218 kosa: regulation of natural monopolies 



Railway accidents. Another line of work which deserves an 

 immense amount of investigation and study, and co-operation 

 between the states and the federal government, is the prevention 

 of railway accidents. Much has been done and is now being 

 done, both by federal and state agencies, and by the railway 

 companies; but far greater sums of money might well be expended 

 by the states and the federal government in a systematic investi- 

 gation of all phases of this question. It is nothing short of a 

 national disgrace that American railways should kill and injure 

 so many more people than do the railways of European countries, 

 even where the speeds are as high and the passenger traffic as 

 heavy. Life is too cheap with us, and the penalty for disasters 

 too shght. The causes of these accidents are partly physical 

 and partly psychological; no doubt greater attention given to the 

 subject of how to prevent both kinds of accidents would be abun- 

 dantly rewarded.^. 



Other subjects deserving research could be named that fall 

 within the province of the public service commission, but enough 

 has been said to show how important are their functions apart 

 from the duty of fixing rates and preventing discrimination. 

 These illustrations show how much better it is for the public as 

 well as the companies that the commissions regulate by co-operat- 

 ing with and assisting the companies instead merely of dictating 

 to them what they shall do or shall not do; that the scientist, the 

 engineer, and the statistician are more useful to them in their 

 work than the lawyer;, that the bar of public opinion is more 

 effective than the courts in enforcing their decrees. Many of 

 these utilities are operated by big corporations, owning scores of 

 plants in many states; in the case of the telephone and telegraph, 



* A recent writer states that 19,377 more persons were injured on railroads in 

 the United States in 1912 than in 1911, and commenting on the slight amount of 

 scientific information that has been collected regarding the causes of accidents, 

 he adds: 



"The railroads of this country carry so many passengers and so much freight 

 that in one year they are able to charge three billion dollars for the service. And 

 yet it is admitted that no accurate engineering data showing the actual stresses 

 which are set up in railway structures by locomotives and cars of different weights 

 and moving at different speeds has ever been gathered." 



