The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-05-24

III MS testimony before the Senate
| Committee on Interstate Commerce Mt
Washington on May L. Professor Hugo
II. Meyer, of Chicago University, an
expert on railroad management, made
this statement:
Let us look at what might have hap
pened If we had needed the protests
| of the farmers of New York and Ohio
! ana Pennsylvania dn tile seventies
| when grain from the West began pour
| ing to the Atlantic seaboardJ and acted
upon the doctrine which the Interstate
Commerce Commissions has enunciated
time and again, that 10 man may be
deprived of the advantages accruinC 10
Him by virtue of his geographical po-
sition. We could not tave west of the
Mississippi population of millions of
people who are prosperous and are
great consumers. We never should
have seen tue years when we built
10000 and $1,000 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, if we had not
seen the years when we could build
10000 and 1900 miles of railway
year. we should not have to-day. east
OF the Mississippi. steel ana iron
producing centre which is ut once the
marvel and the despai. OF Europe, be-
cause we could not have built up a
steel and iron industry II there had
been no market for its product.
I'VE could not have iu New Eng
land great boot and shoe industry;
we could not have in New England q
great cotton milling industry; we could
not have spread throughout New York
and Pennsylvania and Ohio manufnc-
turing industries OF the most diversi-
fed kinds, because those industries
would have no market among the farm
crs 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 agrlcul-
tural value cast of the Mississippi !
River that ran up into hundreds OF
millions of dollars, it meant, Incl.
dentally, the building up of great man
ufacurlng 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 |
nent 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 fret TO the last aud what is
one of the greatest characteristics of
those decisions? The continued in
ability to see the question in this large
way.
"The Interstate Commerce Commis-s
sion never can see anything more than
that the farm land OF some farmer
Is decreasing in value, or, that some
man, who has -four mill with pro-
duction Of 1fty 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 n neces-
'ary incident to the industrial and man
Itacturing development of this coun-
ny. And, II we shall give TO the Inter-
'tate Commerce Commission power to
regulate rates, we shall no longer have
our rates regulated on the statesman
IKE OASIS on which they have been
regulated in the past 5y the railway
men, VINO really have oeen great states
men; who really have been great build.
'rs OF empires; who have had an i'm.
igination that rivals the Imagination
II the sreatest poet and of the great
'st inventor and who have operated
With q courage and daring that rivals
he courage and daring OF The greatest
Military general. But we shall hoye
'ur rates regulated by body of civil
eryants, bureaucrats. whose beset.
Ing sin the world over. is that they
an never grasp a situation In large
way and with the grasp OF the states.
nan; that they never can see tbe foct
hat they are confronted with a small
VII; that that evil is relatively smnn
nd that 1t cannot be corrected except
Y the creation OF evils and abuses
which are Infinitely greater Than the
ne that Ii to be corrected