Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1905-05-26
Railroads and Progress.

In his testimony before the Senate
Committee on Interstate Commerce at
Washington on May 4, Professor Hugo
r. Meyer, of Chicago University, an
expert on railroad management, made
this statement:
LET lis look at what might have hap
pcned if we had needed the protests
of the farmers of New York and Ohio
and Pennsylvania lin the seventies
when grain from the West began pour
ing to the Atlantic seaboard) and acted
upon the doctrine which the Interstate
Commerce Commission has enunciated
time and again, that no man may be
deprived of the advantages accrninG TO
him by virtue of his geographical po-
sition. We could not have west of the
Mississippi population Of millions OF
people who are prosperous and are
treat consumers. 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, If we had not
seen the years when we could build
10000 and 1900 miles Of railway z
year. We should not have to-day. east
of the Mississippi, q steel ana iron
producing centre which is at once the
marvel and the despair Of Europe, be-
cause we could not have built up
steel and iron industry # there had
been no market for its product.
"We could not have in New Eng
land 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 manufac-
turing Industries Of the most diversi-
fled kinds, because those industries
would have no market among the farm
crs west of the Mississippi River.
"And, while the progress OF this
country, wbiic the development of the
agricultural West Of this country, did
mean the impairment Of the agricul-
tural value east of the Mississippi
River that ran up into hundreds OIL
millions of dollars, it meant, Incl
dentally, the building up of great man.
ufacturing industries that added 10
the value of this land by thousands or
millions of dollars. And, gentlemen,
these things were not foreseen in the
seventies. The statesmen ana the pub
lie men Of this country did not see
what part the agricultural develop
ment of the West was going to play III
the industrial development of the East.
And, you may read the decisions or
the Interstate Commerce Commission,
from the first to the last, and what is
one of the greatest characteristics or
those decisions? The continued III
ability 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 decreasing in value. or, that some
man. who has -four mill with a pro-
duction of fifty barrels Il day, is being
crowded out. 1t never can see mat
the destruction or impairment OF farm
values in this place means The building
I'D of farm valves in that place. and
that that shifting of values is neces-
sary incident to the industrial and man.
ufacturng development of this coin-
,ry. And. if we shall give to the Inter
state Commerce Commission power TO
regulate rates. we shall no longer nave
our rates regulated Oh the statesman
like basis Oh which they have been
regulated in the past ~ the railway
men. who really have ocen great states
men; who really have Eeen great Duiid-
crs Of empires; who have had an I'M
agination that rival: the Imagination
of the greatest poet and of the great
est inventor, and who have operated
with a courage and daring that rivals
the courage and daring Of the greatest
military general. But we shall nave
our rates regulated by body OF clVii
servants, bureaucrats. whose beseI-
fin. sin the wcrlG over is that they
can never grasp situation i'll large
way and with the grasp of the states
man; that they never can SEE the TACT
that they are confronted with Il small
evil: that that evil is relatively slnai''
and that it cannot be corrected except
by the creation of evils and abuses
which are infinitely greater than the
oro that js IN he corrected"