Public Ownership of Railroads Volume 63 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 Excerpt: ...$324,000,000. Of this increase approximately $120,000,000 was devoted to its railroad property and was expended for betterments and equipment This leaves the sum of $204,000,000, which was expended for operations outside of its railroad sphere. Through the expenditure of this sum this railroad system has practically monopolized the freight and passenger business in five of the States of the Union. It has acquired a monopoly of competing steamship lines and trolley systems in the section which it serves. The financial operations necessary for these acquisitions, and the losses which they have entailed, have been skillfully concealed by the juggling of money and securities from one subsidiary corporation to another. SIGNIFICANT INCIDENTS. "Marked features and significant incidents in the loose, extravagant, and improvident administration of the finances of the New Haven as shown in this investigation are the Boston & Maine despoilment; the iniquity of the Westchester acquisition; the double price paid for the Khode Island trolleys; the recklessness in the purchase of Connecticut and Massachusetts trolleys at prices exorbitantly in excess of their market value; the unwarranted expenditure of large amounts in "educating public opinion;" the disposition, without knowledge of the directors, of hundreds of thousands of dollars for influencing public sentiment; the habitual payment of unitemized vouchers without any clear specification of details; the confusing interrelation of the principal company and its subsidiaries and consequent complication of accounts; the practice of financial legerdemain in issuing large blocks of New Haven stock for notes of the New England Navigation Co., and manipulating these securities back and forth; fictitious sa...