The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1905-09-14
NORTH DAKOTA GRATEFUL
Gov. sarlss oos. to Ct; Paul to Per.
sonally Thank J. J. Hin for
Freight Reductions.

IOv. z. I. SarleS, OIL NOrCn DakOldst
in behalf of the farmers and business
men of that state, came to st. Paul.
Aug. %, to express to President j. j.
Hill, of the Great Northern railway,
the gratitude of the people of North
Dakota for the voluntary reduction
and Duluth.
''The people of our state greatly
appreciate what this present to the
farmers MEANS" said Gov. Sarles.
st is a reduction of about Is per
cent from my home town, Hillsboro,
and means to the citizens of North
Dakota $1,75o,ooO annually, three
times as much as the tax levied for
the purpose of running the state.
Coming at this time, just before
the moving of a bountiful crop, the
reduction is particularly gratifying
to the people of my state and mag
unanimous to the highest degree on
the part of President Hill, whose
policy has always been to share the
profits of his road with the people of
the Northwest. This was his conten-
ton at the time of the merger litiga-
ton, and the people of North Dakota
have the same confidence in him now
as then.''
President Hill said in response that
the reduction was made in accord
ance with his policy that the volume
of business should regulate rates.
He said that the farmers and rail-
roads were mutually dependent upon
each other and that the prosperity
of the one meant the prosperity of
the other. The railroads, he said,
could not exist without the farmers,
well without the railroads.
President Hill said that there was
20 reason why the land in the Red
River valley of North Dakota should
not sell for as much per acre as land
in Iowa, for North Dakota raises all
the cereals raised in Iowa except
corn. Mr.. Hill said that he was ex-
perimenting with certain kind of
corn, which natures in nine weeks
and yields sixty bushels to the acre.
If this corn proves adapted to the
climate and soil of North Dakota,
Mr.. Hill said there is no reason why
land in that state should not sell
for SIS an acre.
The action of Mr.. Hill in volun-
tarily reducing grain rates in the
face of strong protests from some Of
the railroads in the so-called Eastern
merger, the people of North Dakota
say, is conclusive proof of the fact
that it is far better for the Northwest
that the northern transcontinental
whose life work has been the up
building of the Northwest, than in
the hands of Hartman and Rookie
Teller, who in all probability would
use them to pay dividends on the
poor-payirg roads that run through
the arid and semi-arid country of the
Southwest.
''Do you suppose for a minute that
we would have this reduction in grain
rates if the Great Northern and the
Northern Pacific had been controlled
by the Eastern merger?" asked
prominent business man of North
Dakota at the Merchants hotel
yesterday. "Some of the roads in
the Eastern merger pay well and
some do not. IF Hartman and
Rockefeller owned the Great North
ern, which runs through an ever in
creasingly prosperous territory, they
would take the exorbitant profits
which they might squeeze out Of the
farmers of the Northwest for the
purpose of paying dividends on the
poor-paying roads in the deserts of
Nebraska, Western Kansas, New
Mexico, Arizona and other states in
the Southwest. 1t would be fine
opportunity for equalizing profits,
and Hartman and Rockefeller would
not have missed it,
The people of North Dakota main
tain that Mr.. Hill has proved by long
years of successful achievement his
friendship for and interest in the
Northwest. During the anti-merger
litigation Mr.. Hill had said that his
policy had been and would always
be, to share his profits with the
farmers. The people of North Da:
kota took him at his word and they
have lived to see his promise fulfilled.