The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-01-25
/ Defense Of Railroad Corporations.

great Northwest now with what it was
thirty years ago, we can imagine what
1t would still nave been but for the rail-
roads which have been built across it in
all directions. Thirty years ago the
population OF the Northwest was olus-
tered around the lake ports and on the
margins of the rivers. The scattering
settlers in the interiorlived in the poor
est primitive manner. II they raised q
little surplus in the way of crops, the
cost OF getting it to market exceeded
rs total value. A farmer living in one
of the interior counties would take from
two to four days to get wagonload of
wheat, of thirty bushels, or 1,S00
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 business in
volved IN its sale, left him but little or
nothing out of the price for which he
sold his wheat. The lakes, which were
the only outlet for the produce of the
West were closed five months in the
year, and sduring that time there was
literally no market at all for grain.
Every pursuit of industry and trade
sympathized with the depression in
agriculture. The merchant and the
mechanic were no better off than the
farmer. for, as the people had little to
buy with, the manufacturers and deal
ers could sell but little, and there was
no growth or prosperity in any depart
ment of labor or commerce. This was
not the case in one State. 1t was so
everywhere. A farmer who lived fifty
miles from seaport at the East was
no better off than one in the middle of
= T.. L. -
to be hauled by wagon roads to mar
ket, and the cost of transportation
equsled the price for which it could be
sold. lti 1al-irf -Tt- 8di
Travel from place to place vas q
wretched experience. 1t took majori-
ty of Congressmen from three days to
two weeks to reach Washington from
their homes. Members of the Legisla-
ture were from two days TO a week
reaching the Capitol 1t is but few
consin Assembly, Mr.. Whittlesey, of
BAYFIELD,, tramped on snow-shoes 200
miles to reach the Capitol of Wisconsin,
and his picture as he appeared in his
travelling outfit is now in the State his
torical rooms at Madison.
No lapse Of years, no process of time
or change, no influences of growth or
culture, would have changed the condi-
ton of things, without means for rapid
transportation from one part of the coun-
try 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 mag
nificent intervales would have had but a
slightly increased population during this
era, and it would always have been a
rude population, badly housed, poorly
schooied, roughly-clad, with a few OF
the comforts of life aside from the
food produced on the soil, like the front
iersman and borderers 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 Govern
ment price, certainly not to exceed ten
to twenty dollars 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 re-
mote villages, and the Nation would
have been poor, provincial, in its pupil
age and adolescence. 8
The railroads have wrought the revo-
luton which has been accomplished be-
fore our 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 at the
farmers door as they previously were
after being hauled long distance by his
teams. Land 200 miles from the Great
Lakes is worth from $40 to S75 an acre,
which, without railroads, never would
have been worth to exceed $50 an acre.
A thrifty farmer can become rich in 8
few years by the sale of the surplus o.
his farm, which, but for railroads, he
could not sell at all. The handsome
| farms, the fine school-houses, the elabor.
ate churches, the comfortable dwellings
the. .thickly-planted villages of the whole
Northwest, are the direct result Of the
railroads, which have made every coun'
ty accessible and convenient for settle
ment. There are $4,000, 900 acres o.
land in Wisconsin, which, taken as 8
whole, has been increased in value 81
per acre, or S160, 0O0, 600 in the aggre
gate. This land is assessed for taxation
at $500, 900, 900. which is less than hal
its actual value, and it might also bt
said that every dollar of additional value
above 80 per acre has been placed upor
| il by the railroads which carry its pro
ducts of grain, stock, lumber and manu-
factures to distant markets which they
never would haye reached but for the
iron highway. e
This relates to Wisconsin alone. Whe1
the mind considers the vast territory
which lies to the northward, between
the Mississippi River and the Rocky
Mountains, and which forms one vas
wheat-field, waving in the harvest time
with the yellow grain, which, but fol
the railroads penetrating and crossing
| all its diverse sections, would have re
manned wild, barren and worthless in al
the future as it had in all the past, WI
can have some idea of the vast indi
vidual and National wealth which tn,
railroads created. They have increased
many fold the value of every farm, th'
value of every product of industry, anC
of every class of property in the North
west and throughout the country.
Individual capital, industry and enter
prise would have been totally powerles
to build the systems of railroad b,
which these splendid and beneficent re
suits have been established. Vast ag
gregations of credit and capital, as thel
are created by the great corporations
could alone have built these roads ant
established them as connecting line
leading to millions of homes-spreadins
out, fan-shaped, from the great com
mercial centers to the immense radiu
of wheat fields, pastures, forest ant
mines where the property which the.
transport is produced, and forming un
broken channels of commerce between
the most distant points of the country
These aggregations Of capital are formed
under the laws and are fostered ant
regulated by the contracts with th,
State under which they are created
They should, of course, be also re
strained by law, and aggression upol
private rights, extortion and wroni
should be resisted. But simply because
they are corporations, because they arr
powerful in their resources and capabil
tiles, does not destroy the fact that the.