Troy weekly news. (Troy, Idaho) 1897-1933, 1905-05-26
Railroads an, Progress.

In his testimony before the Senate
Committee on Interstate Commerce at
Washington on May 4th Prof Hugo R.
Meyer of Chicago University, an ex-
pert on railroad management made
this statement:
Let us look at what might have
happened if we had needed the pro-
tests of the farmers of New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania lin the seven
ties when grain from the west began
pouring to the Atlantic seaboard) ana
acted upon the doctrine which the In
terstate Commerce Commission has
enunciated time and again, that no
man may be deprived of the advan-
tages accruing to him by virtue of his
geographical position. We could not
have west of the Mississippi a popu-
lation of millions of people who are
prosperous and are great consumers.
We never should have seen the years
when we built 10000 and 10000 miles
of railroad 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
| if we had not seen the years when |
we could build 10000 and $4,000 miles
of railway year, we should not have
today east of the Mississippi steel
and iron producing center which is at
once the marvel and the despair of
Europe, because we could not have.
built up a steel and iron industry if
there had been no market for its pro-
duct.
We could not have in New England
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 di-
versified kinds, because those indus
tries would have no market among the
farmers west of the Mississippi river.
And while the progress of this coun-
try while the development of the agri-
cultural West of this country, did
mean the impairment of the agricul-
tural value East Of the Mississippi
river that ran up into hundreds OF
millions of dollars it meant 1nciden-
tally the building up of great manu-
featuring industries that added to the
value of this land by thousands of mil
lions of dollars. And, gentlemen,
, those things were not forseen in the
, seventies. The statesmen and the pub
; lie men of this country did not see
what part the agricultural develop
:. ment of the West was going to play
in the Industrial development of the
East. And you may read the decisions
of the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion from the first to the last, and
what is one of the greatest character
istics of those decisions? The con-
tinued inability to see the question In
+, this large way.
The Interstate Commerce Commits
, sion never can see anything more than
:. that the farm land of some farmer is
h decreasing in value, or that some man
, who has a flour mill with production
= of so barrels a day is being crowded
l. out. 1t never can see that the de
; struction or impairment of farm val
+ ues in this place means the building
I'D of farm values in that place, anc
that that shifting of values is neces
sary incident to the industrial anC
ImauuIdCIuTlHR QGNtlOpihChe VI NAAA'
country. And if we shall give to thu
Interstate Commerce Commission thu
power to regulate rates; we shall M
longer have our rates regulated on thu
statesmanlike basis on which the.
have been regulated in the past b.
railway men, who really have beef
IL great statesmen, who really have BEEF
lie great builders Of empires, who hav
IT, had an imagination that rivals tn
Imagination of the greatest poet an
IT, of the greatest inventor, and VIII
ut have operated with courage an
ze daring that rivals the courage an
IN daring of the greatest military ger
eral. But we shall have our rate
regulated by body of civil servants
IS bureaucrats, whose besetting sin tn
Sc. world over is that they never ca
"a grasp a situation in a large way an
ts with the grasp of the statesman; tina
NJ they never can see the fact that the
are confronted with a small evil; e.
cept by the creation Of evils an
= abuses which are infinitely create
than the one that is to be corrected