Six-point railroad program — conditional federal support, receivership reform, ICC regulation of trucks and holding companies, consolidation

First: that the Government announce its intention to stand back of the railroads for a specified period, help of the Government being definitely conditioned upon acceptance by the railroads of such requirements as may in individual cases be found necessary to readjust top-heavy financial structures that are strangled half to death today, through appropriate scaling down of fixed charges.

Second: To aid in the rehabilitation of roads which are unable to meet the present unprecedented strain or which may succumb to past or future mismanagement, I propose a thorough overhauling of the Federal laws respecting railroad receiverships and indeed of all kinds of public utility receiverships.

Third: I advocate the regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission of competing motor carriers.

Fifth: After many long years of getting nowhere, the proposed consolidations of railroads, which are lawful and in the public interest, should be pressed to a conclusion.

Sixth: So-called "railroad holding companies" must be definitely put under the regulation and control of the Interstate Commerce Commission in like manner as railroads themselves

If elected, of course I shall continue the policy of trying to prevent receiverships. But I do not believe that it is more than a stop-gap just to lend money and more money.

I made it a cardinal point in my railroad address that the railroads should be freed from certain destructive competition and that the Government should undertake for a specified period to see the railroads through, provided they put their own houses in order.

Holding-company control, coordination and motor-carrier regulation were enacted; consolidation and receivership reform under the new administration were limited.