The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1905-12-09
RAILWAY RATE LEGISLATION.
Mississppian on the Pant Played by Railroads in the South's
Wonderful Development.

American people can be made to believe
that railway managers devote their time
and energies to devising new ways of OPP
pressing the communities dependent or
their lines for transportation, of strang.
ling existing industries, and of prevent
ing the establishment of new ones. Ii
is difficult to understand how my Amer
lean can be misled by the line of argu-
ment adopted by these champions OF
making the of the country the
football of partisan politics when, if he
will simply open his eyes, he will Sc its
refutation on every hand. He will sec
that exactly the opposite is true, and
that the development of whole sections
of the United States has been brought
about by the realization on the part OF
the railway managers of the country
that their lines can prosper Only as a
consequence of the prosperity of the ter
ritory traversed by them.
In his recent book on Government
Regulation of Railway Rates" Prof.
Meyer, of the University of Chicago,
says:
"In continental Europe, the regulation
of railway rates by public authority has
reduced the railway manager largely to
u man who sits in his Office and orders
his subordinates to run trains back and
forth. In America the absence of re-
striction upon the railway managcr-be-
yond that imposed by the common law
has allowed the American railway
manager to become the most powerful
single factor i'll our national life for the
discovery and the development of the
source of our country and the pro-
motion of trade and industry. TO pro-
mote the settlement of vast stretches of
unoccupied lands, and to find ever new
resources to develop within the territory
already occupied, has for half q century
been the main business of the American
railway manager"
One of the most striking Illustrations
of the truth OF this statement is con-
'tantly before the eyes of the residents
of the Southern States. The student of
the industrial and commercial develop
ment of the South cannot but be i'm
pressed by the important part that the
railways of that section have played and
are still playing in bringing it about.
The civil war left the railway lines of
the South in It deplorable state, ard the
first task that confronted their owners
and managers was their restoration and
extension and the combination of many
small, disconnected lines into great sys-
tens capable of moving large volumes of
traffic over long distances economically
and expeditiousiy. How well they have
succeeded at this can be seen by a glance
ut a railway map of the United States.
Coincident with this development and
extension of railway systems which is
still in progress, the managers of the
Southern lines were under the necessity
of developing Il diversified traffic. Here
anne into play what Prof. Meyer has
the imagination displayed by the
American railway manager in discover
ing potentialities of industry and trade
and in converting those potentialities
into actualities." The South has been :
almost exclusively to agricul-
ture, and in many OF the States the ener-
GIGS of the people were concentrated on
the cultivation of one crop, cotton. Not
the least of the important services rem
dered by the railways to that section of
the country has been the encourage
that they nave given to the devel-
of diversified farming which is
making the South constantly more and
more Independent of other sections of
the country for agricultural products
md is enabling that section to increase
year after year the value of its surplus
of the soil aside from cotton.
In this line the development of the fruit
md vegetable industries of the South
I'm States have been of special impor-
The Northern States, and espe-
tally the large cities of the North, af-
'orded markets for enormous supplies of
'ruits and vegetables that would ma
.ure in the South long before they could
De obtained from nearby sources of sup
,lv. Tc get the early Southern products
o market required a special service OF
cars, run at express train
peed, and with freight charges so low
IS not to make the cost of the fruits
nd vegetables to Northern consumers
xcessive. This special service has been
ut in for every locality in the South
rom which shipments OF this character
ave been sufficiently developed to jus
it, and the result is that many thou
ands of fruit and vegetable growers
ave been made prosperous, while per-
ons of very moderate means all over the
Jnited States have been able to have on
heir tables and have come to regard as
lmost necessaries of life articles of food
hat but a few years ago were considered ,
Ixuries beyond the reach of all but the
cry wealthy. :
Although the Southern States have
ad almost an absolute monopoly in the /,
reduction of the cotton supply of the
'orld, the manufacturing of cotton in q
ne South is a new industry, the rapid
of which has been fostered !
nd made possible by the railways. As I
gently as 1870 there were in all the l
outh but ISL cotton mills-most of
lem small affairs-with an aggregate
but 627,s71 spindles. They nan Q
,ctured some of the coarser grades of S
,tton fabric, chiefly for local consump- I
There are now res cotton mills in !
lie South, with a total of S,211,734 spin t
es, and the South is now manufactur- 0
g not only the coarser grades, but Il
any of the finer grades of cotton goods t
well, and the products of Southern c
'tton mills are today to be found in z
Ie markets of the world and are being a
Id in Boston and other New England c
ties and towns right at the doors of t
lie New England cotton mills. In the n