Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1918-04-20
THE GLORY OF THE AMERICAN RE-
PUBLIC
IKE Science of Government
GEe Hope and Dependence of the Human
Race
Copyright 1917
Copyright 1917
BY ORLANDO BELKNAP POND
(All rights reserved)
CHAPTER XVI.


tunate victims in the rapid progress Of
events. We have time only to consider and
emulate the prosperous; though in the final
reconnng and summing up Of the benefits
and injuries, the profits and losses, the adj
vantageS and disadvantages these concerns
must all be taken into consideration.
The first mail contract made between the
government and railroad corporations was
signed in January, 1888. AS result of this
contract the Baltimore and Washington the
Philadelphia. Wilmington and Baltimore,
began carrying the mail between Washing
ton and Philadelphia.
Prior to this innovation the mail had been
delivered by stage coaches on the lines of
their travel. The railroad transportation
of mail proved to be so much more rapid
and satisfactory to the public that long be-
fore the civil war the railroad had become
the carriers of the mail in all parts Of the
settled country and wherever it had pene-
tratcd into the regions of pioneer life
The stage-coach still continued to deliver
the mail to such place as were not in imme-
diate proximity to the railroad line; and
the stage-coach and horseback rider were
pushed on beyond and ahead of the railroad
as pioneer mail carriers in the unsettled
west. bazoning the way for the locomotive
which soon followed with it's trains of immi-
grant settlers of the soil and builders Of
states.
At the time of the civil war the popula-
ton OF the country had reached forty mil
lion. In the settled East the railroad had
already penetrated every important region
of trade and commerce and was even then
leading the people into the unsettled Sec
ton.
There were no longer any railroads with
wooden rails plated with straps of iron.
The invention of the ''T'' rail in 1880 by
Stevens and the establishment Of the roll
ing mills in America, after about 1915, gave
to the railroads suitable rail; and it's
manufacture in this country put the rail
roads into a more independent position.
The 'T' rail, from, and after 1916, came
into general use; and the wooden rail was
gradually supplanted and finally in few
years more became thing Of the past
The subject is of interest to us only as
showing how little was then known about
railroad building, and the crude condition
out of which the modern railroad as known
to us has been evolved.
The pioneer railroad builder had not a
faint conception of the progress in the i'm
provements to be made, in the increasing
numbers to be undertaken, or the extent of
country to be traversed, or the effect his
labor was to have upon trade and commerce,
or the part he was taking in the develop
ment of the great resources of the country,
neither did it occur to him that he was
building a system that would exercise great
powers and WELD vast political influence
in shaping the policies of the national gov
eminent, nor did he realize how intimately
and closely related the railroad would be-
come in course Of time with every interest
OF the state and nation; what drafts it
would make upon every person, and what
control it would exercise over the destiny
OF every individual in the land; that it
could or would build up or retard, discrim-
mate against or in favor Of Cities that
1t could or would enrich or ruin, directly or
indirectly individuals, he did not consider
or comprehend.
They were things too far ahead of him.
They were matters Of the more distant fu-
ture
They have actually, however, been devel-