from 10,000 and 12,000 pounds up to 13,000, 14,000, and in some cases to as much as 18,000 pounds.

As soon as that movement was made public by our committee it was taken up by all the roads in the country, and every road that learned of it was desirous of at least emulating the Pennsylvania, and, if possible, going them one better, so we had all the roads of the country matched against one another, and the movement of package freight has been made in carloads, I might say safely, from 14,000 to 18,000 pounds, where formerly 8,000 to 10,000 pounds was the average.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kruttschnitt, let me ask you a question. Senator Newlands, on December 21, addressed Fairfax Harrison an inquiry covering, as I take it, the very points that are being developed by you. Are you familiar with the printed form of this reply to him?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Is not that substantially the facts that are being set forth by you in this pamphlet ?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. It practically covers all the points you are bringing out now?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Yes; that paper was prepared by us.

The CHAIRMAN. The reason I asked you that is this: That inasmuch as this pamphlet is available to the committee, unless it is desired to go into the details that are already set forth, we might conserve some time by letting each member of the committee acquaint himself with this in its printed form, if that is agreeable to you?

(The pamphlet referred to appears in the first day's proceedings.) Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Anything is agreeable to me, Mr. Chairman, that the committee wishes.

Senator WATSON. Take, for instance, the statement he just made. That statement is not in there at all. I am very familiar with the statement he made in regard to the intensive loading of cars, for instance, and I thought that it was a very illuminating and instructive statement.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I think one of the issues that may be in this bill before we get through with it is how long the life of the policy is to last, and one of the material questions involved in that is whether the railroads break down or whether they do not, whether they would be able and capable of carrying on the business of the country under normal conditions. I think now is a very good time to have all the information that we can get on that question, both for ourselves and for the country.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, I do not mean to suggest anything except that we want you to conserve as much time as possible, because we are all aware that the country at large is anxious for whatever relief may come, if it can come from the plan which is now being proposed, and it is for the purpose of expediting matters that I made the suggestion.

Senator KELLOGG. It will take but a few hours to present it, I think.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Mr. Kruttschnitt, let me ask you, while we pause I did not want to interrupt you while you were speaking.

I want to understand more clearly this question of the loading of cars. The minimum carload was fixed by whom?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. It is fixed by the carriers, with the approval of the commission, and is an element in their filed tariffs.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Well, now, what I want to know is, are they fixed by the commission as a matter of law, or fixed by the carriers as a matter of convenience?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. In the first place, it was fixed by the carriers and has been incorporated in their tariffs. After the commission took control that minimum could not be changed without their approval. In the first case, commercial practice and shipping conveniences determined what the minimum should be.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Then, if the minimum, as recognized and fixed by the commission, were 30,000 pounds to a car and a shipper offered you a car loaded with 30,000 pounds, you were compelled to take it and move the car?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Yes.

Senator UNDERWOOD. You could not force him to increase the load? Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. No. Of course, under our duties as carriers we would have to take a shipment from a shipper whether it was 10 pounds, 10,000 pounds, or 30,000 pounds. The only difference was that he paid the 100-pound rate up to the carload minimum. After that the paid the carload rate, which was less per 100 pounds, but we had to take the shipment no matter how few pounds or how many were in it, and if he tendered a car with the minimum carload and demanded the carload rate he had to have it, and, really, under the authority that we exercised we could not reduce that part of our expenses. The only way we got around that was by personal contact, by asking him to help us and help himself and help the country, to waive his rights, and put more in the car.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Now, if he tendered you a car with a carload of 30,000 pounds in the car did he pay the same price for moving that car as if he had loaded 60,000 pounds in it, or did you get a larger return for a 60,000-pound carload?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. We got a larger return, of course, at the carload minimum rate.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Will you explain that, please, so as to make it clear?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. If a man offered 10,000 pounds for shipment and put it in a car, under our duties as carriers, we had to take it, and it was taken at the rate per 100 pounds. If he had a minimum carload to ship, say, 30.000 pounds, we had to take it and move it, but he was given the carload rate, which was a less rate per 100 pounds than the less-than-carload rate. If by persuasion he put 60,000 pounds in the car, he paid twice as much as he did for 30,000 pounds and the road, of course, got the double revenue. There is no concealment made of that fact. We told him that it was to our advantage, of course, to get more load in a car.

Senator ROBINSON. But you also moved more commodities?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. We also moved more commodities, and it was to his advantage, because he was helping to make the facilities go farther than they otherwise would, and he was helping the country by doing the same thing, by conserving and using in the most economical and efficient manner the transportation facilities that were

available and which, under the present circumstances, really can not be increased.

Senator UNDERWOOD. Now, let me ask you another question along that line, to get the balance in my mind. How much does the average modern freight car weigh, unloaded? Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Well, say take a box car? Senator UNDERWOOD. I mean a box car.

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. The highest type of box car is one that carries 110,000 pounds. It weighs, empty, from 42,000 to about 46,000 pounds, depending on the details of construction.

Senator UNDERWOOD. That 42,000 pounds had to be pulled by the engine, and it took that much engine power, whether it was loaded with 100,000 pounds or 10,000 pounds, and therefore when a small load was placed in the box car you lost that much engine power for transportation?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Quite right; that is the proportion of paying on live load to dead load. It was small with the small load, and as you increased the load in the car, the proportion of the live load to dead load increased very rapidly, and I would say, incidentally, that the American Railway Association has a committee engaged at present on that very subject-that is, to design the best possible box car of ample strength, with minimum weight, because, as you very pertinently show by your question, any unnecessary dead weight pulled around, whether the car be empty or loaded, consumes power, money, and effort.

Senator UNDERWOOD. That was all. I just wanted the record to show that.

Senator MCLEAN. You put in a statement showing a large increase in tonnage moved by the American carriers in 1917, over that of previous years, and you compared that with the tonnage moved by the nations of Europe. Have you made any comparison of the rate per ton-mile charged by the American carriers to that of the European carriers?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Yes. Here is a statement that I prepared seven or eight years ago, and which I brought up to date just before coming here, that covers the question you ask. I will point out the answer to the question on this diagram, and then I will leave it with the stenographer. Here are the earnings of the European roads, the average gross earnings per ton-mile of freight in cents. In the United Kingdom it was 24 cents, and that is used as the basis figure of 100 for comparative purposes. In Germany it was 1.37 cents, or 60 per cent of the United Kingdom; in France it was 1.3 cents, or 57 per cent of the United Kingdom; in Switzerland it was 2 cents, or 111 per cent of the British rate, and in the United States it was 0.71 cents, or only 31 per cent of the British rate. That, I think, answers the question. I will leave this with the stenographer.

(The diagram referred to is printed in full on page 260.)

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Well, continuing to describe the activities of our committee, one of the most useful things we accomplished was to coordinate exportations. The congestion on the Atlantic seaboard is due largely to unintelligent overloading of the roads that carry freight to the Atlantic seaboard. Perhaps overloading is not a sufficiently illuminating term. It means overtaxing the capacity of

terminal yards and terminal facilities. Our committee called a meeting of the chairman of our commission on car service, a special representative of our committee, together with representatives of the United States Army, Navy, Shipping Board, Food Administration, the British minister of shipping, and the traffic representative of the allied Governments. These gentlemen were those who were

shipping freight in the largest quantities over the railroads. We got them to agree to sit on a coordinating committee on exportations, the object being to prevent the movement of freight to the Atlantic, Gulf, or Pacific seaboard unless there were ships there to accommodate the freight. The ships, as described yesterday, had been driven from the oceans by the German submarines. Those that were

not frightened were in use by Great Britain and her allies in transporting troops, and there were very few ships left in which to ship freight, and the coordinating committee did a vast amount of good in preventing the movement of freight, so far as they could do it, to the seaboards before there were bottoms there ready to take it.

Senator WATSON. In that connection what, if anything, did you do with reference to diverting the traffic from New York to southern ports?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. About a month or six weeks ago, at the time this congestion of the trunk lines first became evident, we took up with the Food Administrator the diversion of 3,500 carloads of freight that were then waiting, principally at St. Paul and Minneapolis, laden with flour and grain, from this congested area to the Gulf coast ports. Our records show that the elevators at the Gulf ports were practically empty; that New Orleans, Galveston, and Mobile had very large elevator capacity that was not used at all. Mr. Hoover took the matter up at once and ordered these 3,500 cars diverted from New York and Baltimore down to the Gulf ports, where there was ample room to handle them, and relieved the situation very, very greatly, and that he has continued to do ever since. The CHAIRMAN. You would have had no power to have done that if there had not been the power granted in the food administration bill for Mr. Hoover to give you the order?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. Quite right. We never could have done it. Mr. Hoover, with the strong arm of the Government behind him, could do it could order it. All we could do was to ask, and the consignees would comply or not, as their interests dictated.

Senator POMERENE. You could have done that under the agreement authorizing you to direct the freight, could you not?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. No.

Senator POMERENE. As I understood you, you had a car service committee connected with your war board, and that it directed the movement of these cars?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. No; we had no right to disregard the routing right of the shipper. That was a right given him by the commission, and we had to respect it, and the only way in which we could disregard it was by his consent; and afterwards, when this congestion got so bad in the eastern territory that no freight could be moved, we then simply assumed the right of sending the freight, regardless of routing, over any road that could carry it to its destination. That, however, was a temporary measure taken to relieve the congestion on the trunk lines.

Senator POMERENE. Do I understand that your instructions, then, with reference to the movement of cars, applied to empties rather than to loaded cars?

Mr. KRUTTSCHNITT. The control over the empty cars was absolute, because no relations with the shipper were involved in moving empty cars; but when the car had something belonging to a shipper in it, and he wanted it to go, say, by the Baltimore & Ohio to Baltimore, we could not say that instead of going that way, we are going to divert it, we were going to send it by the New York Central to New York or to Boston.