The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1905-05-25

In nls testimony before the senate
Committee on interstate Commerce st
Washington on Ssy 4. Professor Hugo
n. Meier. os Chicago University. ari
expert on railroad management. made
this statement:
"Lef Us look AZ what might have hap
pened if we had needed The protests
Of the farmers Of New York aud Ohio
and Pennsylvania tin the seventies
when grain from the West began pour.
Ing 10 the Atlantic seaboagdt and acted
upon The doctrine which the Interstate
Commerce Commission has enunciaied
time ani again. that no man may be
deprived of The Advantages sccruing 10
him by virtue of his geographical POI
siiion. We cotid net Lave west OF ths
Mississippi q population OF millions OF
people who are prosperous aud are
great consumers. We never should
have seen the years when we built
10000 md IL 600 miles Of railway, for
there would have been no farmers
west OF the Mississippi River who
could have fsed the land that would
have been opened up by the building
OF those railways. And, Ii We had not
seen the years when We could build
10000 aud 1900 miles OF railway
year. we should not Eaye to-day. east
OF the Mississippi, steel and iron
producing centre which is at once the
marvel ana the despair of Europe, be-
cause we could not have built up a
steel and iron industry IL there had
been no market for its product.
ave could not have In New Eng
land a 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 manufac-
fed kinds, because those industries
would have no market among the farm
ers west of the Mississippi River.
And, while the progress Of this
country, while 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 of
millions Of dollars, 1t meant, Incl
dentally, the building Up of great man.
ufacturing industries that added to
the value of this land by thousands Of
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 in
the Industrial development Of the East.
And, you may read the decisions Of
the Interstate Commerce Commission,
from the first to the last, and what is
one of the greatest characteristics of
those decisions? The continued in.
ability to see the question i'll this large
way.
The Interstate Commerce Commits
sion never can see anything more than
that the farm land Of some farmer
is decrea sin. in value, or, that some
man, who has flour mill with a pro-
duction of fifty barrels day, is being
crowded out. 1t never can see that
the destruction or impairment Of farm
values in this place means the building
up of farm values in that place, and
that that shifting of values is q neceS-
sary incident to the industrial and man.
ufacturing development Of this coun-
try. And, if we shall give to the Inter-
state Commerce Commission power to
regulate rates, we shall no longer have
our rates regulated Old the statesman
like basis on which they have been
regulated in the past ~ the railway
men, who really have oeen great states
men; who really have Ecen great build
ers of empires; who have had an i'm
agination that rivals the imaginat ton
of the greatest poet and of the great
est inventor, and WHO have operated
with courage and daring that rivals
the courage and daring Of the greatest
military general. But We shall have
our rates regulated by body Of civil
servants, b:reaucrats, whose besct-
ting sin the world over, is that they
can never grasp situation in large
way and With the grasp of the states
man; that they never can see the fact
that they are confronted with a small
evil; that that evil is relatively small,
and that it cannot be corrected except
by the creation of evils and abuses
which are infinitely greater than the
one that is to be corrected"