and, for those carrying suitcases, thentiresome wait at the luggage conveyorbelt.nHe can do it, furthermore, in anynkind of weather and at roughly half thencost of air travel.nConstructing new railway lines capablenof carrying trains traveling up ton185 miles per hour is, of course, annexpensive business. (Slightly less thanntwo million dollars per mile was thencost of building the Paris-Lyon line,nexpressed in 1989 dollar-franc currencynvalues.) But it is less expensive thannbuilding superhighways, which eat upntwice as much land.nIndeed, the experience of the pastnten years has shown how farsightednwere the rulers of France when, in then1970’s, they decided to modernize thenFrench railway system. It used to benaxiomatic that railway companies alwaysnlose on passenger traffic and onlynmake a profit transporting freight —nthe classic example in the UnitednStates being the Baltimore & OhionRailroad, mainly used for transportingncoal northward from the mines of WestnVirginia. But France’s TGV’s havenknocked the props out from under thisnassumption. By the end of 1984, justnthree years after the opening of thenParis-Lyon run, the TGV’s were alreadynshowing a profit. In nine years —nfrom 1981 to 1989 —the. number ofnpassengers using this line increasednfrom 12.2 million to 18 million pernannum, and the figure keeps rising.nThis is merely the beginning of anlong-term program that is to extendninto the next century and embracenother European countries. But alreadyntoday any Parisian who wants to cannreach Bordeaux (360 miles away) innjust under three hours, paying 290nfrancs (about 60 dollars) for a fare thatnon a plane would cost 640 francs (closento 130 dollars). And he or she can donso, furthermore, while comfortablynseated in a train that does not begin tonshake and rattle almost uncontrollablynas the speed approaches 80 miles pernhour, as happens on the antediluviannAmtrak trains that ply (plow would benan apter word) up and down ournEastern Seabord. Similady, four or fivenyears hence, it will be possible to reachnoften fog-bound Strasbourg, on thenRhine, in less than two hours, withoutnfear of being delayed by bad weather.nLast May, during a trial run on thennew line between Paris and Tours, anTGV hit a top speed of 321 miles pernhour, establishing a new world record,nahead of anything yet attained by thenGermans or the Japanese. But thenmost sensational and telling statistic hasncome from Brussels, where it has beennestimated that road congestion in thentwelve member countries of the EuropeannEconomic Community alreadyncosts them 3 percent of their grossninternational product: no less than 100nbillion ecus (about 140 billion dollars)nevery year. (To which might be addednanother 75 billion ecus — roughly 105nbillion dollars — for damage caused byntraffic accidents.)nIf I have run on at length about thisnproblem of fuel conservation, it is notnbecause I have any particular predilectionnfor nuclear power plants, passengerntrains, or state-controlled enterprises.nBut I do earnestiy believe that innthese two fields we have a great deal tonlearn from the French.nThe current mania for privatization,ntotal privatization and nothing but privatization,nis not necessarily an infalliblenpanacea for every economic ill, andnmay well turn out to be, like so manynother economic fads, just one morengrand illusion.nIf Jack Kennedy had been the trulyngreat, farsighted President so manynAmericans still fancy him to have been,nhe would have realized that a nationalnrailway board, geared to an ambitiousnprogram of modernization, was urgentlynneeded to pull our country’snantiquated railway system from thenmarshy bog into which it has beennallowed to sink. The two necessarynconditions for the successful operationnof high-speed trains are relatively flatnterrain (tunnels cost a lot to build andnforce engine drivers to slow down) andna high density of population. Bothnconditions exist along much of thenEastern Seabord of the United States,nwhere the dismal backwardness ofncommuter train systems — two to threentimes slower than the French and tenntimes less punctual — is, in the land ofnThomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt,na national disgrace.nHistorian and biographer Curtis Catenhas for many years been a resident ofnParis.nThe Retreat From MarriagenCauses and ConsequencesnEdited by Bryce ChristensennA provocative investigation of the unprecedentedndrop in the marriage rate in recent decades, thisntimely volume brings together papers andncommentary from a conference sponsored in May,n1989 by The Family Research Council and thenRockford Institute’s Center on the Family innAmerica. The third volume in the RockfordnInstitute’s Family in America Research Series,nthis book features articles and analysis fromnmore than a dozen prominent scholars including.nHerbert SmithnUniversity of PennsylvanianJack DouglasnUniversity of California,nSan DiegonJacqueline KasunnHumboldt UniversitynPaul VitznNew York UniversitynNerval GlennnUniversity of Tfexas at AustinnJustice Richard NeelynWest Virginia Supreme Courtnof AppealsnFor your copy, send $20.00 per paperback, $37.25 cloth, plusn$2.00 postage and handling (add .50* for each additional copy) to:nUniversity Press of America, Customer Servicen4720 Boston WaynLanham, MD 20706nnnMARCH 1991/49n