Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-02-23
e Three EpOchs OF Railroads.

The life of man has seven stages,
says Shakespeare. Railroads have
three epochs. These epochs are well
defined; they are complete, each in
itself; their chronological order is
never varied.
The first. is the formative period, or
it may be so called. The people of a
section of country want a railroad
Everybody wants it. There is no divi-
sion of sentiment. Public meetings are
held and the enthusiasm is only sur
passed by the unanimity of sentiment.
Every variety of local aid is voted !:
town bonds, farm mortgages, stock sub
scriptions are issued, and the right of
way is freely given across the most
valuable farms and through cities. No
sacrifice is too great for the purpose of
securing the road. Eternal friendship
is pledged to its interests the COM
pany, the corporation, the "monopo-
ly'', is regarded as an unseen but be-
nigent power, like that blessed Provi-
dence which sends refreshing rains and
sunshine, which brings seed-time and
harvest, and which beautifes and re-
froehone tho oarth with tho dow of til O
morning
The second epoch is like the first. 1t
is the construction epoch. The road is
being built. Gangs of hands are dig
ging and grading over long lines of
roadway. Town sites are being select
ed. The country villages begin to bris-
tie with activity and life, as the road
points towards them, with a prospect
that they will be reached in few
months, or in a year or two. The
whole country, from where the line
starts to its terminus, shows signs of
prosperity. Money is paid out in every
direction for labor, for teams, for pro-
visions and other supplies, for ties and
for everything which enters into the
construction of the toad. Especially,
the price of land advances. Farms in
crease 40 or SO per cent. in value, or
their value is doubled. Farmers pre-
pare to put in big crops, as they will
find a market for produce at their
doors, or at the depot few miles away,
instead of hauling grain and wool one
or two days distance at a cost nearly
or quite equal to the sum for which
the load will be sold. The road is at
length completed. The rejoicing is
general. Public meetings of congratu-
lation is held. The first train through
is welcomed as an army of de-
liverance is welcomed by a people in
bondage. Everybody feels good. 1t is
true, also, that everybody's expectation
as TO the benefit of the road are re-
allied. A good and steady market is
provided for produce, at which farmers
get the same prices for grain which
they were previously paid at lake,
canal or river point fifty or eighty miles
away. They buy necessary goods as
cheap as they could do in the great
cities, instead OF paying half as much
again owing to the cost of transporta
ton. The people can go and come on
the cars more cheaply than they could
previously ride with their own teams,
incidents. All the advantages of the
railroads are appreciated and its value
admitted.
The third epoch then slowly emerges;
its early progress is slow; it then APP
proaches with accelerated speed. The
public first suggests to itself, then half
begins to think, then is persuaded that
it has paid out too dear for its whistle.
The public learns that the road is not
run for its exclusive benefit, but that
the company also expects to make
money out of it. The discovery is
made that the railroad is not a purely
philanthropic enterprise. Payday for
the bonds and mortgages approaches.
The boundless benefits. including in
creased values, steady markets, means
of rapid communication, the prospect
ty of the country, have become season
ed and thread-bare facts; they have
lost their novelty; they are old; they
seem as if they had Away been, like
the beauties of nature. Then a hos
tile feeling arises. People who had
formerly ridden by stage coach
at the rate of sixty miles day,
and paid from six to ten cents mile,
complain that the railroads, which run
600 miles in twenty-four hours, do not
make fast enough time, and that four
cents mile is extortion. Those who
used to drawwheat forty miles to market
and sell it for fifty cents bushel, COM
plain of the cost of transportation,
though they sell their wheat for dol
lar bushel, at distance of
forty rods from their granaries.
Complaint is made that the railroad
officers gave passes and free rides, and
everybody who cannot get one becomes
an enemy of the railroad for that rea-
co., tn fbo ord hostile orders ora