The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-09
OUR RAILWAYS IN 1896.

OUR RAILWAYS IN 1896.
The advance sheets of Poor's Manual
present statistical Information Of oper-
ations of the railways of the United
States for the year 1896, or the fiscal
years of the companies reporting, all
of which do not coincide with the cal
endar year. There is the same inter-
esting study to be made of this that
each recurring manual presents, a
study that could be more profitably
made by those who permit their minds
to be agitated by the denunciations of
these factors of our industrial system,
than by those who regard them in
their proper light as useful members,
whose powers have been much abused
in the past, but which are tanning down
under the conservative influences that
now dominate them. Especially useful
to such timorous ones are the tables
which permit comparisons to be made
of these operations for the thirteen
years from 1884 to 1896, as they show,
in the most conclusive manner, that in
1uences beyond the control of the COM
panies themselves are constantly oper-
ating to prevent the alleged eXtortions,
even were they so disposed.
1t is we'll to try to grasp the magni-
tude of this much assailed and reviled
branch. The mind recoils from the i'm
mensity of the numbers. For instance,
the roads carried last year more than
seven times the entire estimated popu-
lation of the United States, 535, 120756
persons having ridden longer or shorter
distances by rail. Put in another way,
these persons rode an aggregate of 3D.
045, $40, 243 miles at an average cost to
each of 2.032 cents for each mile. For
performing this service the companies
received $265, 313,25S, or an average of
1888 cents from each passenger. Cost
is always relative, and when one COM
pares the cost of railway riding with
any other means of locomotion for
which compensation is given, it leaves
little ground for valid complaint.
In the same time the roads carried
773, 1868, ZIG tons of freight over their 1872
600 miles Of track, which is equivalent
to the carriage of 1856, S53, 634 tons one
mile, for which they received an av-
erage of 1921 of cent a ton. This is
3 of a cent less per ton than they earn
ed in 1884, and had they earned the
same ton-mile charge last year on the
freight carried, their receipts would
have been $751; 667, $50 more than they
were, and that would have oeen over
three times the amount Of dividends
they were able to declare. The differ
ence would more than pay the interest
charge on all their bonds. Some persons
are that much better off for the reduc-
ton in charges. Again, comparison
of charges for hauling made by other
carriers would seem to transfer the fire.
quent charge of eXtortion from the rail-
ways to "the Others" Mr.. G. A. Pills
bury recently stated that he paid more
to have a barrel of flour taken from
his mill to his house, a distance Of
about one mile, than it cost to have
barrel of flour carried by railway from
the mill to New York city.
But these figures relate to the entire
country. How are they in the North
west? Group embraces the states of
Iowa. Nebraska, Minnesota, the Da-
kotas, Wyoming and Montana. In this
there are 22,428 miles of track, over
which were carried 3S,816,203 tons of
freight, a total of 1921, 9S2 ,9O6 miles,
earning the companies S74,54S,09O This
gives a charge Of 1.03 cents for moving
one ton one mile, as compared with 1.5S
cents in 1884 reduction of nearly one
third Even the former charge, WHEN
compared with the cost Of other meth
DDS, can hardly be called eXtortion but
the gain from the reduction means
a gain to the shippers of these states
of nearly $25,OOO,O last year That is,
the freight earnings would have been
that much more had the ton-mile rate
of 1884 been received for the tonnage OF
1896
line D6I1Ou, CONSlIbS do IL 1DSS lIG
completion of the two principal lines
that traverse these states, except Iowa
and Nebraska, permits some interesting
conclusions to be drawn from the sta
tistics giving the average length of haul
of each ton. This will depend, of course,
upon the density of population. For
the United States the average is 1912
miles: for the New England group it
is 50 miles; for the middle states group
it is 1914 miles, for the Southwestern
states it is 1912 miles, while for our
group it is 1858 miles. Until the COM
pletion of the Great Northern in 1890
the average haul was 205.55 miles. 1t
slowly receded to 200 miles by 1894,
dropped to 1919 in 1895 and to 1876 in 1896
This indicates that the reaction has
set in and that there is a steady in
crease in the population along these