The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-05-29
STE AM sUPERCEDED.
From the Youths Companion.

The shrewdest students of the great
industrial movements of the time OBJ
serve that nothing now temp;s capital
so greatly as electricity. Persons with
much or with little surplus for invest
ment listen more readily to those who
propose 10 organize companies for the
development of some of the commercial
uses of electricity than they do to other
business suggestions
Therefore il is easy to understand
why such large sums of money have
been recently advanced with the pur-
pose of vastly extending the electric
railway systems of the country. Cap
italists have subscribed millions to
build line that will make it possible
for an electric car to go from Jersey
City over the highways TO Philadelphia
The money was subscribed during the
time of financial stress last year.
Capitalists are OF opinion that before
long a passenger may enter a trolley
car in Boston and be conveyed to New
York One of the greatest corporations
of the country expects by and by TO fur
nish electricity sufficient to propel cars
from Albany to Buffalo.
A public officer of Ohio recently as
tonished several business men in New
York city by declaring that within ten
years the large towns and villages of
that state would be connected by troll
ley wires as they now are by those of
the telegraph and telephone compan-
les A well-known foreign scientist
ras caI
the belief that the time is not far dis
TAFT when the trolley systems of the
United States would be almost as ex-
tensive and mutually associated as
were those of the various telegraph
companies which when united formed
the Western Union corporation
The capitalists who are fearlessly in
vesting their money in these enter
prises have no other purpose than the
hope of profits. Yet they are also
aware that the perfect development of
these systems of electric railways over
the public highways will have a mighty
influence upon the social and business
relations of the communities of the
United States through which they pass.
Aside from the enormous creation OF
new wealth, there are TO be social de-
velopments whose influence it is al
most impossible to conceive.
Among other changes which they
may induce it is suggested that these
railways will check the tendency of
the people to congregate in the cities
Some persons even expect a reaction
which will cause thousands of persons
now dwelling in the large cities to
seek homes in the country.
They reason that when a man and
his family find that though living in
the country they can hail car almost
at their doorsteps. and be carried quick
IL, cheaply and frequently 20 the city,
they will soon realize that one OF the
great objections to country life is over
come Those who have lived remote
and apart Will find themselves within
neigh borly reach of others, and a vast
area will be added to the suburbs of
the large cities and villages
Already the brief and comparatively
limited development of electricity for
passenger traffic upon the public high
ways has revealed this tendency. One
can now 10 Nv t1ttbilt III
one shor, walk of two minutes and
two or three changes of cartoon a
point nearly twenty miles north OF
Boston to another point thirteen miles
south of the city, and the suburbs are
intersected in every direction by cleo
tril railways
Trolley lines in Rhode Island, in the
vicinity of Troy and Albany, New Jer-
sey, upon Long Island and in sorne Of
the thickly settled communities Of the
west have absorbed much of the BUSH
ness of passenger transportation which
the steam railways have heretofore
monopolized-
One Of the ablest of the railway man
ayers of the United States has recently
said that within a few years the steam
railways will be compelled 20 change
their methods twas his opinion that
the development Of electric lines viii
be likely 70 compel the railways 20
concentrate their facilities 50 that they
will depend mainly upon swift trains
and through travel for their passenger
traffic