The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-08-16

the IOunQat1On OF all our prosperity
For the power which President Roose-
welt and Governor Cummins of your
| state, are urging congress to give the
| interstate commerce commission is the
/ Identical power which they attempted
| to exercise in the maximum rate case
and which the supreme court of the
| United States in that case said if they
| possessed it would enable them to fix
\ every railroad rate in the country in
single proceeding
Continuing Mr.. Davenport said: Let
me remind you chat when / was BON,
and 1 have but recently passed the half
century mark, this whole state, except
a narrow strip along the Mississippi,
was a barren wilderness, inhabited only
| by the Sioux Sacs, the Foxes and the
IoWas 1t did not then contain, all told,
100000 inhabitants, the land was of no
value, the people were extremely poor,
and the hardships of their existence are
| Incredible to us now. And what was
| true of this state was true of the Whole
region west of the Mississippi. From
the Mississippi to the Pacific and from
Canada to the Gulf there dwelt less than
million and q half of inhabitants.
Now there are within these limits more
than twenty million residents. Thir-
teen new states have sprung up there
and been admitted into the Union in
that time, and from that section there
now come thirty-six United states SEN
atOrs and a hundred and three members
of congress.
LAS /. recall these things, this then
fresh, untouched, unbounded magnlh-
cent wilderness and what we now be-
hold here 1 ask myself and you the
question, what has wrought this won
derful transformation in the brief space
of my short lifetime, unparalleled as 1t
is in all the past ages of the world!
What factor is it that has brought mere
this great and prosperous population,
exceeding that of all France when
Napoleon ruled it and sold this land TO
us? I have not far to seek the answer.
There are ten thousand miles of rail-
roads in your state. mile OF railroad
for every two and a half miles square
of land, and for every two hundred and
fifty persons in it. These are joined TO
200 900 miles of other railroads, costing
for every mile on the average $5O,OOO TO
build and equip, which run out in every
direction east west, north and south
to the outermost bounds of the continent
1t is the existence of these railroads ana
the facilities which they have proVldeo
that have enabled all these people TO
come here, take up the otherwise worth
less government land, bring h1ther 10
these treeless plains the materials with
which to build houses and barns ana
transport their surplus products TO eV-
cry market in the world and bring back
in exchange all the necesSarieS, comforts
and Iuxuries which here abound. Each
mile of railroad which stretches away
from these fertile fields to the Atlantlc
seaboard, the Gulf, the Pacific ana
Canada, is as vital to the present value
of the farm of the Iowa farmer as is
the highway by which he reaches the
next station or the government winch
protects him in the ownership OF IT,
The great interests of Iowa, her very
existence imperatively demanded tnal
these railroads should be built ana when
you were but d feeble folk how eagerly
you and your fathers sought for the
capital with which to build them. Some
of YOU can no doubt recall the time
when, in 1861, the Illinois Central rail
road was chartered, when Chicago had
but % 900 inhabitants and but a single
railroad forty-three miles long which
ran to Elgin; when Illinois had only III
miles of railroad, Wisconsin %, Indiana
22S and Kentucky Is, while IN the whole
territory to the west there was not a
mile of railroad. Some of you can no
doubt recall the time, in 1852 when the
Michigan Central railroad reached chi
cago from Detroit, thus establishing
connection by rail and Lake Erie with
New York City and Boston. More of
you can no doubt recall that ever mem
orable day, December 2, 1853, when, on
the west bank of the Missouri near your
neighboring city of Omaha, the con-
struction of the Union Pacific railroad
was begun, and that still more memora-
BILE day the 10th of May, 1863, when the
great enterprise which forever linked
your state with the Pacific was COM
pleted and celebrated. And you can re
call the doubts and misgiVings with
which all these enterprises were under
taken and carried through, the extraor-
binary inducements which had to be
held out to secure the necessary capital
to build them and the long postpone
ment of any adequate return on the in
vestment
Farmer the Beneficiary.
1.-The general result of railway con-
1afi 1oa a n
crease in production and productive
power of every kind but the farmer
has been the chief beneficiary of it.
The butter and eggs of the Iowa farm
err are brought into Boston at the
same freight charge and often in the
same car with the butter and eggs of
the farmer in Vermont and central
New York. For all practical purposes
the farm of the Iowa farmer is as near
Boston or London as if it were located
in the next county. This is made pos
sible only by two things, the existence
of the railways. and the rank but wise
discrimination of their managers in
their freight rates, in favor of the more
distant producer over those who are
nearer the market, a discrimination
which destroys the natural advan-
tages. so-called. of the Vermont and
New York farmer in being nearer the
consumer and puts him on an equal
footing with the Iowa farmer. The
state of Iowa has been built up and is
now maintained by the discriminating
freight rates in her favor over the
eastern farmers on all her staple pro-
auctions. New England is full of
abandoned farms which were once
profitable investments for their owners
in raising the very articles which Iowa
produces, but which have been rem
dered valueless because the railroads
have annihilated distance as an ele-
ment in making their freight rates
from Iowa to the seaboard and the
gulf The grazing and cattle interests
of western New York, the milling and
Touring centers of Buffalo and Black
Rock were practically destroyed be-
cause the railways granted that dis
elimination in freight rates without
which Iowa and the west could not
exist and the country be fed.
''Now, the point have been leading
up to in all that I have said and which
now wish to bring home to you is