compliance with the commission's desires in the premises will entail an expenditure of about one million two hundred thousand dollars.

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