The silver state news. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1907-1909, 1909-04-10
RAILWAYPHOBlA'
END

~ pC Wv iVoD w 1L
mind that Judge Mcpherson s decision
in the Missouri rate cases is the begin
ming of the end of the insensate and
hurtful legislation that has been enact
ed in many states in the past two years
or more-legislation designated to
force enormous reductions in freight
rates, already the lowest in the world,
and to substitute a 2-cents passenger
rate for a Scent rate in the teeth of
overwhelming proof adduced in court
that no one of the great railway sys
TENS operating west of the Mississippi
river was earning expenses on its
trans Mississippi passenger business at
the 3-cent rate. Under the circum-
stances it was inevitable that the
courts would find the 2-cent rate con-
fiscatory and the wholesale reductions
in freight tariffs unreasonable.
As a consequence, the courts viii un
do the unconstitutional work of the
legislatures and state railway commits
sions as fast as the cases are heard,
and the only tangible results of all this
frenzied legislation will be the tremen-
dous burden of expense bills which the
taxpayers will have to bear, including
not only the salaries and expenses of
legislatures and commissions which
have wasted their time, but many
fbr,CanIo af 1cllarc baSiHac for nfhap
foolish and fruitless efforts in the same
direction, as, for example, the 100000
which the legislature of Kansas wants
to spend, or the $25, 900 a year which
Governor Stubs recommends, for a
physical valuation of the railroads in
that state to be used as a basis for
establishing railway rates. The SUI
preme court of the United States has
plainly minated, if not actually de-
clared, in Judge Brewer s decision last
year, that a physical valuation is not
a controlling factor in determining the
fairness of a rate, but that a number
of other features of the subject must
be taken into consideration in reaching
such a conclusion. As a matter of
course it will throw out all such cases,
in which the physical valuation has
been used according to the idea which
the taxpayers will pay the costs as
usual.
Instead of this suicidal policy of rail
wayphobia, which if it could be en-
forced would lay PROSTATE the pros
perity and paralyze the development
of the west, it would seem high time
for sane and sober thought to prevail,
and for the progressive business men of
Missouri, Kansas and other states to
get together as those of Oklahoma
have recently done, through a state
federation of commercial bodies to
resist the disastrous leadership of am
bilious, self-seeking demagogues,
whose only object is to secure fat po-
htical jobs and high office for them
selves by playing upon the ~prejudices
of the unthinking masses against rail
roads and all great combinations of
capital. BY cooperating in this a
ner the business men of Oklahoma
succeeded in defeating the machine
candidate for speaker of the legislature
and electing a conservative, broad
minded farmer who was pledged to ap
point committees which would encour-
age the building of railroads and the
Investment of capital in many enter
prises which the state sorely needs to
develop it's rich natural resources. A
united effort should be made along this
line by the enlightened business men
of this southwestern territory before
it is too late-before this region, by
nature b~oundlessly rich and fertile, be-
comes known among men who have
money to invest as the bad lands of
commercial and industrial enterprise.
This effort is particularly needed at
this time from the fact which was
pointed out the other day by the New
York Times, in an able editorial, that
our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, are
pledging large sums for railway con
struction, and in the not distant future
their wheat growers and cattle raisers
will be shipping the products of their
immensely fertile lands along these
new railways to market ahead of the
American producer, who will find him
self distanced in the competition on
account of the dwarfed development of
transportation facilities. The govern
ment of Alberta guaranteed $~27,2o0,o0o
in railway bonds the other day for
roads to be built by Kansas capitalists
and other lines. Manitoba and other
Canadian provinces are pursuing the
enlightened policy. AS matters
stand, not a single American railroad
is spending a dollar beyond present