Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1888-03-01


dred and eighty-five miles long, from Iowa
Falls to Sioux City, and it was bonded for
sixteen thousand mile and stocked for
twenty-four thousand per mile. The actual
cost of that road was $22, 900 mile at the
time it was built. We had also six hundred
thousand acres of the land grant
which was given to the Dubuque 81 Sioux
City Railway Company, thrown in. We
completed the road in 1853, and leased 1t to
the Illinois Central Railroad Company for
twedty years, at SO per cent of the gross
earnings of the road, and secured 10 per
cent drawback contract from the Dubuque
& Sioux City Company for all traffic we got
of the Dubuque q Sioux City, or that came
from our road TO them. So, you see, we had
very favorable lease, so far as earnings
were concerned. We took almost half Of all
its earnings, with the drawback from the
Dubuque x Sioux City. Now, for the first
five years after that road was completed,
the earnings of the road, under our fayora-
bic contract, were not sufficient to pay the
interest on the SIG, 600 of bonds per mile,
and we used the proceeds of the land grant
to pay out the balance Of the interest that
the earnings would not pay; the exact
amount now / cannot tell you.
1t was not till some time i'm 1878 or 1874
that any dividends were paid on this 49, 900
of stock of mine, and then got per cent.
a quarter for a few years, and after that L
got / "a per cent. until the land grant was
exhausted. We sold the land grant for So
500, 900, and every dollar of that money, for
it was honestly expended, went into paying
the interest on the bonds and dividends on
that stock. / kept that stock until 1856
twenty years-when | sold it, and | sold my
stock for 60 cents on. the 81. and thought |
a 4I,,.
we had from which to pay dividends on ii,
viz, the land grant, had been ex-
hausted, and it was now manifest
that the earnings of the road were not
sufficient TO pay any considerable dividends
on the stock SO | sat down with my pencil
to find out how had come out with this
investment, and i found that that $1,000, if
l had put 1t out at ten per cent interest, and
compounded it, | should have had $50, 900.
As it was, i got an average rate of six per
cent on the IS, 900 which was $500 a year,
and if i had put that out at compound inter
est l should have had SIS, 900 at the end of
twenty years. So that, gentlemen, some OF
my money went into water instead of any
bOdy's water going into my money.
Member: You don't think you made a
bad investment if you continue to draw
interest on that forever?
asked that question, because | want to draw
a fair argument from this statement. In the
first place you can all see very readily that
if we had undertaken that venture without
the land grant, we should have been insol-
vent long ago, and could not have paid the
interest on our bonds. We built that 1S5
miles of railway through an uninhabited
country, and we waited the settlement of it
for any return, and will any gentleman say
that we were not entitled to some profit for
taking that venture of building railroad
into an unnhabited country? | think not.
Look at other gentlemen who went in there
If | had taken my So, 900 and gone along the
line of the road and put it into land, would
have made ten, yes twenty to one the money
| did. Other gentlemen did that same thing
along that 1S5 miles of road whereas / put
mine into the road and go. barely whole and
that is all. There is another thing about
that | wish TO show you, gentlemen, and it
is an object lesson to me at all events, to see
why it is you charge us with having so much
water in these roads. All these roads in Iowa
were built in advance of the settlement along
them. The settlement followed the building
of them. 1t is precisely as though gentle
man might go into the country and open q
large stock farm why he has to wait four or
five years until his steers grow and his
horses grow, before he gets any returns from
them. So with railroads. They built these
railroads through here, and they didn't get
per cent simple interest on the investment
for long, long years. Now suppose it be
true that from time to time as there was not
sufficient money earned to pay interest on
the investment they issued stock dividends
in payment of interests that ought to have
been paid and was not paid, is that unfair
/ m hot mn / IN
say that / represent the Chicago Il North
western Railway Company, in part. That
company has not single dollar of water in
its stock and never had. 1t was begun by
William II. Ogden and others in 1916, and it
had grown from ten miles in 1916, until its
whole system is now nearly 1000 miles. 1t
owns in the city of Chicago terminal proper
ty worth $50, 600, 600 to-day that it acquired,
of course very cheaply at the time. For a
long time it struggled along, and never paid
a dividend on even its preferred stock until
1ST7-30 years after the road was started
before it paid any dividends on its stock, and
it didn' pay any dividends on its common
stock until 1850, and that road has struggled
along and its entire capitalization, now, as
am informed by its President, is SIS, 900 per
mile for all its trackage and all its vast ter
mnal facilities and its equipment, and
$50, 0OO. nor for $40, 600 per mile to-day, and
when you hear that all these railroads in
Iowa can be duplicated for SIS, 600 per
mile, l am sorry to say that | don't
think that man understands the build
ing of railroads in Iowa. That may
buy the iron and throw up bitches on
the prairie, but it will not make a railroad.
Now, the Chicago 81 Northwestern railway
has never had fraudulent contract about it ;
il has never had an officer who has made a
dollar in money beyond his salary, and we
challenge you for an investigation of our ac-
counts and contracts, and you will find that
no nan has made a single dollar out of that
corporation unless he earned it. ] presume
all the other roads in Iowa are in that situa-
ton, but am speaking of our own road be-
cause j know in regard to it, because have
been acquainted with it for twenty years
| All the surplus money we have earned we
have put back into the roads in the seven
| States and two Territories where it is located
! We are trying TO make stone culyerts, iron
| bridges, stone ballast We have 125 miles
| of stone ballast in Iowa to-day Just as good
| as the Pennsylvania Central We want TO
make our road of the very highest standard
Of safety, and of the very least possible risk
| to ourselves and to you.
| j believe, gentlemen, you want good rail-
roads in Iowa; you want good service in
Iowa; you want, and some of the people of
Iowa are crying out to-day, that you want
better facilities to protect the brakemen. So
do |. You want to stop the taking OFF of
limbs and arms, and crushing them; you
want some patent coupler; you want some
device for braking that won't expose men S
lives. i am told that to fit out freight car
with all the appliances necessary to put a
| power brake on II and Jannev couplpr ON IT,
and to rig out the locomotives in the same
| NArOlhlI adj C-E 10 nnnh nI-n