The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., May 01, 1925, Page 6, Image 6

Page Six
THE UNITED AMERICAN
has been evolved under the state and government owner­
ship plans in vogue in Europe.
Let us take a trip on any one of the old country
railroads, for instance, and let us note carefully how
every concern for public service has become subservient
to the system of forms and uniforms, straightlaced and
haughty, which is nothing short of being an obsession
among those in the service — tools of a system that
perpetuates itself.
Autocracy! Gold-braided, the public-be-damned
autocracy! — a ghost that continues to stalk through
every old country — that is the very nature which
characterizes the service given the public by every
government owned and operated public utility in the
old world.
And you find this complexion stamped a plenty on
every phase of the public ownership service in every
little two-by-four country in Europe from which ema­
nates so much of the troublesome propaganda we have
with us today and which is chiefly directed against
America’s political institutions and its free and demo­
cratic business system. It is not difficult to find the
lofty purpose for this propaganda. It is inspired with
the idea of saddling onto this country every well
developed grief of autocratic and proletarian tinkering
and feudalism that is rampant back there. That is
the only way in which a basis for dissatisfaction against
the American form of government 'can be established
within our country, iand the agitators are working
through many channels to destroy the faith and con­
fidence that is common among the people of America
—a condition that it is necessary to bring about in any
country where the ultimate object is general revolt.
♦
♦
Waste and extravagance in the management of
the governmental machinery has loaded a tax-burden
on the individual citizen of Europe that is keeping even
the individual workingman in a state of slavery, pay­
ing from seven to twenty precent of his gross earnings
of every kind, with few and insignificant exemptions.
Talk to any European traveling in this country. Ask
him how he likes America, and t|en to one, if he is not
a propagandist, he will commence telling you about
the wonderful service and courtesy he has met with
on the American railway lines, everywhere. He is a
good judge, because he has been impressed with some­
thing new in public service, something he regretfully
will tell you is sadly lacking in the travel system of
the common carriers in Europe. He marvels at the
accuracy and ease with which everything works over
here, the handling of the baggage, the checking system
which enables him to travel from the Atlantic to the
Pacific with stop-over privileges, changing from one
railway line to another, yet finds that his baggage has
arrived simultaneously, or is sure to be in on any one of
the trains following. If he checks it out a little ahead
of time he knows that he can step off the train at
his destination, after two or three days of travel, and
go to the baggage room in the depot where he lands,
present his claim checks and, well, there is the trunk,
the handbags and whatever he checked. Marvelous!
And he has not had to supervise the matter and follow
his baggage, handle it himself, or worry all the way lest
MAY 1925
something miscarried, and no one able to tell him just
why the dilemma. If he has plenty of money, sure, he
will tell you, he can get some attention and extra
service from the paid government railroad crew, over
there, but he will readily admit that they do not dis­
play any compunction at the sight of the traveler’s dis­
comfiture and that only a piece of coin is likely to make
them hustle and show signs of taking definite action
in a search for the passenger’s straying baggage,
which probably through carelessness has been dumped
off at some little way-station.
*
♦
♦
Another, thing in connection with public ownership
that is likely to attract our attention over on the other
side, is not particularly conducive to starting any one of
us arguing for introducing the pattern over here.
Go into any one of the main offices of a public
utility, under government ownership, in any of the old
countries and if you are a simple commoner and not
a man of airy demeanor — they can read your connec­
tions a long way off—you will have your patience
tested and tried lengthwise and sidewise before you are
given any service, and if you show any signs of im­
patience they will take that out of your system, too,
before they get through with you.
By this time you will be apt to appreciate some of
the everyday phases of public service in the privately
owned and operated competitive utilities back in Amer­
ica, which you more than likely had overlooked until
you were treated to a mild dose of government utility
service in the country where you were reared.
And to whom will you complain? Bless your soul,
the “head” is too high of station to be bothered with
Such trifles as the outraged feelings of just a com­
mon scrub who is in no position to give the supervising
autocrat any worries.
Well, they have been trained in the school of died-
in-the-wool autocracy over there, and unless you belong
to the various casts and classes of preference, then you
are just a common nobody, that’s all. You see, you have
no legitimate rights over there, except in name only,
and so, they just dish out to you a grain of what’s com'
ing to you and try to make you feel sort of tickled pink
that they noticed you at all. That benign stuff, you
know, has been a great help to the upper crust, over
there, to keep the commoners in check.
♦
♦
*
In the democracy of America, you might say, we
don’t have any autocracy to contend with, so there
is no need to worry, over here, lest government owner'
ship might tend to destroy the margin of service which
we now enjoy under private ownership of America’s
public utilities.
Lest we have forgotten and are unable to recall our
experiences with government control and operation of
public utilities during the recent war, the argument
might sound reasonable enough when we bring forth
our childlike faith in the infalability of our democracy,
believing it always capable of working its magic spell
on “the other fellow”, though we practice little of its
principles and precepts ourselves.
The echoes are still reverberating on the air how the
average American citizen, accustomed to courtesies and
attention by the employees of the privately controlled
Place Your Orders With The United American Advertisers—and Tell Them Why