The Brinkley argus., 1909-11-05
En0 6Efs Amount of Money Spent On American
 Railroads
Dvarfs Huge Sum Worlds P0Uers Pour Out on
 Armament

the NOOT OI Iuo SloCh CA change, and then across the ocean to the money markets of Europe. It ran on to roll ing mills and blast furnaces on the Monongahela and the Allegheny, to car shops and locomotive works. to coal mines and coke ovens, to the iron ranges of Minnesota, and the forests of the Sierras.
 There were lighted the fires of the idle blast furnaces, from the Alleghen- ies to Lake Michigan-beacon fires signaling the return of prosperity. The purse of the railroads, closed since the panic, had been opened again, and the country was glad.
 No intricate compilations of dry statistics are needed to understand the big part the railroads play in the American industrial drama. Their wealth-in lands, roadways, buildings. equipment, and securities-is as great as that of all the wealth of the south ern states, or the combined wealth of Belgium, Holland and Switzerland One dollar in every eight of the wealth of this country is railroad prop erty. The railroads outlay next year for labor and materials and the pay ment of taxes, interest and dividends will be sum as great as all the money in the country. The bills for labor and materials alone will far ex- ceed all the money raised by taxation national, state, county and town. Europe is grooming under her ter rife burden preparing for war But the enormous cost of the armed peace Of Europe is dwarfed by our railroad expenditures. What traveller thinks of the cost of the wooden ties? But, in the fiat" year before the panic, our railroads spent more on ties than England and Germany together spent in building fighting ships. Our steel rail bill next year will equal the com blned naval budgets of Russia and France. The smoke trailing from the stacks of our locomotives will evidence the burning up of more wealth than all the naval powers-England, Ger many, France, Russia, Japan and the United States--will spend on war ships.
 The German war lords expenditures on an army that threatens the peace of Europe will be exceeded next year by the money our railroads will spend buying new freight cars and keeping the old ones in repair Our locomo- tives will cost more than the British army. The military establishment of France will cost less than our track repairs. On bridges and culverts we will spend as much as will Italy on her army. All the money spent on the army of the czar would not pay for the steel the Steel corporation will make for the railroads The huge out lay the railroads will make this con- ing year for new materials will equal the combined cost of the military and naval establishments of all Europe
 In the fiat year" before the panic one combination of eastern lines bought $s0,000,000 worth of cars and locomotives, $12,000,00O worth of ties and rails, and spent $3O,OO0, ,00O in track improvements. They have spent $500, 100000 in improvements in the
 
 past ten years-a sum greater than the entire capital stock of any single railroad in America, two only ex- cepted.
 In the west the big spenders for the past ten years have been the Harri- man lines. Mad Hartman" they called him because he spent s3O,O ,OO0,- 900 Improving properties that his pre- | decessors had let go to ruin. Harri. man gave more orders-big orders-to rail mills, bridge works. car shops, To- comotive works and lumber mills than any other man who ever crossed the Mississippi to run railroads
 Here, then, are three American rail- roads whose expenditures for improve ments in the past ten years foot up $l,00o 100000 A billion dollars-how much Is that? With that money you could build a railroad girdling the earth.
 Railroad buying follows the tide of prosperity Every great boom in this | country has been marked by enormous railroad expenditures, and the great | Industrial and financial crises have been the aftermaths of these booms The nrst big waves of prosperity were marked by the building of new rail- roads; the latter ones by railroad re- construction
 The ebb and flow of prosperity in this country is like the tide in the Bay of Fundy-greater than anywhere else