. Electric railway journal . Fare a Mistake Interesting as these things are to the historian andto the economist, to the electric railway man they arevery serious in their import. They mean a long period*of high costs and high wages. The present situationall grows out of the mistake made in the days of streetrailway infancy, of setting a fixed fare, the nickel, toremain through all times to cling about the electricrailway mans neck and choke him as a veritable LittleOld Man of the Sea. When many of the long-term or perpetual franchisesunder which modern electric railways are operatingwere adop
. Electric railway journal . Fare a Mistake Interesting as these things are to the historian andto the economist, to the electric railway man they arevery serious in their import. They mean a long period*of high costs and high wages. The present situationall grows out of the mistake made in the days of streetrailway infancy, of setting a fixed fare, the nickel, toremain through all times to cling about the electricrailway mans neck and choke him as a veritable LittleOld Man of the Sea. When many of the long-term or perpetual franchisesunder which modern electric railways are operatingwere adopted, the electric railway, it has been pointedout, was no further developed, if indeed so far, as theaeroplane is to-day. Would the United States govern-ment to-day make a contract for aeroplane mail carry-ing, for instance, at a fixed rate to cover all futuretime or even for twenty-five years? Would any aero-plane company do it either? Even if such a contractwere fair when made, it could not always remainequitable to October 13, 1917] ELECTRIC RAILWAY JOURNAL 663 But the fact that the mistake of the fixed fare wasmade should not be allowed to hamper the future ofour communities. For that, after all, is what insistenceon a fixed fare would mean. Individuals come and go,and their fortunes are of little moment. But moderncities to be prosperous must have efficient public utili-ties. And without prosperity public utilities cannot beefficient. Anything done to the damage of the publicutility damages the community by the harm it does tothe public service. This is the big lesson to communities of the struggleof the electric railways to get out of the web of a fixedfare. Whether the 6-cent fare is the remedy for presenttroubles, or the zone system or a new form of publiccontrol for electric railways, such, for instance, as theTayler ordinance in Cleveland, or the conditions gov-erning railways in Milwaukee or in Kansas City, orwhether it be municipal or near-municipal ownership
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