Motor Trucks and Freight Congestion (Continued)

France, and Germany for perhaps thirty or forty years. It was abandoned in Baltimore by order of the Inter-State Commerce Commission in 1913-probably because it savored of monopoly. As far as we are able to determine, however, there is no lack of evidence as to the practicability of the plan; it is advisable from an economical standpoint, if not indeed a necessity, if we are to have efficient transportation throughout the country.

The scope of usefulness of the horse has diminished rapidly with the development of modern motor trucks for highway transportation and the utilization of the gas engine and tractors for field work. But because of the lack of familiarity with trucks and the value of the different sized units, comparatively few people to-day think in straight lines on the subject. We know the facts concerning railways. Railway officials differentiate between locomotives used for freight or for passenger service. Let us consider for a minute our highways and the units operating upon them, which we must know before we can attempt to co-ordinate railway and steamship transportation with highway transportation.

Our highway units, practically speaking, are the one-horse and two-horse vehicles, and motor-driven vehicles from one-halfton to ten-ton capacity. A horse cannot average over sixteen miles a day, and it costs about $1,500 a year to maintain a

single horse and wagon. This includes stabling, feeding, and depreciation.

When we employ motor trucks, the mileage immediately advances. There are a number of trucks in operation averaging 125 miles per day (eight-hour day). Such mileage is possible only when the load is delivered at a single point and does not permit of many stops. The average onehalf-ton truck used for delivery work covers from thirty-five to fifty miles daily, and, all things considered, it costs in the neighborhood of $2.000 per year to maintain. With the heavier units, as their load increases their mileage, as a rule, decreases, but, like any other machine, their economy lies in the cost-per-unit-of-work-done, as compared with other units in like use. If heavy trucks are kept standing in front of platforms waiting for loads the major portion of the day, they cannot be economical; if they are delayed continually in congested streets and are made to accept the pace set for them by horses dragging heavy loads, they cannot be economical; if the railway company is obliged to use its terminals as warehouses for at least twenty-four to fortyeight hours for every piece of freight that comes to it (allowing for the notification of the consignee), congestion immediately results. It is also most uneconomical to move goods into the warehouse and then nove them out again a day or two later at the pleasure of the consignee.

If the consignee must depend upon slow

moving drayage to seek out and move his consignment, he cannot help himself, for he cannot use trucks efficiently. He cannot help the railway company; he cannot relieve the terminal of its congestion. The terminal cannot unload its freight cars; the freight yard cannot be relieved of the congestion of freight cars in which goods are thus perforce stored; and, as a result, there is a great shortage of cars, with its attendant serious evils. Munition factories and factories working on Government orders are handicapped for lack of fuel and materials. Ships are held waiting on railway delivery to complete their cargoes, and our armies "Over There" suffer. The entire economic machinery of the country is thus thrown out of gear.

The chaos and confusion of highway transportation can, and must be, relieved; it can be done through systematic organization. When this is done, it will go a long way toward relieving freight congestion. The Federal authorities could do it, but it would be a great job for them to undertake at this time when they are so pressed with the consideration of other matters. Civic associations of business men could take it up, and a number of them are already doing so. Each is in a position to study the problems presented by its own city, and in so doing can help every one concerned, from shipper to consumer or soldier. Give the shipper cars, reduce the enormous terminal costs chargeable to warehousing and handling, reduce the delivery cost to the consignee, relieve highway congestion in our business districts, and serve consumer or soldier more promptly.

Trucks are the answer-trucks of suitable size for the particular work in hand; trucks of good construction and known reliability, operated in fleets from the terminal platforms, each truck covering a specific route. Routes would not be duplicated or overlapped. Less-than-car-load and car-load freight could be largely delivered directly from the freight car to the truck on whose route the consignee was located; each truck would thus be insured a full load a large percentage of the time, and would be kept in efficient operation.

Co-ordinate routes and systematize express delivery lines equipped with trucks; stop the duplication of routes, the hauling of partial loads, and put the delivery and collection of all goods to or from any terminal under the direction of a single delivery or drayage company-owned and controlled by the Merchants' Association or by the municipality itself-prorating the thus reduced cost of delivery to the various merchants on a per ton or per unit mile basis.

The truck routes should be mapped out by traffic experts. They should be arranged on schedules similar to railway train schedules. Traffic regulations should be adjusted so that the streets and highways might be cleared for the passage of the truck trains. Trucks of suitable size should be carefully selected for different phases of delivery work. Large shipments might be taken from the railways by heavy trucks to central distributing points, and then the individual consignments might be delivered by light one-half-ton or one-ton trucks. A multitude of problems would have to be worked out by experts, but if such a plan were finally evolved it would result in very great benefits to the community, the railways, and the country. The municipality which sucessfully evolves such a plan of local distribution of freight will not only advance its own interests but will perform a patriotic service of no slight value.

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS

on

DUE

On page 498 of your magazine of March 27, 1918, you quote from Rheta Childe Dorr's book "Inside the Russian Revolution" the remark about the "great American author Miller," of whose works the Czarina of Russia was so fond. At the end of the article you say: "We leave it to our readers to decide who among the many American writers named Miller is the author so admired."

I do not now remember the source of my information, but as far back as twelve or fifteen years ago it was my understanding that the Presbyterian Board of Publication had a standing order to send to the Czarina of Russia any books published by the Rev. J. R. Miller, D. D., who was editor of the Sunday-school publications of the Presbyterian Church and a Philadelphia pastor. CHARLES B. MITCHELL.

Miami, Oklahoma.

FREEDOM AND TEACHING

I

A great many people must be feeling under great obligation to Dr. Abbott for his Knoll Paper" on "Have Teachers Special Privileges?" in the issue of March 27.

In all the unsatisfactory discussion of this matter that exposition of the question is most clear and convincing. It agrees so completely with what the common people generally feel, I think, when they send their boys and girls away to college.

"The professor should be free, as long as he remains a professor, to teach what he believes to be the truth in his department. But it is the duty of his superior authorities to determine whether they will give the financial and moral support of the university to his teaching."

The enunciation of that principle carries conviction, and, furthermore, furnishes a basis for pronounced satisfaction to a great many. W. G. MALLETT.

Farmington, Maine.

II

In an article in The Outlook for April 3 it is said that "No New England college had yet (1860?) learned that the object of education is to enable the pupils to do their own thinking."

May I enter a "caveat" for Brown, the third New England college and seventh pre-Revolutionary college, founded in 1764? The charter itself breathes the free spirit of the twentieth century rather than that of the eighteenth. The preamble speaks of the proposed institution as one "to which the youth may freely resort for Education in the vernacular and learned Languages and in the Liberal Arts and Sciences."

Though started by Morgan Edwards, then pastor of my own church in Philadelphia (the First Baptist Church), and promoted by other Baptists who could easily have made the Corporation consist entirely of Baptists, yet so liberal was the college that it provided that the Episcopalians, the Quakers, and the Congregationalists should be represented perpetually by fourteen of the thirty-six on the Board of Trustees, and four of the twelve Fellows could be ❝ of any or all denominations." Since the Unitarian schism we have always had both orthodox Congregationalists and Unitarian Congregationalists in the Corporation. The President was the only officer of the teaching staff whose theological belief was prescribed. I am now the oldest member of the Corporation both in age and service. Next June I shall complete my forty-fifth

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year of service. Yet in all these many years I have never heard any discussion in the Corporation of a member's religious views except when an election to a vacancy made it necessary.

Again, the charter says: "Into this liberal and Catholic Institution shall never be admitted any religious Tests. But on the contrary [to emphasize this point] all the Members hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute and uninterrupted Liberty of Conscience."

Moreover, in an age when theology entirely dominated teaching and the sciences were looked at askance it was provided "that the public Teaching shall in general respect the Sciences: and that the Sectarian Differences of Opinion shall not make any Part of the public and classical Instruction; Although all religious Controversies may be studied freely, Examined and Explained by the President, Professors and Tutors in a personal, separate and distinct Manner to the youth of any or each Denomination."

This last exemption from the study of sectarian theology-the body of Baptist doctrines, it will be observed, was not exempted from the prohibition-was a wholly novel idea. Harvard and Yale, the only New England colleges then existing, both required the study of Congregational theology of every student. The charter of Brown expressly prohibited such study as a part of the curriculum (see especially Dexter's "Yale Biographies and Annals" and his "Memorials of Eminent Yale

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Men" for the theological requirements of Yale). This broad liberality in providing for non-Baptists on the Corporation, in prohibiting the holding of any sectarian religious views as a qualification or a disability in any members of the Faculty (beyond the general restrictions to Protestants), and in prohibiting sectarian teaching to all students, is an outstanding contribution to liberal Christianity by Brown.

To emphasize also the introduction of the sciences into the curriculum, the very next member elected to the Faculty after the President was Daniel Howell, as Professor of Natural Philosophy, and his immediate successors were Joseph Brown and Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse.

Among its students also Brown lived up to its promises of freedom of conscience. At a time when the Jews were often "baited," the Corporation, on September 6, 1770, voted "that the children of Jews may be admitted to this Institution, and entirely enjoy the freedom of their religion without any constraint or imposition whatever." In 1774 the Seventh-Day Baptists were exempted from the law requiring attendance at church on Sunday. The Quakers also were exempted from the regulation which prohibited students from wearing their hats within the college walls.

With such examples in charter, laws, and customs, could there have been any greater encouragement to "the pupils to do their own thinking"?

As a student in residence, as undergrad

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Freedom and Teaching (Continued) uate from 1855-60, I can bear testimony that "to do our own thinking" was the constant exhortation of such men as Wayland, Lincoln, Harkness, Chace, Gammell, Hill, and others, and as a member of the Corporation I have the best of reasons to believe that the remarkably liberal spirit of 1764 still pervades both Faculty and students. W. W. KEEN.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

NOT TO BE HELPLESS

BY LEWIS E. THEISS

When Johnny comes marching home again,he may have to ride in the ambulance. The Surgeon-General, the Red Cross, and other agencies are preparing to take care of Johnny if he does come that way. The Federal Board for Vocational Training has recently reported to the Senate and asked for $10,000,000 for its work.

In rehabilitating our crippled soldiers curative treatment will first be given. Next each subject will be fitted out with those wonderful new artificial legs, or arms, or fingers, which enable their possessors to accomplish such remarkable things. Then, if an injured man cannot follow his pre-war calling, he will be re-educated, fitted for something he can do. And, finally, he will be given a job.

And there is the crucial point in the entire plan the job. What can a cripple do in industry, and who will employ him?

Those are questions that must be answered before Johnny comes home. And that means that American business and industry must be combed to find the answer. But who is going to do the combing?

The Pennsylvania State Department of Labor and Industry, with a spirit as fine as that of ancient Isaiah's, has answered, "Here am I. Send me." And has led the way for other commonwealths. For it has already begun a systematic canvass of the State's employers.

Two questionnaires have been sent out. The first asks Pennsylvania employers to indicate the number and kinds of positions in their plants where crippled men can be advantageously employed. Thirty-eight types of disability are specified in this questionnaire, covering practically every conceivable type of disfigurement. The answers to this questionnaire will provide the Pennsylvania authorities with a complete card index of the State's industries, showing how crippled men can be successfully employed. The second questionnaire requests employers to indicate positions in their plants now held by disabled workers. That will provide a practical census of the disabled at work in the State.

The letter explaining the questionnaire and the questionnaire itself are printed on one form, which can be easily handled. When returned, these forms can be filed as a card index. They will be classified by the State Bureau of Employment, which will thus be in position immediately to place any rehabilitated cripple seeking work.

As Samson secured honey from the carcass of the lion after his struggle with the beast, so we shall derive many benefits from the awful war we are now engaged in. Not the least of these benefits will be the altered situation of the cripple. Never again will crippling entail relegation to the scrapheap. And just as the Johnny who dies to save democracy shall not have lived in vain, so the man who comes home in the ambulance will have served all cripples for the time.