Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-01-26
THE GREAT CORPORATIONS.
their Benefit i'm Developing the
Country.

! y OohAo dSO, VIC Gall IuldSlU6 Wud
1t would still have been but for the raj
roads which have been built across
IN all directions. Thirty years ago th
population of the Northwest was clus
tered around the lake ports and on tn
margins of the rivers. The scatterin,
settlers in the interior lived in the poor
est primitive manner. If they raised
little surplus in the way of crops, tht
cost of getting it to market exceeded
It's total value. A farmer living in one
of the interior counties would take
from two to four days to get wagon
load of wheat, of thirty bushels, or l..
| 500 pounds, to market, and half tha
length Of time to return to his home
and his expenses on the road both
ways, and while transacting the little
business involved in its sale, left him
but little or nothing out of the price fol
which he sold his wheat. The lakes
which were the only outlet for the pro-
duce of the West, were closed five
months in a year, and during that time
there was literally no market at all for
grain. Every pursuit of industry
and trade sympathized with the
III 4uG
chant and the mechanic were no bet
ter Oft than the farmer, for, as the peo-
pie had but little to buy with, the man
ufacturers and dealers could sell but
little, and there was no growth or pros
perlty IN any department Of labor or
commerce. This was not the case in
one state. It was so everywhere. A
farmer who lived fifty miles from a
seaport at the east was no better off
than one in the middle of Wisconsin
or Iowa, for his produce had to be
hauled by wagon roads to a market
and the cost of trans portati0n eaualled
the price for which it could be sold
Throughout Pennsylvania Ohio. Indi-
ana and Illinois, farming on large
and profitable scale was impossible, be-
cause farmer could raise nothing that
he could sell at q price exceeding the
cost of getting it to market.
Travel from place to place was a
wretched experience. 1t took a ma
jority of congressman from three days
to two weeks to reach Washington
from their homes. Members of the
legislature were from two days to a
week reaching the capitol. 1t is but a
few years ago since a member of the
Wisconsin assembly, Mr.. Whittlesey,
of Bayfield,, tramped on snow-shoes
200 miles to reach the capitol of Wis
consin, and his picture as he appeared
IN his travelling outfit is now in the
state historical rooms at Madison.
Six cents a mile was the low
est rate at which passengers were
conveyed by stage-coach, and
rates by the natural water-routes
wUIU III pIvlvl OtUII. UrpoiIIS'5O-
was called to New York once year it
took him a month and more to go and
come, and give few days to business.
Relatives and friends in parts of the
country distant from each other were
as absolutely separated as people now
are on opposite sides of the world. A
man now living in San Francisco can
visit New York as easily as one could
living in Pittsburg thirty years ago; and
every species of personal and CONNER
cial communication was then proper
tionately inconvenient, slow, toilsome
and expensive.
No lapse of years, no process of time
culture, would have changed this con-
dition of things without means of trans
portation from one part of the country
to another. The country would have
become very thickly settled near the
lakes and rivers and by the artificial
watercourses; but the vast interiors,
the rich forests, the broad prairies, the
magnificent intervales would have had
but slightly increased population dur
ing this era, and it would always have
been a rude population, badly housed,
poorly sch 0oled, roughly clad, with
few of the comforts of life aside
from the food produced on the
soil, like the frontiersmen and bOr-
derers whom we know in tradition and
romance. The land twenty miles away
from the steamboat landings would
never have been worth much more
than the original government price
certainly not to exceed SO to $40 ar
acre. There would have been little OF
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 adolescence.
The railroads have wrought the rev
| olution which has been accomplished
before our eyes. Half the cost In money
of travel, and seven eighths of the
time are saved, in effect lengthening II
many fold the duration and increasing
the capacities of life. The products o
/ +bof e. = of n
farmers door as they previously were
after being hauled long distance by
his teams. Land 200 miles from tht
Great Lakes is worth from $40 to 81;
an acre, which, without railroads, never
would have been worth to exceed S2C
an acre. A thrifty farmer can become
rich in a few years by the sale of tht
surplus of his farm, which, but for rail
roads, he could not sell at all. The
handsome farms, the fine school houses
the elaborate churches, the comforta
BILE dwellings, the thickly-planted vii
lagos of the whole northwest, are th'
direct result of the railroads, which
have made every county accessible ant
convenient for settlement. There arr
32OO0,0O0 acres of land in Wisconsin
which, taken as a whole, has been in
creased s. per acre, or $3.50, 1000, 900 IL
the aggregate. This land is assessed
for taxation at $500,000,000, which i
less than half its actual value, and
might also be said that every dollar o
additional value above so per acre ha
been placed upon it by the railroads
which carry its products of grain
stock, lumber and manufactures to dis
tant markets, which they would neve
have reached but for the iron highway