Transport: Eastman Report

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Last week was Report Week in Washington. There was the report of the Federal Aviation Commission (see below). There was Postmaster General Farley's report on "What It Cost the Army to Fly the Mail." And there was the report of Federal Transportation Coordinator Joseph Bartlett Eastman. Of them all, the Eastman report was the most comprehensive, the most likely to furnish material for legislation at this session of Congress.

Backed to the hilt by President Roosevelt, Coordinator Eastman proposed to transform U. S. transportation into an integrated national industry by the following methods:

1) Put all carriers on an even competitive footing by authorizing strict and impartial Interstate Commerce Commission regulation of railroads, buses, ships, trucks, airlines, pipelines.

2) Expand the ICC from 11 to 16 members.

3) Put in charge a single commissioner to be known as Federal Coordinator of Transportation.

4) Provide pensions for aged railway workers, cash compensation for men dismissed because of reorganizations and consolidations.

5) Improve statutory procedure for reorganizing bankrupt railroads.

6) Amend the Interstate Commerce Act to make it more efficient.

To accomplish his ends Coordinator Eastman offered three alternative solutions: 1) Government cooperation; 2) Government compulsion; 3) Government operation. Because of its potentialities for evil as well as good, he would postpone consideration of Government operation for the present. Compulsion he regards as neither desirable nor feasible. His choice: general co-operation between Government and private carriers, a slow but sure method the success of which depends largely on the attitude of railroad managements, and their willingness to change present railroad practice.