The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-09-27
Special to The Globe.

Special to The Globe.
ELBOW LAKE, Mimi, Sept. 26.-
James ]. Hill, president of the Great
Northern railway, addressed farmers
of Grant county here tonight and was
warmly applauded. The crowd that
heard Mr.. Hill was large, comprising
mostly farmers drawn here by the
county fair. Mr.. Hill said:
mo one in the state or out Of it
has as great an interest in the peo-
pie of the state and the people who
are cultlVating the land as myself No
man has a greater interest, put it all
on selfish ground If you want to, in
the welfare of the producers. If your
labor fails what becomes of us? If
you are poor, we are poor. / am glad
to see the evidence of your prosperity,
for we must share your prosperity with
you. 1t cannot be otherwise. All that
we have been doing, all that 1 have
tried to do in the way Of building UP
the success of the country, is on the
ground that the man who cultivateS
the soil must earn the money before
he can pay 1t.
"The lumber trees in Minnesota are
practically all counted. We have on
the Pacific coast enormous forests.
You want them here. They want them
as far south as Baltimore and as far
east as Portland. Now bear this In
mind. What helps you, what you need
and what we need Is the assistance of
other shoulders to help us bear our
burdens. The people who own and
manufacture that lumber on the coast
are seeking a market for it. How does
that affect you beyond the price of
lumber? 1t affects you by contributing
80 many tons of freight to be hauled
over our line, after we have gathered
all these tons from the Pacific coast
and from beyond the Pacific and
brought them here. There are four or
five times as many trains on the line as
there were years ago.
Can Reduce Rates.
"The capital of the road is practical
and the increased amount Of business
has placed us in a position where we
can reduce rates. We have reached a
point where we can earn our dividends.
That is all we can get. If we earned
three dividends we would divide only
one. We get per cent on our stock,
and on a safe investment that is good
enough. We ought to be satisfied.
"Some people try to persuade you
want your farms. Some think pdine
off the fresh roast shoulder of my
neighbors every day, but assure you
I don't. l don't want to. l don't eat
any more than / ever did. 1 don't wear
any more than ever did and 1 am cas-
ily satisfied with both. But if you will
consider this on the lines 1 have stated
you cannot this year, next year, or in
all time separate the land from tlie
railroad. A man might quarrel with
the railroad company or become dis
satisfied or for another reason sell his
land and move away and l might sell
out and someone else might come and
run the railroad, but the railroad will
be there and the land will be there and
they will have the same interest and
they will prosper together or be poor
together. Now and forever, to the end
of time, we are the nearest neigh
bors.
Dependent Upon Railways.
MANY of you came here leaving your
old homes and your parents elsewhere.
You or your children cannot go to see
your mother or grandmother without
buying a ticket. You cannot buy
clothing or shoes that have not paid
something to the railroad Depend up
on 1t, you are our supporters and we
are sane enough to try to see that you
are able to support us. If not, we fail.
/ want to impress that upon you be-
cause it shows you the ground upon
which we stand.
'"There are so-called industrial en-
terprises whose only industry is in run
ming printing presses to print shares of
stock If there is no harm in an en-
terprise, if there are five or ten of
them that are good If there is no bad
In them, when you put them together
I i,,A A.
If the object is to get something for
nothing, to get something that does
not belong to you, to get money out of
another mans pcket, the money he has
worked for, and put into your own, if
that is the object 1t is all wrong"
The speaker referred to the enter
prises of Krupp and Carnegie as eX-
amples of those which are right. He
referred to the mailing, leather BIZ
cycle and other trusts as among those
which are not intended to be prosper
Gus. He continued;
Turning Business Over to Congress.
Some people advocate, our good
president advocates, turning every
thing over to congress- What sort of
a congress would we have after a
while if all the business of the coun-
try We're turned over to it? / think
they would be doing business in the
halls of congress, but the business
they would do might not be the kind
of business you would want think
we should hold every man responsible
for his own acts If he does wrong,
punish him. If he does right, protect
him. There is not a single dollar rep
resented in the capital of the Great
Northern road that has not behind 1t
100 cents of honest money.
"I do not want my name connected
with any enterprise that is bogus;
that is, trying to get something for
nothing. / am satisfied with what we
have done and care more that people
should remember after 1 am gone that
/ tried to be honest rather than 1 tried
to be great. There are no great men,"