The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-26

carried more than four times as many passengers annually as the steam rail- ways and yet our steam railway sys- | tenn is equivalent to that of all the rest of the world put together, The street railways at home at the time of taking 1 the eleventh census carried upward of l two thousand millions of passengers. l Since then the mileage has more than doubled, so if passengers have increased at like ratio, the twelfth census may develop the astounding fact that four l thousand millions of passengers were carried on the American street rail- ways in the year that closes the centu- ry.
 The most recent available estimates show that the increase in capital in vested in street railways has been | something over three hundred per cent. since the census year, and we may fairly put at S1 ,600 900, 900 for 1900, the present amount being in the neighbor- hood of $l,400, ,000,000 These facts give some idea of the growth and impor- tance of the street railways at home. | It may be generally stated that at the present moment the United States ope- rates about sixteen thousand miles of street railways, and Europe in the neighborhood of about ten thousand miles. Street railway mileage may thus be roundly compared to popula- tion:
 Street Rail-
 Population. road Mileage. Principal European
 countries ...... 400, 100000 10000 United States. ...... 72000,000 16,000
 In the United States, therefore, for every 4,500 inhabitants we have one mile of track, while in Europe for every mile of street railway track there is a population of forty thousand. This in- teresting fact, together with the details of the main table, which shows the number of inhabitants to each mile of street railway track inspecific countries, should indicate to the American manu- lecturers of electrical railways the fu tuhe fields for tn cir ingenuity and en- terprise,. That America leads the world in this industry does not admit of a moments doubt. The street railway, the motor car the tram car the trolley car, the cable car, and all species of street locomotion having for their basis the steel rail, are indigenious to this side the Atlantic. In the earlier days of the art they were known abroad as American railways" and in England denounced as a Yankee innovation.''
 Politics, red tape, ignorance, timidity, opposing interests, and the deadly fear that private enterprise should make a dollar profit, have all helped in Eng land, and to lesser extent on the con- tinent, to retard the extension of street railways to meet the pressing demands of population. In America, however, private capital has had full swing, and with a courage almost akin to reckless ness has not hesitated to discard, re- gardless of cost one system of propul- sion as fast as a better offered. What ever the sins of the American street. car man may be--and, like all the rest of humanity, he is far from perfection he is up to date.
 The American street railway man may therefore point with righteousness pride to his track mileage, exceeding by six thousand miles that of Eurpoe, to the four billion passengees which he an- nually conveys to and from their homes, and to the fact that he has not waited for the population to come to him, but has gone out, true American fashion, in advance of population, and built up dis tricts at great expense, which he now works with profit, not alone to him self, but to the city whose revenue from taxes is thereby increased. On the question of charges the American street railway compares faverably with similar systems abroad. In the first place, we have solved the question of uniform fare, while nearly every muni- cipality which I have visited in Europe is struggling, apparently hopelessly with this question. Why? Because the municipality has not the courage of private enterprise. A uniform fare, it is contended, gives the longer haul an advantage over the shorter, so to avoid this in G1osgow, the acme of absurdity has been reached by a one-cent fare for trif1e over half mile. It is far better for a man to walk half a mile. It is far better for man to walk half mile than to ride anyhow, and quicker, it seems to me, after trying half-penny fares on the newly inaugurated munich pal horse tramways of the Scottish city which social reformers claim has solved the true art of municipal government and municipally operated transit.
 The rapid extension of street railways has been the means of ringing into ex- istence so many other problems touch- ing on the whole question of municipal government that it is hardly possible to treat the street railway question with out discussing at least some of the l questions which the annual transporta- tion of billions of human beings in- wolves. Foremost among these ques-
 
 which has been much discussed in this | country of late because of certain ex-