"The railways are certainly short of labor, but is it established that
all the officials are putting their very best efforts into the solution
of the present problems? The railways are now Government controlled
institutions and competition has diminished where it has not vanished.
It seems to be a question whether quite the same amount of thought and
work is being put into the efficient management of the companies as in
the days before the war when the lines were keenly competing against
each other. This question which has been raised of a slackening of
effort directly in consequence of the nationalization of the railways is
a serious one and evidently deserves inquiry.... The public is entitled
to know if the railways are now using what remains to them (of labor and
capital) with the utmost efficiency." Also the best authorities, and
even the government investigators themselves, are urging a speedy return
to private ownership and operation at the earliest possible moment after
the war. The same undercurrent of feeling, or rather conviction, is
rapidly spreading among our own people in the United States.

Mr. Hoover has expressed this same view in the most emphatic terms in
the course of an address to the special conference of Federal Food
Administrators held in Washington, D.C. on November 12, 1918. "It is my
belief," said Mr. Hoover, "that the tendency of all such legislation
except in war is to an over degree to strike at the roots of individual
initiative. We have secured its execution during the war as to the
willing co-operation of 95 per cent of the trades of the country, but
under peace conditions it would degenerate into an harassing blue law."

But the advocates of Socialism are especially active during the time of
uncertainty and confusion that necessarily follows the close of a great
world war. At such times, they always are. In the words of Mr.
Kahn,--"They possess the fervor of the prophet allied often to the