Rocky Ford enterprise., 1905-05-26
RAILROADS AND PROGRESS.

In his Testimony before the senate
committee on interstate commerce NJ
Washington on May I, Prof. Hugo r.
Meyer of the Chicago university. an
expert on railroad management. made
this statement:
Let us look nt what might have
happened II We had needed the pro
tests OF the farmers OF New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania lin the 7O's.
when grain from the west began pour.
Ing 10 the Atlantic seaboardb. and
acted upon the doctrine which the In.
tcrs;ate commerce commission has
cnuncIhtcd time and agnln. tina: no
man may be deprived ot the at-
van,ngcs aceruing TO 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.
sumcrs. We never should have seen
the years when We built 10000 and
l:.OO0 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 tho
:. ,arH when We could build 10000 and
1900 miles OF railway year. wc
should not have today east of tho
Mississippi n steel and iron produc-
Ing center. which IN at once the mar
vel aud the despair OF Europe. because
We could not have built up n steel and
iron Industry II there had been no
market for Its product.
We could not have in New England
n great boot and shoe industry: We
could not have in New England n
great cotton milling industry: We
could not have spread throughout New
York and Pennsylvania and Ohio man.
ufacturIng industries of the most d.
vcrsIncd kinds. because those indus
tries would have no market among
the farmers west of the Mississippi
river.
And while tho progress OF this
country. while tho development OF
tho .,Fricultural west of ,his country.
did mean the impairment of the ag.
ricuiturai value east - the Mississippi
river. that ran up into hundreds u
millions of dollars, Il meant i6rid"nt.
ally the building up OF great manl;.
featuring industries that added to tho
value of this land by thousands of
millions OF dollars. And. gentlemen,
those things were not forcsecn in the
'10's. The statesmen and the public
men of this country did not see what
part the agricultural development of
the west was going to play in the in
ctrin ~ hn A.
you may read the decisions OF tho
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 mere
than that the farm land OF some farm.
er is decreasing in value, or that some
man who has a flour mill with n pro-
duction of fifty barrels n day is be-
ing crowded out. 1t never can see
that the destruction or impairment OF
farm values in this place means tho
building up of farm values in that
place, and that that shifting of values
is a necessary incident to the indus
tTldl anu MISUNDERSTANDING ueNelopileul VI
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
been great statesmen, who really have
BEEN great builders of empires, who
have had an imagination that rivals
the Imagination of the greatest poet
and of the greatest inventor. and who
have 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
situation in large way and with the
grasp Of the statesman that they
never can see the fact that they are
confronted with a small evil; that
that evil is relatively small, and that
1t cannot be corrected except by the
creation of evils and abuses which
are infinitely greater than the one
that is to be corrected"
l1 tntr@ hut hn