Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1891-06-05
BOSTON TO SEATTLE
FOR a Dollar-The Scheme Is Similar
TO That Used for the Trans
mission of Mails.
"A Train Can Be Run from the At
lantlc to the Pacific at a Profit
for Less than $4,000.
Let the Government Run the Roads
and Charge Fee of ST. for
Each Person.

The government ought to build four
great trunk passenger lines from the At
Iantlc to the Pacific, says the Citizens
Alliance, that would carry passenger
from ocean to ocean for 81. But. saws
our skeptical conservative, how could
the government do that? Easy enough.
Make the fare 81 if man don't ride
two miles. 1t would be done on the
same principle as the elevated railroad
IN New York. \ train of cars leaves
City Hall Square in New York. for Har-
lem, nine miles. 1t is composed of four
cars OF fifty people to the car. The fare
is cents; that means $40 for the trip.
This railroad company would be bank
rupt in this were all they got. But when
this train reaches Harlem it has made
forty stops and one thousand people
have got on and off that train, and they
have paid $50. Now the government
could build one of these roads from
Boston to Seattle, start train from Bos-
ton containing ten ears. of fifty people
to each car, and the sum total would be
only $500; but stop it every fifty miles,
and when it reaches Seattle 5000 people
would have gotten on and off that train,
and it would pay the running expenses
and good dividend; and the govern
ment could start train from each end
OF the route every three hours of the
twenty-fOur and have them filed. There
are 2,00O,000,000 people west of the Mis-
sissippi river that came from the East
that have never been there since they
left. Why? Because they can not get
there. But put the fare down to 81 and
they will 60 every year and take 5,OO0,-
600 members of their families with
them. If this were in operation it
would enable the writer of this to take
his family ia the Yellowstone park; and
if the Yellowstone park was not made
fsr our family, whose, in the DEVILS
name, was it made for?
But" says this same old conserva
tive mOssback, "if that were done the
people would not patronize the other
railroads and they would become bank
rupt." That same objection was made
in the case of the horse cars in New
York when the first elevated railroad
was built, but it increased their travel.
There would be 10000, 900 people who
would patrOniZe those other lines to get
to the trunk lines that do not do it now.
And the reader must bear in mind that
when we put this proposition to the
front it is not expected that Jay Gould
will own the trunk lines and some one
| else own the other roads. But it is put
! forth with the idea that the government
own the whole roads, and what they
lost on one road they would make up on
the other. The government at the pres
ent time runs a special train to carry
the mail on three or four main roads,
known as the fast mail 1t loses money
on that but makes up from other routes,
but does it on the principle that the
business of the people as whole is ben
Gifted by its doing so. 1t is case where
the interest of the whole people is con-
sidered paramount to the interest O the
few. And we are nearing thai point
when that is going to be Considered
more than it has been when legislation
is being enacted.