National Republican., 1881-08-16
The Rnilrnnd Power.


The spokesmen of the big railroad cor
porations are given to praisng their em-
ployers for the grand system whereby
| through rates from Chicago to New York
and to San Francisco are so reasonable.
1t is conceded that the great buyers of
produce at Chicago and other shipping
points get cheap enough rates to either
seaboard But what about the rates
from the intermediate points to the great
centres? 1t was proven before n New
York legislative committee in 1870 that
the freight on barrel of -four from Mil
waukee TO New York city, passing
through the city of Rochester on the
New York Central Railroad, was less
than the freight on u barrel
taken on at Rochester and hauled
TO New York. Start two carloads of
goods from New York, one bound for
San Francisco and the other for station
in Nevada-fve hundred miles shorter
distance-on the same road, and the
freight for the latter would be more than
for the former in the proportion of eight
to five. That is to say three hun
dred dollars for thirty-three hundred
miles or eight hundred dollars for twenty
eight hundred miles. Freight from San
Francisco to Arizona over the Southern
Pacific of California is more than from
st. Louis or Cincinnati to Arizona by the
same route. lmagine from these rates
what chance the actual producers of
wheat, corn, and oats have on the rates
from their farms to the first market. OF
course there is no remedy. Ten men in
the United States coniiscate nine-tenths
of all the profits made by agricultural
and manufacturing industry. This they
do by arbitrarily demanding that share
rs the condition of allowing transporta-
ton over the great toll-roads which
they have been licensed to maintain.
But any attempt to compel them
to diminish their cxtortions might do
them injustice. Legislators cannot know
the laws of railroading. 1t fakes q rail-
road expert 20 adjust the balance cor
rectly, 50 a. to show that it is worth five
hundred dollars more to uncouple q car
and leave ii at q station than it is to haul
it five hundred miles further, over u
range of mountains mile high, to the
terminal point. The fixing Of rates is so
much matter Of grades and curves, bulk,
weight, and value of goods, value of SER
vices, fluctuations of business, and hun
dred other things, that only the bold
barons" themselves can measure their
customers pockets and extract al the
contents. 1t is because of these great diff
culties that the railroad problem has to
he solved by the railroad men themselves.
II is better that ten railroad kings should
seize uponall the profits of all industry and
the fair return upon capital invested
by others than that in an effort on the
part of all other citizens to retain n little,
any mistake should be made against the
cnterprising ten.
To insure "iustice" to themselves in
the matter of charges the greT railroad
corporations employ men 10 control poll
ties. They have an eye equally to the
conventions of each party, and, without
| the knowledge or consent of any consid-
cradle number Of the members of either
party, they manage to exercise great
power over the machinery of both. AS
the Republican party was organized by
the people to resist the encroachments
of the Slave Power, it should be the in
strumentality through which the people
should crush out the political tyranny
and check the hateful extortions of the
Railroad Power.