The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1905-07-01

Railroads and Progress.
In his testimony before the Senate
Committee Gu 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 II we had Eeeded the pro-
tests of the farmers of New York and
Ohio and Pennsylvania Tin 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 vest of the Mississippi a 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 1900 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 the years when we could
build 10000 and 10000 miles OF rail-
WY a year, we should not have to-
day east of the Mississippi a steel and
iron producing center which Is At
once the marvel and the despair Of Eu-
rome. because we could not have built
I'M a steel and iron industry II there
had been no market for Its product
1--WE could not have In New England
= 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 man.
ufacturing industries Of the most d.
versifed 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 az
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, 1t 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
rent of the West was going to PLAY
IN the Industrial development OF thu
East. And you may read the decisions
Of the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion from the first to the last, ant
what is one of the greatest character
istics of those decisions? The con
tinued inability to see the question II
this large way.
THE Interstate Commerce Commits
sion never can see anything more thai
that the farm land of sone farmer i
decreasing in value. or that some mai
who has q -four mill with produc
ton of so barrels day Is being crowd
ed out. 1t never can see that IN
destruction or impairment OF farn
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 industris
and manufacturing development OF TIL
country. And II we shall give 70 IN
Interstate Commerce Commission pow
er to regulate rates. we shall no ione
ed have our rates regulated on tn
statesmanlike basis on which the
have been regulated In the past by tn
railway men, who really have bee
great statesmen, who really nave pee
great builders of empires, who hav
had an Imagination that rivals tn
Imagination Of the greatest poet and
the greatest inventor, and who hav
operated with courage and DARN
that rivals the courage and daring
the. greatest military general. But v
shall have our rates regulated by
body of civil servants. bureaucrat
whose besetting sin the world over
that they never can grasp q Situate
IN a large way, and with the grasp
the statesman; that they never ca
see the fact that they are confronts
with a small evil; that that evil
relatively small, and that 1t cannot
corrected except by the creation
evils and abuses which are infinite
greater than the one that Is to
corrected"