Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1905-05-26
Railroads and Progress,

Railroads and Progress.
In his testimony before 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 If we had needed the pro-
tests of the farmers Of New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania lin the seven
ties when grain from the west began
pouring to the Atlantic seaboard) and
acted upon the doctrine which the
Interstate 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 popula-
ton of millions Of people who are
prosperous and are great consumers.
We never should have seen the years
when we built 10000 and $4,000 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 10000 miles of rail-
way year, we should not have to-
day east of the Mississippi steel and
Iron producing center which Is at
once the marvel and the despair of Eu-
rope, because we could not have built
up q steel and iron industry il there
had been no market for its product.
1--WE could not have in New England
q 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 di-
yersifed 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 ag-
ricultural West of this country, did
mean the impairment of the agri-
cultural value east of the Mississippi
River that ran up into hundreds of
millions of dollars, it meant incident
ally the building up of great manufac-
turing industries that added to the
value of this land by thousands of mil
lions Of dollars. And, gentlemen,
those things were not foreseen in the
seventies. The statesmen and the
public 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 Commits
sion from the first to the last, and
what is one Of the greatest character
lstics 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 flour mill with produc'
ton of 80 barrels day is being crowd
ed out. 1t never can see that the
destruction or impairment Of farm
values in this place means the build
Ing UP of farm values in that place
and that that shifting of values is &
necessary incident to the industrial
and manufacturing development of this
country. And If we shall give to thu
Interstate Commerce Commission pow
er to regulate rates, we shall no long
ed have our rates regulated on thu
statesmanlike basis on which the!
have been regulated in the past by thu
railway men, who really have beer
great statesmen, who really have beef
great builders Of empires, who hav
had an imagination that rivals tn
Imagination of the greatest poet and o
the greatest inventor, and who hav
operated with a courage and darin
that rivals the courage and daring o
the greatest military general. But W
shall have our rates regulated by
body of civil servants, bureaucratic
whose besetting sin the world over
that they never can grasp situatio
IN large way. and with the grasp @
the statesman; that they never ca
see the fact that they are confronte
with o small evil; that that evil
relatively small, and that it cannot b
corrected except by the creation G
evils and abuses which are iGfnitel
greater than the one that is to b
corrected"