Besides adding to the database of economics examination questions, this post provides us with additional biographical information for the railroad and municipal utility expert, Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus Hugo Richard Meyer (1866-1923). He was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago in 1903-05.
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From a review of Meyer’s book,
Government Regulations of Railway Rates
Hugo Richard Meyer is a native of Cincinnati, O., and is now 39 years of age. He attended the pubic schools of that city in early childhood and in 1877 he was taken by his parents to Germany, where he remained five years. From Germany, his father returned to America and made his home in Denver, Colo., where in the high school young Meyer prepared for Harvard college, from which he was graduated in 1892. Afterward he attended Harvard Graduate school five years.
Prof. Meyer’s usefulness began as an instructor of political economy in Harvard, serving from 1897 until 1903. In 1903 he was one of three commissioners appointed by the Governor to investigate and report on the wisdom of amending the laws of Massachusetts, governing the exercise of the right of eminent domain by cities in public improvement. In 1903, he wrote a series of leaflets on the subject of municipal ownership, taking the side of private ownership. Mr. Meyer began the study of economics with a prejudice in favor of socialism, but came out in a strong belief of individualism. He has studied socialism in Australia and the operation of municipal ownership in Great Britain. He especially has paid attention to the government regulation of railroad rates in the United States, Germany, France, Austria Hungary, Russia and Australia. In his book, Government Regulation of Railway Rates [a study of the experience of the United States, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Australia] , he gives a comparative study of the experiece of public regulation of railway rates in countries where he has been.
In addition to this book, Mr. Meyer has two other works in preparation. One deals with municipal ownership in Great Britain [followed by The British State Telegraphs (1907) and Public Ownership and the Telephone in Great Britain (1907)] and the other with state socialism in Australia. Mr. Meyer has written also articles on the regulation of railway rates in Europe, and an article entitled, “Rate Making by Government,” which were published respectively in 1903 and 1905.
Mr. Meyer came into national prominence in May last, when he appeared before the Senate sub-committee of interstate commerce and gave his views on the question of rate making by government. It was the clearest statement given by any witness on either side of this great question. He presented an array of facts that no other witness had summoned, and when he left the chair it was the judgment of all that he had been the most impressive witness that had appeared before the committee.
Source: The Topeka Daily Herald, October 14, 1905, p. 8.
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Course Description
Economic 5
1902-1903
- 1hf. Railways and other Public Works. under Public and Corporate Management. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 1.30. Mr. Meyer.
This course reviews the history and working of different modes of dealing with transportation, and deals with the questions of street railways, gas, and electric light supply.
The manner in which Germany [Municipal Ownership in Germany. Journal of Political Economy, (1906), 14(9), 553–567.], France [The Breakdown of State Railway Building in France. Journal of Political Economy (1906), 14(7), 450–453.], and Russia have regulated railway rates, either by exercising control over private corporations, or by assuming public ownership and operation, will be studied with special reference to the effect of such regulation upon the elasticity of railway rates and the ability of the railways to develop trade and industry. In this connection will be studied the part played by the railways and by the waterways in the development of the leading industries of Germany, France, and Russia; as well as the question why Germany, France, and Russia are obliged to have recourse to the waterways for the performance of services that in the United States are rendered by the railways.
The attempts of the railways of the United States to regulate railway rates through pools will be compared with the attempts of the several states and of the federal government to regulate rates through legislation and through commissions. Typical decisions of pools, of state commissions, and of the Interstate Commerce Commission will be studied for the purpose of ascertaining whether those decisions are founded on a body of principles that may be said to have the character of a science, or whether they express merely the judgment of administrative officers on questions of fact to which no body of scientific principles can be made to apply. In conclusion, the question whether railway rates should be regulated through pools or through legislation and commissions will be discussed by means of a comparison of the experience of the European countries, the United States under the régime of regulation by pools, and the United States under the régime of regulation by state and federal legislation and by commissions.
The problem of the public ownership and operation of the railways will be discussed under the following heads: the difficulties experienced by Prussia, France, Italy, Russia, and the Australian Colonies, in making the railway budget fit into the state budget; the problem of a large body of civil servants in a self-governing community, as illustrated in the experience of the Australian Colonies.
The question of the regulation and control of private corporations operating street railways, gas, and electric light plants will be studied by means of a review of the experience of Massachusetts, which exercises control by means of legislation and commissions; and the experience of Great Britain, which exercises control by means of legislation, and, in many instances, supplements that control by the policy of municipal ownership.
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Enrollment
Economics 5
1902-1903
Economics 5. 1hf. Mr. Meyer. — Railways and other Public Works under Public and Corporate Management.
Total 60: 1 Gr., 30 Se., 14 Ju., 5 So., 1 Fr., 9 Others.
Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.
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ECONOMICS 5
Mid-year Examination
1902-1903
Give one hour to question 1
- If the Act to Regulate Commerce has been enacted at the close of the Civil War, and if it had been interpreted and enforced in the spirit in which the Interstate Commerce Commission has interpreted it, what, in your opinion, would have been the effect upon the development of the resources of the United States; and what would be the present position of affairs as to local discriminations and personal discriminations? Indicate briefly the facts upon which you base your opinion, but do not recite the details of those facts.
- If you were asked to ascertain with what efficiency and reasonableness of charges the railways of a country were serving that country, what information should you seek to obtain?
- What facts, and what statistics should you use, were you asked to discuss the question whether the “basing-point” system concentrates trade and population?
- Among the dicta of the Interstate Commerce Commission is this one, that the railways have no right to drive out of business the vessels upon the rivers. Discuss the soundness of this dictum, basing your discussion upon the experience of several countries.
- The Northern Pacific Railroad Co. charges 65 cents per 100 Ibs. for carrying Pacific slope sugar from the Pacific slope to St. Paul. That charge is fixed by the lake and rail route which carries Atlantic sea-board sugar from the Atlantic sea-board to St. Paul. The N. P. R. Co. charges 97 cents per 100 lbs. for carrying sugar from the Pacific slope to Fargo, which is 240 miles west of St. Paul, on the direct line between the Pacific slope and St. Paul. It also charges 32 cents per 100 lbs. for carrying sugar from St. Paul to Fargo.
The distance from New York to St. Paul is 1373 miles; from San Francisco to St. Paul, 2300 miles. The charge of 97 cents from San Francisco to Fargo is reasonable per se.
The San Francisco output of refined sugar is 140,000 tons to 150,000 a year; and of that output, between 30,000 tons and 40,000 are sold to St. Paul, the balance being sold to points upon the Pacific slope and points in the mountain districts between the Pacific slope and St. Paul.
M. Raworth, a wholesale grocer at Fargo, complains that the rates charged by the N. P. R. Co. are in violation of Clause 4 of the Act to Regulate Commerce.
What, in your opinion, would be (1) the decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission; (2) the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States?
Base your opinion upon decisions made respectively by the Commission and the Supreme Court. - State the conditions under which the Interstate Commerce Commission said that certain cuts in the rates on “grain for export” were “a gratuitous gift to the foreigner”; and criticize the reasoning with which the Commission sought to support its position.
- When it was suggested in England that the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas be constituted a railway tribunal, Lord Campbell, afterward Lord Chancellor, in behalf of his associates declined the responsibility, saying: “This is not a code which the judges can interpret, it leaves them altogether to exercise their discretion as to what they may deem reasonable. They are, besides, to form a just judgment on all matters of complaint relating to railway management that may come before them, and they are to lay down a code of regulation for the government of railway companies. The judges, himself among the number, feel themselves incompetent to decide on these matters. He had spent a good part of his life in studying the laws of his country, but, he confessed, he was wholly unacquainted with railway management, as well as the transit of goods by boat. He knew not how to determine what is a reasonable rate…”
What judicial opinion does this quotation recall to your mind; and what is the significance of that opinion? - A recent Siberian Census revealed the fac that there were large and fertile regions in Siberia in which the farmers cultivated, on an average, sixteen acres of land. The farmers in question had emigrated from European Russia in the seventies. What do you presume to be the reasons for that state of affairs?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).
Also included in: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).
Image Source: A newspaper sketch of Hugo Richard Meyer from 1905 reproduced in Wikimedia Commons.