The head of the second biggest savings bank in the U. S. summoned reporters to the White & Gold room in Manhattan's Plaza Hotel one evening last week. He was Walter Harper Bennett, president of Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. His news was that the much-discussed committee of citizens to study railroad problems (TIME, Sept. 19) was at last complete. Head of the committee is Citizen Calvin Coolidge, from the directorate of New York Life. Said Mr. Bennett to reporters: "The country as a whole has a great deal of confidence in Mr. Coolidge. ... I believe him to be a level-headed gentleman." Other committee members: Alfred Emanuel Smith, Bernard Mannes Baruch, Alexander Legge, Clark Howell Sr. (publisher of the Atlanta Constitution).
Prime-movers for the committee were savings banks, insurance companies and Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Chicago universities. Their joint letter of invitation to the committee members said: "The present financial position of the railroads of the United States is a matter of grave concern. . . . Only wise and timely Federal aid has averted the financial break-down of important systems. This situation touches every citizen. . . . The relief that the present emergency has made it necessary to grant to the railroads is a drain on the Federal Treasury and any ultimate loss will constitute a burden on every taxpayer. The present deplorable position of the railroads is not due wholly to stagnation of traffic. . . . Many of the present ills are due to governmental, financial, labor and management policies, some wrong in conception, some wrong in application, and others rendered obsolete by radically changed conditions. . . . No solution, however, will be effective unless the problem of the railroads is considered an integral part of the entire transportation problem of the United States, whether by rail, highway, waterway, pipeline or air.
"We beg that you examine all phases of the problem and recommend a solution which, with due regard for the public interest, will insure an opportunity for the railroads of this country to operate on a business basis. . . ."
Although the committee members were silent on their plans last week, it was thought a meeting would be called in a few days, a staff of experts organized to find and arrange data. No quick cure-all was expected but any legislative changes the committee proposes seem certain of enactment, so potent is the committee's personnel.
Tarnished Plate. Just half a century ago the first train ran over the rails of the Nickel Plate (New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad). The Nickel Plate is now a system of some 1,600 mi. The main part of the road consists of two great arcs, one curving between Buffalo and Chicago, the other between Detroit and St. Louis. An important branch runs to Peoria. Last year it carried 36,551.000 tons of freight, collected $36,551.000 in gross revenue.
The line was bought by New York Central in 1885. Legend is that when Commodore Vanderbilt first heard the asking price, he bellowed, "I would not pay that if the tracks were nickel plated." In 1916 control of the road was bought by Cleveland's hustling Van Sweringen Brothers. It was their first road and is today a key link in their railroad empire. Serving a rich territory, it prospered. In 1929 it borrowed $20,000,000 in three-year notes, using the proceeds to buy 53% of Wheeling