Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1899-11-24
AMERICAN RAILWAYS
as Related to Commercial, Indus
trial and Agricultural Interests.
Present Period Styled the Age OF
transportation - Foreign COun-
tries Buying Our locomotives
Development of the West.

| "One of our great writers has said of
this closing period of the nineteenth
century that it is an age of transporta-
ton. Transportation underiies mate
rial prosperity in every department of
commerce. Without transportation
commerce would be impossible. Those
states and nations are rich, powerful
and enlightened whose transportation
facilities are best and most extended.
The dying nations are those with little
Or no transportation facilities
These were a part of the opening
words of an address delivered before
| the International Commercial congress,
recently held in Philadelphia, by
George 81. Daniels, General Passenger
Agent of the New York Central & Hud-
son River railroad, and president of the
American Association of General Pas
senger Agents.
He then went on TO quote Mr.. Alulhall,
| the British statistician, who in his work
on ''The Wealth Of Nations" said of the
United States in 1895: IF we take a
survey of mankind in ancient or mod
ern times, as regards the physical, me-
chanica1 and intellectual force of ma
tons, we find nothing to compare with
the United States
| Mr.. Mulhau proved by his statistics
that the working power of a single per-
son in the United States was twice that
| of a German or Frenchman, more than
| three times that of an Austrian and five
| times that of an Italian. He said the
United States was then the richest
country in the world, its wealth exceed
ing that of Great Britain by 35 per
cent, and added that in the history of
| the human race no nation ever before
possessed 100000 of instructed citi-
zens. Should Mr.. Afulhall revise his fig
ures to-day, the differences would all
be in favor of the United States, for in
| the past Is months we have demon
strated the superiority of our manufac
lures in every direction, and our ability
to cope successfully with questions
which have heretofore been handled eX
clusively by the older nations is now
recognized by al the world.
| Mr.. Daniels told of a letter he had re
ceived from a friond in Toxic, written
only short time ago, in which was this
significant sentence: You will be in
terested in knowing that 1 have hang
ing on the wall of my office framed pic
ture of your Empire State Express.
and we expect in the near future to be
| hauling Japanese Empire Express
with an American locomotive" They
have now in Japan more than 100 To-
| comotives that were built in the United
| States. In Russia they have. nearly
| 1000 American locomotives, and prac-
! tically every railway in Great Britain
| has ordered locomotives from this coun-
try since the beginning of the war with
| Spain.
| But it is not alone our locomotives
that have attracted the attention of for
| eigners who have visited our shores;
our railway equipment generally has
| commanded admiration and is now re-
ceiving the highest compliment, name
| ly, imitation by many sister nations.
| The demand for American lOcomo-
! tives from all parts of the world Mr..
| Daniels attributed, in the first place,
| to the superior quality of our ma
chinery, and, in the second, to the fact
| that the general passenger agents of
| the American railways have, through
| their advertising, made the marvellous
results accomplished by our locomo-
| tives household words in every country
| on the globe.
The emperor of Germany in his
| speech to the Prussian diet in January
last, said Mr.. Daniels, did not lay the
| greatest stress upon the necessity for
| increasing the army or for the oon-
| struction of additional ships for the
| navy. but he did impress upon his hear
ers the great Importance of extending
| the railroads and the nayigable canals.
In order that the German nation mi ght
| have knowledge of the most advanced
| theories and practice in the construc-
| ton and operation of railways an i'm
| perial German commission was sent to
| the United States a short time ago for
| the purpose of examining American
| railways and making such recommen-
| dations as their investigation should
| suggest. In the report of this commits
| sion, which was recently published, one
| of the first sentences is as follows:
| ''Lack of speed, lack of comfort, lack
| of cheap rates, are the charges brought
| against the German empires railways.
| as compared with those of the United
| States They recommended the aGoP-
/ ton of many of our methods, explain
| ing in their report that they were far
superior, not only to those in vogue in
| Germany, but also superior to those of
| any other country.
One of the claims made by Mr.. Daniels
| is that railroads supersede the canals,
| and he gives as one reason the general
| demand of the American public for
quick time. A shipper having hun
dred thousand barrels of -four or a mil
| lion bushels of grain for export must
move it from Buffalo to New York with
| in a specified time, and he cannot risk
the slow process of the canal.
what Railroads Have Accomplished
A few examples of the achievements
| of American railroads in a little more
| than half a century, and many Of them
within the last IS years, were then
o-iven BEFORE the railroads were built