The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1905-12-21

TIE PE
Now, beyond that we cannot go.
Some places expect US to go beyond.
but we can't.
The country today that is the most
productive, the country that has
grown the fastest, could not be popu-
lated at all were it not for railways.
Transportation must be cheap, and
transportation to be cheap must have
large tonnage. To illustrate what
mean you might say that to haul a
ton Of freight ten miles would be a
good days work for a farmers team.
If he went out ten miles and got home
the same night it would be a bard
days work. And the difference of
copper cent in hauling a ton of
freight ten miles would to the Great
Northern railway make a difference
of S4,500.000 in year. That is half
OF what we pay our shareholders for
their investment in the property. It
would amount to a net earning of two
copper cents in hauling a ton of
freight ten miles. 1t is not a great
deal, but it is made up of little things.
"And if the farmer has the right to
criticise us as to how we run the rail-
way-and we will never object to that
right, or anybody's else-we feel that
when we build the railroad into Sec
ton of country we have right
to expect fair and intelligent handling
of the country. If not, we have made
a mistakes There is nothing that we
can haul out of it except what it
raises, and we must make a rate that
will enable the man who is on the soil
to market whatever he raises with
profit or else he won't stay, and our
investment is wrong. If the states be-
You'd us are growing so very fast let
US hope that our own state will take
fresh start.
1t may be news to some of you
here, but the rates in the northwest
are lower than they are in any other
part of this country between Manitoba
and Mexico. Take the large lines
running out of Chicago. Take as
good line as the Chicago & North
western, and speak of it because I
think it is the best running out of
Chicago-always we'll handled-but
the Chicago & Northwestern average
rate applied to the Great Northern
railway would raise our income five
and quarter million dollars year.
The rates of the transcontinental
Atchison would raise our income nine
million dollars in a year. And the
rate of the Union Pacific would raise
our income between seven and half
and eight millions. The rates of the
Southern Pacific would raise our in
come over eleven million dollars.
And the rates charged in New Eng
land, where the density of population
is at least ten times as great as it is
between here and the Pacific coast,
would raise our income twenty five
million dollars in a year.
"Now we are held up as just grind
ing the faces of the poor and taking
the last dollar they have got. 1t has
been our policy to make a rate that
will enable whatever the country pro-
duces to find market. And if we
can't do that our whole enterprise
has been in vain.
"Sometimes people think they are
serving themselves and serving a very
good cause in the world when they try
to take advantage of a railroad. They |
forget that the shareholders who own
the road don't pay for these things. |
They forget that the railroad company
charges it up to the expense, and the
public pays it. It would not do for |
that to interfere with our dividends. |
If it did our credit would be gone.
'Now, there is one thing that is of |
vast Importance to you here. In a |
city where we have a climate in the
winter like we have in St. Paul we all |
know that we need fuel It is the i'm
portant thing. Have we always to go
to Pennsylvania and West Virginia |
for the fuel to cook our good? Our
forests are rapidly disappearing. If |
we have to go that far, twelve or four
teen hundred miles, to get our fuel to |
cook our daily bread we are badly out
of balance. hope that within year
we will be able to lay good article |
of fuel down here at price that WOULD
have been called cteap in Chicago ten.
or fifteen years ago-and Chicago has.
grown to be manufacturing city.
"Now, I used to wonder what we
would ever do to make St. Paul a |
manufacturing city. You are not go
mo to rival Chica 100 or Como o:A;or