The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1908-03-20
Social and Economic Effects
Upon the People.
GEORGE PALMER GIVES VIEW
Paper Read Before the Social Science
Cub Tuesday Evening; Electric
Line Benefits Mankato.
t - - : g.. e ,

ence club on Tuesday evening, gives
his views on the benefits to be derived
from an electric street railway.
The electric railway is of such com
paratively recent origin that it is yet
early to give an accurate account of
the social and economic effects it has
had and is having upon the people. It
is only nineteen years since the first
practical electric railway was INSTALL
ed in the United States. In 1889 three
companies, Richmond, Va, Washington,
ID. C., and Allegheny We're started. In
1890 only IL per cent of the street
railways in this country used electri-
city. In 1900 nearly all were using
electricity.
| have been unable to obtain reliable
statistics on some points later than
for the. year 1902, the government hav-
ing issued in 1908 the results of the
census on electric street and interur-
ban railways of the county. The fig
ures | shall quote are therefore based
on the year 1902. Very unsatisfactory
rs they are, they are the best that
have been able to obtain.
In that year 100 companies reported
to the department, IS made no report,
making 81 electric railway companies
in the United States. With l40,-
767 employees, carrying that year A.
774,2llO00 passengers, with earnings
of over S247 100000 it is easy to see
that business employing such a large
amount of capital, furnishing employ
ment to as many people and carrying
on its lines the enormous total of
passengers given. must be an impor-
tant factor in the life of the people.
The last five years have been proli-
fc in the formation of electric rail
ways companies and many thousands
of miles have been built and are now
building. The government will issue
late this year a summary of an inves-
tieation that is now being made on the
same lines as the work of 1902 but it
has been impossible to obtain these
figures at present.
The economic effects of electric rail
ways have been many and varied. We
are all familiar with the service given
in every important city. One who has
noted the vast number of passengers
carried on the railways of New York, BOs-
ton, Philadelphia, in fact every city of
Importance, cannot be impressed with
the thought of how these cities ever
really existed before the advent of
rapid transportation. have often
wondered how the people ever managed
to live in large cities wholly dependent
upon their own powers or upon horse
transportation. but the probabilities are
that they did not live at the rate of
the modern city The world moves
fast in more ways than one in these
days.
The ease and rapidity by which bust
ness men and employees of the great
business houses and workmen in the
great factories are transported many
miles to and from their work has had
most important bearing upon city
life. Some years ago it was considered
that a workman could not possibly live
more than four miles from the scene
of his labor. 1t was figured that this
was about the limit that man could
walk to and from employment. requir-
ing about an hour each way. The adj
vent of the horse ears heightened this
distance and the electric lines have
added still farther so that it is no
longer necessary that workmen be crowd
ed near where they are employed, al
though many do on account of the saw
ing of car fare and the fact that there
are many cheap tenements and places
of abode in the congested part of the
city.
One of the chief functions of the
street railway in great city is the
distribution of the population over a
wider area than it would otherwise
be possible to occupy. Were it not
for these roads the inhabitants would
necessarily crowd ever closer and closer
together to the detriment of health
and comfort as they could not without
terrible waste of time and strength
live very far from their places of
business.
The occupied area of cities has ex-
tended steadily and rapidly and pro-
badly the street railway has been the
most important single factor in this
movement. Their influence in this di-
rection is we'll shown by the manner
i'm which the resident sections have
followed the lines of the railways In
many cases the boundaries of the built
up area of city instead of being
fairly uniform, consist of fingers or
tentacles reaching out from the more
solid center each owing its growth to
a radiating street railway. An in
stance or two will illustrate.
In 1890 the population of Manhattan
Borough of New York was l,44l 900 |
it had increased. to l.S5O,OOO in 1900 |
OF this increase $4,000, considerably |
more than half took place in the !
twelfth ward alone, the population of |
that ward having practically doubled |
during the decade. This ward lies |
north of seth street approximately |
seven miles from the center of the I
city. The great majority of the bread /