Well, it appears that there is some argument that DDT may not be universal in prevention of malaria, but if it was only 25 per cent effective, that's still 12.5 million humans that would not have died from it. Additionally, though there is an argument that it is not universally effective, there is not any evidence presented that states it is actually harmful, so why not use it? The use of DDT in third world nations was effectively banned by the prohibitions in the US and Europe through lack of production, trade issues, and political implications. Interestingly enough, we get back to Detroit in the one article that discusses whacko Carson's treatment of the Japanese beetle infestation of Detroit and lower Michigan.

Very good reading material.

Wayne, you are so right about ivory tower folks of both parties who haven't a clue. I would disagree with your assertion about the Tea Party folks - most of them I've met are people who do manual labor, manage businesses, raise their families, perform skilled work like masonry, carpentry, electrical, painting, and have actually had to make a payroll for either themselves or their employees. They are, in large part, the people who do turn the crank of society. Perhaps this is why they have little use for the establishments of either party (count me in there - the progressive wing of the GOP can take a hike - that means you, Mike Castle, Lindsey Grahamnesty, and John McCain). Interestingly enough, primary challengers have been a wonderful way to give some politicians a bit of a spine.

There is a discussion of progressives, especially Teddy Roosevelt, in the Conquering Gotham book in a previous post and how the ICC made political hay out of a bribery scam by car distributors on the Pennsy during the period. Very interesting, indeed.

Thanks,
Mike

What he said...

I wish there was a way to add a comment to another's post or at least mark "like" similar to FaceBook on here (and TrainOrders if you are reading this, Todd Clark).

OK Mike, I'm with you on these points completely, but I'm not in tune with the conclusions you draw from them.

My conclusion is that based on adverse conditions that are now present - not in 1776, 1929 or 1980 - can to a large extent be blamed (if blamed is the right word, probably more like "explained by") the very limited scope of the purpose of business as it has been since well before the Jamestowne landing.

Why shouldn't - given our modern understanding of the need to not adversely affect our neighbors and communities while pursuing our business activities - we expect businesses to police themselves and make long term plans and structure themselves accordingly? We're seeing a very limited and fascile amount of it done for PR purposes now which is a nice exercise in ironic economics.

When removing a mountaintop and filling in a valley compromises the quality of the drinking water I get from the river basin involved, mining regualtion becomes my business. When enough of my neighbors buy more house tha they can afford and it compromises the banking system I'm invested in to the extent that it is in danger of failing and eliminating my propery in the process, it becomes my business to regulate lending. When a business builds an unsafe dam which collapses and wipes Johnstown PA off the map - well, not my business in this case, but it damn well should have been Johnstown's (no pun intended).

If business is going to continue to make messes and refute the reponsibilities of cleaning up after itself, compromise the economic system of my country, put the health and welfare of myself and my neighbors at risk and expect to be able to do it with impunity based on an obsolete understanding of the organic connectedness of things, and the comprehension that the right to act doesn't mean it IS right to act, and that rights confer responsibilities to use them responsibly, we need to reconsider how business works and make responsible citizenship as imperative as the quarterly bottom line. It is the only hope for the continuance of a "free market" basis for business sustainable in the long run, and the only cure for the requirement of regulation.

Regulation is a cure almost as nasty as the disease since it isn't done well. It does leave open a lot of opportunity for abuse and becomes itself resistant to the constant necessary alteration to make regulation do what it needs to do as conditions change. that's why I'd much rather see business police itself than have regulation imposed on it - it can react very quickly without political interference with rational action. It is, however, that remedy available to us now for business abuses.

Being profitable and responsible are not mutually exclusive. The cost of responsibility makes for a competitive disadvantage until all business changes to level the playing field. As consumers and investors, we can drive it or not, and if not, accept the unfortunate necessity of regulation as a natural response.

dave

But, when anybody in the business community can "win" by bending/breaking the rules, soon everybody else will follow, or face tremendous competitive pressures. I wish all businesses were rational too. If everybody was rational, the business of government would be much smaller and simpler--but we can't blame government for trying (imperfectly) to deal with the abuses brought on by unscrupulous individuals or businesses. It only takes one bad apple.....

Until such a utopian time that rational thought pervades the nation, it is incumbent upon every citizen of this country to hold business to account and to prevent poorly designed regulation from creating more problems that it was designed to solve. No point in whining if you're not willing to get your hands dirty in the sausage factory of legislation.

Michael Seitz
Missoula MT

It has been interesting following the movement afoot in Vermont to strip corporations of their rights of "personhood." It's a step...

Another interesting read today... of the 10 states losing the most "smarts" (equated as the amount of college grads per captia) only one - Michigan - is a rust belt state. The rest are western. That runs afoul of the conventional wisdom that all the "smart kids" are leaving the industrial cities for sunny lands. The opposite seems to be true.

Could it be that the seeds are being planted for a rust belt revitalization? Could the younger generation of preservationists and historians be the leading edge of a movement to reclaim some of our lost territory?

I can tell you this, of the most passionate coal/steel/railroad preservationists I have met in the past decade, at least 75% are under 30. I wouldn't expect this group to rest upon another generation's laurels. And, interestingly, they are pretty much a-political.

Rob

Like I was saying history has showed that when business was unregulated things got out of hand and the working man was screwed.

AMEN! A very simple truth that has been lost. I want to cry when I hear my middle-class brothers bemoan the unions and praise removal of all regulation. Hello? Your middle class lifestyle wont exist anymore. Think you will become one of the elite? Think again.

I've spent my time lately reading up on my favorite topics of railroad/steel/coal history in eastern PA - but not nuts and bolts stuff - stories of worker organization and the fight for regulations to provide what we think of today as "the way it is." Friends, we are only 120 years or so removed from very different times for workers.

Time to go listen to some Utah Phillips before this thread gets locked.

Rob

If we're going to engage in this level of hyperbole and sound-bite, I will counter with the obvious:

History has also shown that when business is too tightly regulated, you get the Penn Central and the need for Conrail.

"To be merely useless is perhaps the highest eulogy which can ever justly be bestowed upon a regulated company." -- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book 5



The problem here is fairly simple, disregarding that there's a measure of exaggeration in Brother Laepple's blanket statement: Capitalism has made it more beneficial for those that "can do" to stay in business; and the political environment has made the voting public crave "experience" with the "political system" in those for whom they vote, which far too often means spending an entire career being groomed by a political machine to become a lifetime incumbent rather than have practical work experience. Congress's approval levels have sunk to record lows, but between gerrymandering and people who just vote the way their preacher or boss tells them to or just vote for the only familiar names on the ballot (familiar because of news coverage), incumbents stand no realistic competition unless they eat puppies and babies live with hot sauce on live TV.

And when actual alternatives are proposed--John Anderson in 1980, Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, Ralph Nader, the Green Party, the Libertarians, the "tea party" movement--they are mocked (rightly or wrongly) as "lunatic fringe," "populist," etc. by their political opposition, which is basically the two wings of the Incumbent Party protecting their self-interests of political power.

All of us have to acknowledge two fundamental truths: a minimum of government is necessary for the protection of society as a whole and not every aspect of government is by default "socialistic"; and people will work far harder for their own personal advancement and enrichment than that of the common wealth, and thus capitalism as an economic force, though not perfect, is better than the alternatives and not, by definition, unfettered evil.


Having said that, I usually come here to get the hell away from politics.

[quote="Newriver400"] Credentials mean NOTHING without applicable experience! ... How many Supreme Court rulings on constitutionally significant issues have you read? [/quote]

How many have you addressed in briefs and oral arguments to state or federal courts?

[quote="Newriver400"] I am a reasonably intelligent person with good logic and reasoning skills. Why do I need someone else to tell me what to think about original source material that I have read to find out how we are in this mess today? [/quote]

I didn't tell you what to think; I pointed out that without citations to authorities your alleged statements of law are meaningless. As to your qualifications to render a legal opinion, let alone have one, you've fully answered my question.

My limited intellect has forced me to read a good number of the posts in this thread multiple times in an effort to comprehend fully the posters intent.

With that qualifier may I say that IMHO this remains the most blessed nation on todays earth and all things considered the # 1 choice of where the vast majority of the 6 plus billion people on the planet given a choice, would choose to call home!!

I marvel and give thanks daily that by luck of birthright I was born an American and struggle daily to somehow show my gratitude for that good fortune.

America IS that shinning star on the hill that gives the less fortunate the hope to carry on, and we as a nation can do anything we set our minds to.

Ross Rowland

"The long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision -- not of where we're going, but where we want to go." - Utah Phillips

I would offer that most of us who frequent this board, are in some way (large or small) contributing to the long memory. If anything, that may be the common thread of all who are interested with preservation.

If we are fortunate and the details are accounted for, that memory includes many shades of gray.

Rob


Rob

"Freedom is a state much prized within the realm of civilized society. It is a bond wherewith the savage man may charm the outward hatchments of his soul, and soothe the troubled breast into a magnitude of quiet. It is most precious as a blessed balm, the saviour of princes, the harbinger of happiness, yea, the very stuff and pith of all we hold most dear. What frees the prisoner in his lonely cell, chained within the bondage of rude walls, far from the owl of Thebes? What fires and stirs the woodcock in his springe or wakes the drowsy apricot betides? What goddess doth the storm toss'd mariner offer her most tempestuous prayers to? Freedom! Freedom! FREEDOM!!!"

"It's only a bloody parking offence...."

There is an insipid lie that has been broadcast to the American public from tube, mouse, pulpit and podium so frequently that it has become an unshakeable earworm. It takes many forms, but it leads one to believe that in a world devoid of regulation most Americans would live the life of John Galt. The verboten truth is that most of us would live the life of John Henry.

The great strawmen in the discussion of railroad regulation history are the demise of Penn Central and the repeals of the Staggers Act. These are extreme cases that – rightfully, in my opinion – forced a change in regulation, but they are not representative of all regulations, many of which helped advance both railroading and the career choice of being a railroader.

The gray areas are much more difficult to argue, and get far less attention as they derail the arguments of those with agendas. They soften, or even mute, the earworms.

Should we sacrifice the Hours of Service laws? The Railroad Safety Appliance Act? In the days before these – and other - regulations, railroads like the Wheeling & Lake Erie were as well known for the amount of workers killed as the tons of commodities hauled. If you are among the slim percentage of John Galt-types, maybe you pine for those days. If you are among the John Henry workers, I’d think not.

A line has to be drawn before the earworms push us to give away advances that were long fought for and hard-earned. In many ways we are a spoiled group. None of us were shot at by mine militia. None of us were involved in bloody battles at Pullman or on the Dix Street bridge. Our forefathers (and mothers) fought those battles for us, to make our lives better. I am loathe to give that up for the fantasy that by doing so I will become John Galt.

We don’t hear the story of the worker often enough. Every railroad museum with a piece of post Safety-Act rolling stock has a de facto display of automatic couplers. How few are interpreted for the regulation that required them? What about regulated hand grab placement? These are regulations that changed railroading FOR THE BETTER. Are they interpreted for the general public? Rarely… there are stunning exceptions, but they are - by far - exceptions. Why are we afraid to tell of advances and regulations earned by working people? They should be our pride, not our shame. 99.9% of us have much more in common with Henry than Galt.

Here here.

Yes, but.............

The railroad industry of the 19th century is not the railroad industry of the 21st century.

The work standards and conditions of the 19th and 20th century are not those of the 21st century.

The labor unions of the 19th and early 20th century are not those of the 21st century.

And the business world of then isn't the business environment of today. Ignore that last sentence at your (considerable) peril.

Nobody in the mid-20th century, except maybe John G. Kneiling, envisioned satellite-guided signaling and train-control systems, or short lines run by cell phone, or instantaneous tracking of your load anywhere on the continent via a transmitter, or hauling garbage by rail.

Far too often, the railroad industry has been stuck arguing over the size of the coal scoops to be issued to firemen after the diesels have overrun the industry. Often, that's a result of government regulation (and, at times, unions, and at times, management ineptitude). Advocating for regulatory reform does not necessarily mean one wants a "Galt" existence (or, for that matter, a nationalized rail network), any more than advocating for modest reform of the current health care situation in the United States means you advocate a government-run/dictated "nationalized health service."