The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-09-24
CHEAP TRANSPORTATION.

The facts that Congress, at its recent
session, failed to take any practical action
| looking toward ''cheap transportation,
the approaching elections tor members of
the next Congress and, more than all, the
renewed statement that in some parts OF
the west they are burning corn for fuel
rouses, as it always does, the indig nalion
and impotence of the people at the failure
To realize Cheap transportation, for which
many believe the great railroad companies
to be responsible. 1t is very curious that
| corn and other breadstuffs can be diverted
by the wholesale from their primary benefi-
cent uses to the manufacture of spirituous
liquors without exciting thought Of pro-
test in the minds of those who are griev.
ously shocked by the fact that they are
consumed for warming churches, school
houses and private dwellings, for the sim
pie reason that they happen to furnish
cheaper fuel in certain localities than either
%ood or coal. This, surely, is not the
fault of the farmers who find themselves
so situated, who make the best of their cir.
cumstances without inflicting injury upon
| anybody else.
Nevertheless, while such Use of bread
stuffs is justfiable enough in emergencies,
being analogous to the throwing overheard
of cargo of corn to save vessel in
storm, yet in world where there are still
starving mouths and all the food produced
is needed for human sustenance and COM
f1rt, the habitual burning of corn as fuel
never can and never ought to be heard of
with indifference. In a country like ours
we may know that it implies something
wrong in management, and the first i'm
pulse toward investigation will naturally be
in the direction of our transportation sys-
tenn. 1t will be seen that bushel of corn,
starting at fifteen cents in value in some
parts of Iowa, for instance, reaches New
York enhanced 10 20 cents, Vermont to "a,
and New Hampshire 95 in other words, if
an Iowa farmer has five hundred bushels
of corn which he desires to send to the sea-
board, it will cost him about the home
value of four hundred of them to get the
other hundred to the purchaser. Whether
this is the best that can be done by our
railroad companies, can only be determined
by judicious experts in such matters. Such
companies ere not responsible for the i'm
mensc size of our country, nor, but to
limited degree, for the state of the markets
and for the main cost of their own man.
agement. The inquiry will be, whether
they are doing "a well as they can, and, if
not, what reform in the case is possible.
Just before the last session of Congress
was published, and it has recently been re-
published in pamphlet form-we wish that
we had the space to publish il IN full in our
columns-an argument on the subject from
the pen of Hon. Samuel Shellabarger,
man who has displayed considerable more
lhlnklng power than the average of our
congressmen-tha isn't saying much, to
be sure, but he is really an able man, able
in the true, real sense of the word. He
is decidedly of the opinion that Congress
has tie constitutional power to regulate
the compensation charged by trans.state
railroad companies for carrying freight or
passengers, and he seems TO think that
herein is TO be sought the remedy for the
state OF things now complained of. ''Do
you think, he saws, 'that when the con.
stitutlon commands that Congress shall
regulate commerce among the several
states 81 as to secure the common and
best interests of this entire people, as one
nation, that people will long stand by and
see tens of thousands of tLeir children
starving for bread at one end of huge and
voraclous monopoly, and those at the other
pelishing for the other necessities of life,
and all this because the railroads will not
| interchange, except at eXorbitant rates, the
commodities which are perlshing for want
OF consumers at the places of production ?"
We do not understand that Mr.. Shella.
barger claims that any such precedent ex-
lists for the exercise of such regulating
power on the part of Congress, or that the
Supreme Court has distinctly defined the
right, but that all the principles involving
it have been judicially laid down. We
have not the space to follow out his reason
ing, but it will yet command the attention
oflhe country, particularly If the conviction
Increases that the great railroads are at
fault for the present excessive cost of trans
| portation.
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More Indian raids and murders are Ie-
ported from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe