The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1882-01-12
THE GREAT CORPORATIONS.
Their Benefit In Developing tho Country.
From the Milwaukee Sunday Talepranh

1
From the Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph.
BY contrasting the situation of the great
northwest now with what it was thirty
years ago, We can imagine what it would
still have been but for the railroads which
have been built across it in all directions.
Thirty years ago the population of the
northwest was clustered around the lake
ports and on the margins of the rivers. The
scattering settlers in the interior lived in
the poorest primitive manner. If they
raised little surplus in the way of crops,
the cost of getting it to market exceeded it's
total value. A farmer living ir one of the
interior counties would take from two to
four days to get a wagon load of wheat, of
thirty bushels; or 1900 pounds, to market,
and half that length Of time to return to his
home, and his expenses on the road both
ways, and while transacting the little bust
ness involved in it's sale. left him but
! little or nothing out of the price
| for which he sold his wheat. The lakes
which We're the only outlet for the produce
| Of the West, were closed five months in a
| year, and during that time there was liter
| ally no market at all for grain. Every pur-
suit of industry and trade sympathized with
the depression in agriculture. The mer-
chant and mechanic were no better off than
the farmer, for. as the people had but lit
| tie to buy with, the manufacturers and
dealers could sell but little, and there was
no growth or prosperity in any department
of labor or commerce. This was not the
case in one state. II was SO everywhere
farmer who lived fifty miles from sea-
port at the East was 10 better off than one
in the middle of Wisconsin or Iowa, for
his produce had to be hauled by wagon
roads to market. and the cost OF transport
tation equalled the price for which it could
be sold. Throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Indiana and Illinois, farming on large and
profitable scale was impossible, because
farmer could raise nothing that he could
sell at price exceeding the cost of getting
it to the market
Travel from place to place was wretched
experience. 1t took majority of Con-
gressmen from three days to two weeks to
reach Washington from their homes.
Members of the Legislature we're from two
days to week reaching the Capitol 1t is
but few years ago since member of the
Wisconsin Assembly, MIR. Whittiesey, Of
to reach the Capitol of Wisconsin. and his
picture as he appeared in his travelling outfit
is no " in the State historical rooms at Mad.
ison. Six cents mile was the lowest rate
at which passengers were conveyed by stage
coach, and rates by the natural water
routes were in proportion. IF business
man was called to New Yolk once year
it took him month and more to 90 and
come, and give few days to business.
Relatives and friends in parts of the coun-
try distant from each other we're as abso-
lutely separated as people now arc on op-
posite sides of the world. A man now liv-
ing in San Francisco can visit New York as
easily as one could living in Pittsburg thirty
years ago; and every species of personal
and commercial communication was then
proportionately inconvenient, slow, toll
some and expensive.
No lapse OF years, no process Of time or
change, no influences of growth or culture.
would have changed this condition of things.
without means for rapid transportation
from one part of tho country to another.
The country would have become very thickly
settled near the lakes and rivers and by the
artificial watercOurses; but the vast interi-
ors. the rich forests, the broGd prairies, the
magnificent intervals would have had but
slightly increased population during this err,
and it would always have been rude popu-
lation, badly housed, poorly schooled,
roughly clad, with few of the comforts of
life aside from the food produced on the
soil, like the frontiersmen and borderers,
whom We know in tradition and romano :.
The land twenty miles away from the steam
boat landings would never have been worth
much more than the original government
price, certainly not to exceed $40 to $40 an
acre. There would have been but little or no
wealth in houses, barns and farms, and in
stock and grain; nor but few school houses
and churches; but few and scattering remote
villages, and the nation would have been
poor, provincial, in its pupilage and adde's.
c,nce,
The railroads have wrought the revolution
which mas been accomplished before ou1
eyes, Half the cost in money of travel.
and seven-eighths Of the time are saved, in
effect lengthening in many fold the duration
and increasing the capacities of life. The
products of the farm are now worth as much
a. the farmers door as they previously were
after being hauled long distance By his
teams. Land 200 miles from the Great
Likes is worth from $40 to $75 IN acre,
which, without railroads, never would have
been worth to exceed $2Oan acre. A thrifty
farmer can become rich in few years bv
the sale of the surplus of his farm, which,
but for railroads, ne could lot sell at ALL
The handsome farms, the fine school
houses, the elaborate churches, the COM
Portable dwellings, the thickly planted vii
llges of the whole Northwest, are the direct
result of the railroads, which have made
every county accessible and convenient for
settlement There are $4,000, 900 acres of
land in Wisconsin. which taken as whole,
has been increased in value S. per
This land is assessed for axation at $780,
900, 900, which is less than half its actual
valne, and it might also be said that every
dollar of additional value above $50 per
acre has been placed upon it by the rail-
roads which carry it's products of grain,
stock, lumber and manufactures to distant
markets which they never would have
cached but for the iron highway.
This relates to Wisconsin alone. When
the mind considers the vast territory which
lies to the rorthward, between the Missis-
sippi river and the Rocky Mountains, and
which forms one vast wheat.feld, waving
in the harvest time with tho yellow grain,
which, but for the railroads penetrating
and crossing oil its diverse sections, woul
have remained wild, barren and worthless in
all the future as it had in all tho past, we
can have some idea of the vast individual
and national wealth which the railroads
created. They have increased many fold
the value of every farm, the value of every
product Of industry, ana of every class Of
property in the northwest and throughout
the country.
Individual capital, industry and enter
prise would have been totally powerless to
build the systems of railroad by which
these splendid and benifcent results have
been established. Vast aggregations of
credit and capital, as they are created by
the great corporations, could alone have
built these roads and established them as
connecting lines leading to millions of
homes-spreading out, fan-shaped, from
the great commercial centers to the i'm
mense radius of wheat fields, pastures, for
ests and mines where the property which
they transport is produced, and forming
unbroken channels of commerce between
the most distant parts of the country. These
agsregations of capital are formed under
the laws, and are fostered and regulated by
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does not destroy the fact that they have
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