The Ordway new era., 1905-05-26
RAILROADS AND PROGRESS.

In his testimony before the senate
committee on interstate commerce at
Washington on May I, Prof. Hugo Il.
Meyer of the Chicago university. an
expert on railroad management, made
this statement:
LET us look at what might hay.
happened II we had needed the pro
tests OF the farmers OF New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania Un the 7O'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. tina: no
man may be deprived OF the ad-
vaptages accruing 10 him by virtue
OF his geographical position. We could
not have west OF the Mississippi n
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
1000 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 II 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 produc.
ing center. which is at once the mar
vel and the despair of Europe. because
we could not have built up steel aud
iron industry II there had been no
market for It's 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
forl, and Pennsylvania and Ohio man.
ufacturing industries OF the most dl.
yersified 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, 1t 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
70s. The statesmen and the public
men of this country did not see W nat
hn tfrtr
the west was going to play in the in
dustrial development of the east. Ars
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 MIRA
ttan that the farm land of some farm.
er is decreasing in value. or that some
man who has a -four mill with a pro.
duction of fifty barrels a day is be-
ing crowded out. It never can sec
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. AID II we shall give
TO the interstate commerce commits.
.sio,- 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
Deen great statesmen, who really have
be"a great builders of empires who
nave had an imagination that rivals
the imagination of the greatest poet
and OF the greatest inventor, and who
nave operated with 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 thev
never can see the fact that they are
confronted with a small evil: tina.
that evil is relatively small, and that
it cannot be corrected except by the
creation Of evils and abuses which
are infinitely greater than the one
that Il to b. corrected"
40oo not fndioate that fhSx lii SsS3