Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1892-12-29
ABOUT RAILROADS.
a Subject in Which Halt of Sixty
Millions of People Are
Interested.
This Is an Age of Railroads..
Some Very Valuable and
Pointed Lessons.

80 NA@Cha hp
have as many minutes as my subjec
has miles. Nor yet as many heads a,
railroads have dead-heads. | am no
going to say anything as to ''gros
earnings nor the long haul and tn,
short haul, nor as to railroads becom
ing governmental Institutions, no
even a word as to their Sunday traffic
These are mooted and disputed com
monplaces. | shall say nothing as t,
how to secure them. for the Soutf
Dakotan above everything else anc
everybody else knows how this Il
done. Chauncey M. Depew says, so
the 60,000,0 900 people in the United
States, one-half of them are Twin.
upon the railroad" If this is tru,
then there is no secular subject il
which SO many millions are interested
as the one | have chosen. Colonel
lngersoll once declared: "Most far
mers think they are devoured b,
monopolies, especially by railroads
Of course the railroads are indebted
to the farmers for their prosperity
and the farmers are indebted to tht
railroads"
The railroads are your friends.
They are your partners. To max,
war upon the railroad is a short
sighted policy. They should be
treated fairly and should be taxed by
the same standard that farms are
taxed, and in no other way. Put
down local freights; put them down
TO the lowest rate, if you can. to the
lowest possible figure, and let d trough
freiglts take care of themselves,
This much Of a purely secular charac-
ter, deemed best ought to be said
tonight, but no more. Dickens tells
us Of a Mr.. Dick who could not speak
or write of anything or anyhod ! I'M
less he brought in Charles the First.
All ministers and theologians sem
likewise affected towards Niagara
Falls and railroads. Nearly all men
are inclined to think that the rail-
road is q very modern invention but
Talmage thinks it a very ancient one.
He quotes Nahum 2: 4. 1.-THE char
lots shall rage In the streets, they
shall joStle against one another In
the bread ways; they shall seem like
torches, they shall run like the light
nings," and then says: IF that be
not an express rail-train under full
Roadway at night, what is it? The
use of steam may have been one of
the lost arts, Robert Fulton and
James Watts recovering what Nahum
the prophet had known centuries
before" Ancient or modern, the year
1856 witnessed the building of more
railroads than any year before or
since. That year our country was
wild over them, the air impregnated
with enthusiasm for them. As that
was the year of my birth, / seem most
naturally tc have come by unlimited
admiration for them. Were / not a
minister of the gospel / should be an
engineer on some great trunk line.
We are inclined to think that the
slaughter of infants by Herod at the
birth of the Christ was a unique &C.
currence. Joseph Parker feels differ
emily. 1T is the mystery of civiliza-
ton; it is true of all departments of
life. You could not introduce the
locomotive engine into your ciyiliza-
ton without a great massacre of inno-
cents. When the locomotive engine
took his breath and gave his first
%utterance into the startled air, what
a slaughter there was all over the
country OF innocent spectators,
innocent investors, innocent people
of all kinds" Christ came into the
world as all men come, and his COM
ing was like the coming of every
upward tendency of progress. If the
introduction Of the railway was a
SAVIOR of death to some, it was a SAVIOR
of life to many. And its destructive
power is but a drop into the bucket
of its gcnerative power for good.
Horace Bushnell says: "This is an
age of roads. The dark ages built
castles on the inaccessible peaks Of
mountains, to get away from enemies;
we build cottages, on public roads,
which we like to have as perfect as
possible, to facilitate access and
motion. The Egyptians built pyra-
mias over the dead, we build roads
to give life and swiftness to the liv-
ing. The Chinese erect a wall to shut
themselves in; we open roads, that
we may go everywhere and behold the
FAaming of all people. The roads are
schools; by them mems narrow, local
ptjadices r worn of, their super
stitiens ara forgotten" The railroad
is the Paul among modern missionary
movers, for Samuel Harris rightly
says: "~Idolatry cannot live by the
side of ste2m engines and telegraphs."
DIR. J. ~ Holland on "Rum and
Railroads" says: "There is just as
wide a differNpce IN the moral inlu-
ence Of railroads on the belts of coun-
try through which they pass as there
is among men, and that influence is
determined almost entirely by the
managing man. II the president of a
railroad is in thfss habit Of taking his
stimulating glass, and it is known
that he does so, his railroad becomes
a canal through Ahich a stream of
liquor flows from $nd to end. A
thorough temperance man at the
head of a railroad corporation is a
great purifier" The railroad may
become the Cough of temperance
powers in America. Burdette's
"Religioss Brakeman" uses the rail-
road to set off the vices and virtues
of sects. All temperance lecturers
use it to show the evils of intemper-
ance in their most tragic light.
Tobacco reformers are just as power
full with its illustrative talent.
Says one: "To build and equip a
railroad from New York to San
Francisco costs an average of $50, 600
per mile. The tobacco bill of the
people of the United States for one
year would build such a road and
thoroughly equip it with all the
necessary rolling-stock, and leave a
surplus of &c., 07 ,6o5-nearly enough
to complete ship-canal across the
Isthmus of Panama" Let us have
less tobacco used, and more railroads.