The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1905-08-05
RAILROADS
AND FARMERS
They Love the Goose that Lays the
Golden Egg.
PROPHET COME TO JUDGMENT
Bees and Lizards Perish in the Boise
DrOuth-The Waters that the
Commission Saw.

| ~VtNHHSSHVH -OHWs
Speaking to a Canyon County
audience, at the good roads conven.
tlon, in Payette, Senator Mann OF
Georgia told truth which deserves
to be borne in mind. He said. in
substance, "that there may have been
a time when the railroads oppressed
the people and extracted from them
every possible cent without the
slightest regard to the welfare of the
people themselves. If that policy
ever prevailed and, to great extent.
it probably has, the railroad manag
ers have lived to see the ruinous ef-
fects OF it, not upon the people but up
on the railroads.. - Railroad officials
now fully realize that their roads
cannot prosper unless the people who
use them prosper. Indeed so clear
ly is this understood by INTELLIGENT
managers that in every great railroad
system there is department ex-
clusively devoted to promoting pros
porous conditions among the body of
its patrons. The value, of a railroad
does not lie in it's roadbed, it's rails,
its rolling stock, its shops, stations
and depots any more than the value
OF farm lies in its plows, harrows
and fences Or the value Of a news
paper in it's type and presses. In a
farm, it is the yield that counts: in a
newspaper, the circulation, in a rail
road, the tonnage. The value of q
railroad is its earning capacity and
its earning capacity is not measured
by the price per ton it may charge
but the number of tons it moves.
Railroad managers thoroughly under
stand that their tonnage depends OIL
thoir ability to move products to
market at rates that will leave the
producers fair margin of profit.
They know that producers cannot
go on producing indefinitely at loss,
and they know that production is
ultimately regulated by prices.
Therefore, railroads are vitality in
terested in the welfare of all classes
of producers whose products must
find market abroad. Resulting from
this is the constant tendency to a
lowering of rates. High rates max e
for low tonnage and low rates make
for high tonnage.
Competition has less effect upon
the price of transportation than upou
the price of any other commodity.
OF course, there are rival lines and
there is competition among them,
but, ultimately, the things that con-
troll rates are production and con
sumption. Whenever transportation
rates operate so as to make prices low
to the producers and high to the CON
sumer, the quantity of any given pro
duct moved will be correspondingly
reduced. That will compel further
increase of rates with corresponding
reduction of traffic and in the end
the very thing upon which railroads
depends for existance will have been
destroyed by the railroads them
selves. On the other hand, if by
legislation or otherwise producers
force rates to an excessively low
point, the very thing which enables
them to reach the best market will be
destroyed by themselves.
Railroads are not charitable in
stitutions. Their owners are not pro
fessed philanthropists. They are cold
blooded business men, grasping fol
the almighty dollar, but nevertheless
they are the friends of the producers.
Not sentimental friends, but business
friends. They love and cherish the
farmer, not because he is honest and
horny handed, not because he il
generous and patriotic, not because
of any of his moral or spiritual vir
tues and graces, but because - minc
we don't use the metaphor irreverent
ly-because he is the goose that lays
the golden egg.