New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-06-07
HOSTILITY TO RAILROADS.

|
| Chairman Holman, of the Appropriations Com
mttec hopes TO cut down appropriations and
make reputation for this Congress is to make
an arbitrary cut OF 10 per cent on the allow
ances made to railroad companies for carrying
the mails. a large part of last Friday and
Saturday was devoted TO the discussion OF the
proposition. The amount of Ignorance dis
played by members of Congress whenever an!
question comes up affecting railroads is some
thing marvellous On the part OF the Alliance
members there seems TO be something more
thaN ignorance. They exhibit a decp-scatcd
hostility TO railroads. their management and
their stockholders, that Is not easy 10 account
for. During this discussion the Alliance mem
bers from Kansas were especially violent in
their denunciation of railroads, the burden Of
their complaint being that the stocks OF the
railroad companies are so watcred that the
public is made to pay cxorbant rates for trans
portation in order to pay dividends on the
stock They leave entirely out of account the
rather important facts in the case first, that
there has been steady reduction in the cost
of transportation every year since the com
pletion of the roads and second. that q very
small portion of the railroad mileage in the
Western States pays anything whatever to
stockholders the surplus earned above opcrat-
ing expenses being only sufficient TO meet fixed
charges, or the interest on the actual cost of
the property.
They forget when they glow with indigna-
ton over the water in the stock Of railroad
corporations that what they cal! water is moth
ing more nor less than the same proper and
legitimate increase in value which they them
selves enjoy when they mortgage their farms
for five and ten times what they cost or were
worth before the railroads made them aces
sible and gave them a market. No one has
ever yet given a reason why the farmer who
| buys land at two or three dollars an acre is
| any better entitled to five or ten fold increase
| in its value than the capitalist who builds the
| railroad which gives the farm its enhanced
value is to reasonable profit on his invest
| ment and fair compensation for the risk he
assumed. Is it not rather narrow view that
| the Alliance men take when they assume that
| it is all right for them to have the advantage
J Of the doubling, trcbling and quadrupling in
value of their farms, but all wrong for the
| capitalist to take more than 3 or per cent
on his actual investment, when that invest
| mcnt made at considerable risk has been al
| I1OSi INC Solt fduNt III inc prosperity
| Isn't this rather selfish view? Does it need
| to be pointed out that in the long run the farm
ers and first settlers Of Kansas have made
| vastly more money by their enterprise than the
stockholders in railroads? No further proof
Of this is needed than that the people of Kan
sas do not put their money in railroads. They
put il in farms, and let other people build the
railroads. And when the railroads are built
they step in by their Legislature and make the
rates. Is this square deal?
There's n great deal Of rubbish worked off
in Congress about the enormous gifts made by
the Government TO the land grant roads. In
the course of the late discussion SCmc mem
bers talked about ii as though the Government
had actually given great tracts Of land 10 these
companies without any compensation, and that
consequently the railroads ought to transport
the mails for little or nothing. Nonsense. In
stead OF giving away anything or losing any
thing by the land grants, the Government has
actually made enormous sums of money For
every section of the public lands given to the
railroads it Immediately doubled the price
previously asked for the alternate sections re-
tanned. Vast areas were brought into market
by the building of the roads, and the Govern
mcnt is better off by millions of dollars than
it would have been had it not made the trade
it did with the land grant roads For it was
a trade, pure and simple without an element
of gratuity in it. The Government has had
more than value received for every acre of
land in the railroad grants. II will be said. of
course, that the railroad builders made enor-
nous fortunes. So they did but they took
enormous risks, and through their enterprise
other people have made enormous fortunes. and
the whole country has been benefited to an
incalculablc extent.
Ii is the fashion among politicians to inveigh
against the railroads In some of the Western
States the hostility to these corporations has
amounted to craze, and the statute books
have been filled with hasty and ill-considered