Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1905-05-27

In his testimony bei9re the Senate
Committee on Interstate Commerce at
Washington on May 4th. Prof. Hugo r.
Meyer of Chicago University, an ex-
pert on railroad management, made
this statement:
Let us look at what might have
happened il we had needed the pro-
tests Of the farmers of New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania Tin the seven
ties when grain from the west began
pouring 10 the Atlantic seaboard) ana
acted upon the doctrine which the In
terstate Commerce Commission has
enunciated time and again, that no
man may be deprived of the advan-
tages accruing to him by virtue of his
geographical position. We could not
have west of the Mississippi a popu-
lation Of millions of people who are
prosperous and are great consumers.
We never should have seen the years
when we built 10000 and 10000 miles
of railroad 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 $4,000 miles
of railway year, we should not have
today east of the Mississippi a steel
and iron producing center which is at
once the marvel and the despair Of
Europe, because we could not have
built up a steel and iron industry if
there had been no market for its pro-
duct
We could not have in New England
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 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 coun-
try while the development of the agri-
cultural West of this country, did
mean the impairment of the agricul-
tural value East Of the Mississippi
river that ran up into hundreds of
millions of dollars. it meant inciden-
tally the building up of great manu-
featuring industries that added to the
value of this land by thousands Of mil
lions of dollars. And, gentlemen,
those things were not forseen in the
seventies. The statesmen and the pub
lie men of this country did not see
what part the agricultural develop
ment of the West was going to play
in the industrial development Of the
East. And you may read the decisions
If the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion from the first to the last, and
what is one of the greatest character
stics of those decisions? The con-
tinued inability 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 a -four mill with a production
of so barrels a day is being crowded
out. 1t never can see that the de-
struction or impairment of farm val
ues in this place means the building
up of farm values in that place. and
that that shifting of values is a neces
7ary incident to the industrial and
manufacturing development of this
country. And If we shall give to the
Interstate Commerce Commission the
power to regulate rates, we shall nc
longer have our rates regulated on the
statesmanlike basis on which they
have been regulated in the past by
railway men. who really have beer
great statesmen, who really have beer
great builders of empires, who have
had an imagination that rivals the
imagination of the greatest poet an(
of the greatest inventor, and who
have operated with a courage anC
daring that rivals the courage anC
daring of the greatest military gen
eral. But we shall have our rates
regulated by a body of civil servants
bureaucrats, whose besetting sin thu
world over is that they never cal
: grasp a situation in a large way ant
with the grasp of the statesman; tina
hey never can see the fact that the,
are confronted with a small evil; eN
cept by the creation Of evils an
abuses which are infinitely create
than the one that is to be corrected.