Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1874-07-16

| "Hat w VIC S6I uOW iOT WuSA'
more than when we depended on 6
river market ?" but gives no answer
The facts are, wheat is now selling
from sixty to seventy-fve cents per
bushel more than it brought twenty.
five years ago. do not propose to
make a plea in behalf of railway cor
porations or attempt any justification
of the course often pursued by them,
well knowing that no branch of BUSH
ness is always conducted with an
eye single to the best interests OF all
directly and indirectly concerned.
There are abuses in steamnoating,
railroading, manufacturing, farming,
merchandising, and in oil other voca-
tons in which men engage, always
has been and always will be until
men are educated up to q higher
plane of moral excellence and benev-
olence than has ever yet been attain
ed.
Legislation furnishes no remedy
for all of these evils. Notwithstand-
ing the unfair exactions of railroad
corporations in many instances, it
must be admitted that they are the
most important work to the people
of the great Northwest that labor,
brains and capital combined has ever
wrought. The writer we'll remem-
bers when wheat sold from 80 to so
cents per bushel, oats ten cents, and
dressed pork at one dollar and
seventy-fve cents per hundred, fin
deed any market at all could be
found for these staples, aud yet they
were worth about the same prices on
the Atlantic coast as now, while the
prices here have more than doubled.
There is reason for all this, and it
can be found only in our increased
transportation facilities.
Lands have increased in value from
one dollar and twenty cents per acre
to fifty dollars per acre. One reason
for this is that the farmer who now
raises one thousand bushels Of wheat
gets from six hundred to seven humid
red dollars more for it now than then.
Goods are brought from the seaboard
at a mere nominal cost as compared
with the prices of years ago; the
fruits of the eastern and middle states
which then rotted on the ground, are
now gathered, packed, and laid down
at our very doors, of better quality
and cheaper than we can raise them in
our colder climate. The Injuries then
only known in one part of our country
are now common to all parts.
We can 90 to New York in forty
eight hours and to San Francisco in
five or six days, or from ocean to
ocean in week. Had some sagacious
person predicted these changes forty
years ago, he would have been ac-
counted a mailman. Surely the men
who construct our railways, build the
ponderous engine with its long train
of palaces and send them laundering
along our valleys, across broad rivers
and under mountains, play no mean
part in the drama of life. Almost in
credible as it may seem, there has
been engendered a feeling of bitter
ness and hostility to railway corpora
tons, as unprecedented, as unwarrant-
able. The result of this hostility has
been to almost entirely suspend rail-
road building, and to paralyze manu-.
featuring interests generally. Our
immense iron works and hundreds of
factories are standing still. Thousands
of men and women with strong hands
and willing hearts are out Of employ
ment, and their children suffering for
the most common necessaries of life.
A long continuation of this state of
affairs must raise the price of manu-
featured articles and lower the price of
our western produce. The result is
inevitable. A diversified industry is
one of the principal characteristics of
a civilized nation, and one of the most
marked distinctions between it and a
nation of savages. When these vari
Gus industries work harmoniously to,
gether, all prosper. When one wars
with another, both must suffer. 1t is
house divided against itself. 1t is
idle at this time to discuss the legality
or illegality of the Potter bill regulat-
ing or rather establishing railroad fares
and freights. We of this vicinity
know that it has raised our freights
about fifty per cent. This is one of
its practical results, and the whole
matter resolves itself into one of ex-
pediency or inexpediency. The wri--
ter does not pretend to know just
what railways cost on the average, or
the amount of expense incurred in
running them, or the exact amount
that should be paid for freight and
fare to make them q paying invest
ment, and is satisfied that the MAORI
ty of the Legislature which passed the
Potter bill did not know any more
about it than he does. The pressing
need of our time is men to make our
laws who can take comprehensive
view of things; and rising above all
party considerations and the dicta-
ton of factions, work in the interests
of a common humanity. ID.