Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1913 — RIPLEY SEES CRISIS AHEAD [ARTICLE]

RIPLEY SEES CRISIS AHEAD

President of Santa Fe Railroad Declares That Congress Is Dangerously Radical. Chicago.—E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fe railroad, is distrustful of the country’s political future. He has no downright fear that thfi United States is heading for disaster; thq, tendency may be checked in time to prevent a catastrophe. There are certain signs which make him hopeful that the headlong course will be stopped, but he is far from sure. The house and the senate, in his view, are dangerously radical. The one compensating factor in Washington is that which is relative to the railroads. He believes that the Interstate Railroad Commission is less perilous than it was, say, a year ago. Mr. Ripley returned from California yesterday and went direct to his home in Riverside. The president of the Santa Fe is gradually recovering from an acute attack of indigestion, which occurred seven weeks ago in Cali;fornla. _■ ■ ’ ~ : “I suppose I have unwittingly acquired the reputation of being a pessimist,” said Mr. Ripley. “1 am perfectly conscious of not agreeing with the majority of people who elect legislators, but long experience as a railroad man and as an observer of political tendencies impels me to say that the United States of today, in its\ genpolitical aspect, that la to Bay, in its political trend, is not at air what the, founders of this country intended.”