The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-13
straneIinn line south.

Memphis Commercial-Appeal
 The Commercial Appeal in consider CT ing the most important questions of the day has always kept in mind the tra- ditional ideals of the republic. The cornerstone of free government IS Ho- erty We believe that all individaal has a right to do as he pleases, pro- vided he does his fellow man no harm and society no wrong. When several individuals combine to form a corpora tion We believe that this. corporate in- dividual has the same rights and the same duties as any other kind or an individual.
 We have always contended that raii- roads should be made to observe the laws of the country. They should pc punished for relating. They should be punished for making combinations in restraint of trade. An interstate raiI- way-barring any contract 1t may have with a State--should be held amenable to the Federal law. Here recently sew dertaken to regulate the rates charged by interstate railroads. We have pointed out several times that any blow aimed at railroads penetrating the South is a blow aimed really al the commerce and progress of the South. The New York Sun. viewing the con- fiict from afar, comes to the same con this question it says The industrial development and the commercial ex- panslon of the South during the last twenty-five years have been amazing. There Is more money invested in cot ton mills and more raw cotton used in the South today than there was in all the rest of the country in 1880. In 1905 the South produced 10000, 600 tons of bitumincus coal. The production of 34,0OU,000 tons. It's farm products in l905 show valuation equal to 80 per cent of the total value of the farm products of the whole United States adn fa dnd property has increased during the same time from $3,00O, 900, ,000 to $6,500, ,00O,- GOO The value of it's cotton crop has more than doubled the value of it's six. the value of it's iron output has been multiplied by nine, and the value of its farm products has increased from $660,000,000 te $1.750. 100000 All this has beent accomplished with the ala of the least efficient transportation service possessed by any section of the United States The tremendous indus trial expansion in the South over whelmed its railways. Struggle as they might, the lines have been utterly un- able to catch up with the business con- fronting them. The Southern Railway has perhaps been particularly overbur- dened. ItNforms the great trunk line system between New York and New taps an enormous area of the best of the entire South. For the convenience and benefit of shippers, to say nothing of the safety of travellers, 1t should be double tracked from end to end. So should the Seaboard. So should the Atlantic Coast Line. The railways in the South need new equipment, and more equipment They need new tracks and trackage They need fa- cilities for the business already upon them and far greater facilities for the business which should lie immediately ahead of them. Blind to their own welfare, careless of their great eco- homie interests and deluded by politi- clans who are playing with vast Issues for their own political aggrandizement, some of the States of the great new South are cramping their present and strangling their future by legislation and attempts at legislation which tend to ruin their lines of communication with their markets. If the policy of the South toward its railways were as liberal as 1t is illiberal the resultant benefit to that section would be incal- culable. As it is, there is grave dan ger of widespread disaster as a conse- quence of ill-adviscd railway legisla- ton. It is the policy of suicide"
 This seems to us to be sound reason Ing. The enforcement of the federal law is certainly all that is needed More unre<soning hostility to railroads because they are railroads is really, and of course. fnvoluntarily hostility toward the welfar, and the expansion of the South This great territory by lot of tin horn politicians.