Rosebud County news. [volume] (Forsyth, Mont.) 1901-1906, 1905-05-25
RAILROADS AND PROGRESS.

In his testimony before the senate
committee on interstate commerce at
Washington on May 4, Prof. Hugo R.
Meyer of the Chicago university, an
expert 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 ard Pennsylvania Tin the 70's,.
when grain from the west began pour
ing to the Atlantic seaboard), and
acted upon the doctrine which the in,
terstate commerce commission has
enunciated time and again, that no.
man may be deprived of the ad--
vantages accruing to him by virtue
of his geographical position. We could
not have west of the Mississippi a.
population of millions of people who,
are prosperous and are great con-.
sumers. 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
OPNASN w w tAO vi LuOS0
railways. And if we had not seen the
years when we could build 10000 and
$4,000 miles of railway a year, we
should not have to-day east of the.
Mississippi 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 if there had been no.
market for it's product.
We could not have in New England
great boot and shoe industry; we.
could not have in New England g..
great cotton milling industry; We
could not have spread throughout New
York and Pennsylvania and Ohio man.
ufacturing industries of the most d.
versified 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
'70's. 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
er is decreasing in value, or that some
man who has flour mill with pro-,
duction of fifty barrels day is be-,
ing crowded out. 1t never can see
that the destruction or impairment Of
farm values in this place means the
building up of farm values in that
place, and that that shifting of values
is necessary incident to the indus
trial and manufacturing development of
this country. And if we shall give
| to the interstate commerce commits
sion power to regulate rates, we shall
no longer have our rates regulated
| on the statesmanlike basis on which
| they have been regulated in the past
| by the railway men, who really have
| been great statesmen, who really have
| been great builders of empires, who
have had an imagination that rivals
| the Imagination of the greatest poet
| and of the greatest inventor, and who
| have operated with a courage and dar-
ing that rivals the courage and dar-
ing of the greatest military general.
But we shall have our rates regulated
by body of civil servants, bureau
Gratis, whose besetting sin the world
over is that they never can grasp a
situation in large way and with the
| grasp of the statesman; that they
never can see the fact that they are
| confronted with a small evil; that
that evil is relatively small, and that
| it cannot be corrected except by the