The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-06-28
Railroads and Progress,

AeoAAA OebNlS anu EIOBTSSS,
No better illustration of the rapid growth
OF material enterprise In oar own time can
be found than the Railroad Exposition in
Chicago. There are men now living, and at
no very advanced age, who can remember
when railroads were introduced into this
country, and vet the Exposition has to a GER
tain extent taken the phase of a curiosity
shop in which are exposed old engines, the
models of which are so far Anticipated that
the engines themselves are oddities; appli-
ances for speea and safety which have been
so long supplanted that men on looking at
the bits of machinery fail to detect their
purpose, and styles of track so ancient as to
excite ridicule and wonder that the men of a
generation ago knew no better.
Besides the interest of the Exposition as a
means of popular education and of special
culture, it is of sufficient Importance to mark
an epoch in our industrial history. Histori-
anssdate modern history, some froin the fall
of the Eastern Empire and some from the
discovery of America, but the historian of
the future, when the development of com
fort and civilization among the people of the
world is the main thing to be considered
will date the beginning of modern times
from the application of steam to industrial
employments. With steam has come every
idea which we are led to regard as peculiar
ly modern, and as long as steam is employed
to do the work of men and animals, there is
not the slightest danger of any return either
to savagery or despotism. Steam and explo-
sivss are the two great Jewelers. of modern
times, and the world win never go back so
long as they are in use.
Unthinking persons and persons preiu-
diced by their immediate and personal in
terests often express themselves against
railroad corporations in hostile way, and a
large and tolerably respectable school of po-
litieal economists believe that the growing
power of the railroad corporations forms the
most serious danger to our present system
of political government; but it may be taken
for granted that these utterances are for the
most part merely the effervescence of tenn
porary irritation, to pass away when the To-
cal trouble is removed. The 15-year-old boy
often complains of achings in his limbs, aud
is gravely assured by his seniors that these
are merely growing pains, indications of
favorable rather than an unfavorable con-
dition of health. So the troubles individu-
ais have with railway corporations, and the
conflicts of these corporations with each
ether, often prolonged and sometimes APP
parently serious, are only the ''growing
pains" of civilization, indications of a devel-
opment rapid beyond anything ever seen
before, which are destined to pass away
with more mature development.
How rapid this growth has been in the
case of the railroads has already been seen,
but there is every indication that the next
fifty years will witness rate of development
compared to which the past is trife. Elec
lricity is still in its infancy, and, like Hercu-
les In his cradle, already gives signs of the
giant strength in its arms. Some writer has
said that there are three generations of men
living at any given moment on the earth;
the old who have done their best work and
are ready to pass away; the middle-aged.
who are driving the world forward, aud the
young, who are learning how human affairs
are TO be manipulated. The first of these
classes are the men who have brought our
railroads and otheE. s ss.esg appliances@f6s
-thsiz aa~sssu-----. "a. the seconr-fs com
posed of men who are daily improving on
what they find, and the third class are those
who are destined to employ electricity so
extensively that fifty years from to-day the
Electrical Exposition will perhaps contain,
as Anticipated curiosities, the telephone and
telegraphic appliances of the present. The
world is much like the Africans mule:
"ae's mighty slow and tolabul study, but
when he takes start thar's no telling how
fast he's gwine to go nur when he's gwine
to.stop." For ages mankind worried along at
slow but steady gait, but the men of the
present have taken start aud have good
head of steam on, so predictions are as vain
about our material progress as about the
next Presidential candidates. All we know
Is that there will be both candidates and
progress, and with this general convic ion
we are forced to be content