The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1905-07-11
RAILROADS AND PROGRESS.

IN his testimony before the senate
.ommittee on interstate commerce at
washington on May 4, Prof. Hugo r.
Never of the Chicago university, an
synert on railroad management, made
this statement;
yet us look at what might have
,anpened If we had needed the pro
,ssts of the farmers of New York and
ohio and Pennsylvania Tin the 7O's,
vhen grain from the west began pour
inc to the Atlantic seaboard) and
acted upon the doctrine which the in
tsrstate commerce commission has
snuuciated time and again, that no
man may be deprived of the ad-
yautages accruing to him by virtue
Of his geographical position. We could
not have west Of the Mississippi a
,opulation OF millions of people who
are prosperous and are great con-
mmers. We never should have seen
the years when we built 10000 and
10000 miles of railway, for there
would have been no farmers west of
the Mississippi river who could have
used the land that would have been
opened up by the building OF those
railways. And IL we had not seen the
years when we could build 10000 and
10000 miles of railway a year, we
should not have to-day east OF the
Mississippi a steel and iron produc-
ing center, which is at once the mar
vel and the despair of Europe, because
we could not have built up a steel and
iron industry II there had been no
market for its product.
We could not have in New England
a great boot and shoe industry; we
could not have in New England a
great cotton milling industry; we
could not have spread throughout New
York and Pennsylvania and Ohio man
ufacturing industries of the most d.
yersifed kinds, because those indus.
tries would have no market among
the farmers west of the Mississippi
river.
And while the progress of this
country, while the development Of
the agricultural west of this country,
did mean the impairment of the ag-
ricultural value east of the Mississippi
river, that ran up into hundreds of
millions Of dollars, it meant incident
ally the building up of great manu-
featuring industries that added to the
value Of this land by thousands of
millions Of dollars. And, gentlemen,
those things were not foreseen in the
7Os. The statesmen and the public
men Of this country did not see what
part the agricultural development OF
the west was going to play in the in
dustrial development of the east. And
you may read the decisions of the
Interstate commerce commission from
the first to the last, and what is one
Of the greatest characteristics of those
decisions? The continued inability to
see the question in this large way.
The interstate commerce commits
sion never can see anything more
man that the farm land of some farm
er is decreasing in value, or that some
man who has -four mill with a pro-
auction Of fifty barrels a day is be-
ing crowded out 1t never can see
mat the destruction or impairment of
larm values in this place means the
building up of farm values in that
place, and that that shifting of values
a necessary incident to the indus
usl and manufacturing development of
uis country. And If we shall give
tne interstate commerce commits
son power to regulate rates, we shall
no longer have our rates regulated
Vn 1he statesmanlike basis on which
ney have been regulated in the past
me railway men, who really have
Osen great statesmen, who really have
0eea great builders of empires, who
nave had an imagination that rivals
ue imagination of the greatest poet
suu Of the greatest inventor, and who
uA'e operated with a courage and dar-
rs mat rivals the courage and dar-
Nc oi the greatest military general.
pu' we shall have our rates regulated
body Of civil servants, bureau
~aS' whose besetting sin the world
w.t. Is that they never can grasp
'uAtlon in large way and with the
~ssp OF the statesman; that they
'.r can see the fact that they are
Mionted with a small evil; that
eni is relatively small, and that
saahot De corrected except by the
sauon Of evils and abuses which
NJ innnitely greater than the one
"al Is to he corraotad