— 75 — 



voluntarily take the car that weighs twenty-two tons and haul any 

 given commodity in it when we can take one that weighs ten or twelve 

 tons. 



Mr. Berwick: You speak of the drop in the bucket which your com- 

 pany can do for the fruit growers' assistance. We would like to know 

 what is the size of that drop in the bucket which you can afford us. 



Mr. Curtis: That is a matter which your committee will represent 

 to our people, and which, as Mr. Smurr has said, they will consider 

 fairly and impartially. The railroad people will be glad to "reason 

 together" with you and get at what we can do. Faster time in ven- 

 tilated cars at existing rates seems most to be what is required. 

 Undoubtedly the fact is that the fruit growers are suffering. It is also 

 true that the railroad is in the same condition. We have gone down 

 and down and down in our rates, and our gross earnings have been 

 going steadily away from us and have left us on this year's business to 

 date over a million dollars short of the necessary earnings to pay our 

 necessary expenses. 



Mr. Weinstock: I understand that the cost of traffic per ton per 

 mile as presented by the Interstate Commerce Commission is nine 

 tenths of one cent. That would be, calculating ten tons to the car, at 

 the rate of $180 per carload, would it not? 



Mr. Curtis: The lowest they figure is at nine tenths of a cent. Well, 

 as I was saying, the average rate on the California orchard and vineyard 

 products runs along at about actual cost for operating expenses. The 

 operating expenses cover the cost of maintaining the road, of operating 

 the trains, of conducting the transportation, and do not cover in any- 

 thing for the payment of taxes, interest upon the bonded debt, and other 

 necessary and legitimate expenses. We are accustomed to hearing the 

 railroads denounced for not paying their taxes. In connection with 

 this ever-heard question, I have taken occasion to look up and see how 

 much in taxes we have paid into the treasury of the State of California 

 since 1880, when the fruit industry became a factor in transportation, 

 and I found that the lines operated by the Southern Pacific Company 

 had paid in that time over $8,000,000. I found further, that during 

 that period our railroad earnings from the transportation of green and 

 dried fruits out of California, hauling them through Nevada, Utah, 

 Arizona, and New Mexico, to the point of delivery to our connections, 

 was in round numbers something less than $7,400,000. We have paid 

 more in taxes than you gentlemen have paid us for hauling your fruit 

 out of California. This may have no particular bearing on this question, 

 but it is a fact of interest. Our rate per ton per mile, I find further, 

 upon these characteristic staple productions of California, are as low 

 as the Pennsylvania Company carries nails from Pittsburg to 

 Philadelphia. It is as low per ton per mile as cotton, the great staple 

 product of the South, is carried from New Orleans and Memphis to 

 Baltimore and New York. The Southern Pacific freight rates are 

 now less than half what they were on its general business twenty 

 years ago, yet the volume of tonnage per mile of road has increased 

 barely 10 per cent in that time. By way of contrast it may be 

 interesting to note that the Pennsylvania Central road, which stands at 

 the head of the great low-rate, large-earning railroad properties of 

 America, carried four times as much tonnage per mile of road as we now 

 carry before its rates were lowered to the present Southern Pacific aver- 



