Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-04-27
MONEY AND TRADE
Farmers. Wealth Producers, Do Not
Stand Alone. An Example.
BY George w. Hinman, in the New
York American


Chicago, April 16.
A little railroad between Peoria and
East st. Louis, Illinois, is about to be
abandoned. 1t is about $50 miles long.
The removal Of it's tracks will not re-
duce materially the railroad mileage
of the United States. Yet, according
to Yesterdays dispatches, the aban-
donment of the road is causing uproar
and protest among the people along
it's line.
About 1 1900 persons, mostly farm
ers, are to be left without rail trans
portation for themselves and their
farm products. Six coal mines and
eight industrial plants will suffer the
same loss.
Probably none of the farm owners,
mine operators or manufacturers ever
before thought of this little railroad
as a necessary part of the machinery
that helped them produce the market
value oil the goods from which they
made their living. But they apparent
ly are having a new set of thoughts
on the subject now. And right mere
most of us. who are interested in pres
ent day business, may find something
to think about.
1t is the fashion just now to divide
Americas business men into produc-
ers and non-producers. Even the
Government in Washington has this
division in mind. When one reads the
speeches of the politicians, especially
when one listens to the addresses of
" 4f orin1I1fI1rn ono 1G
moved to the belief that about 3O,O00,-
900 to 8 1000, 900 rural Americans are
the only real, hundred per cent pro-
ducers that we have; that the other
10000, 900 Americans are living large
Nv off the labor of this minority; that
men who do not raise crops or dig IN
mines are of small Importance in
creating the nations wealth; and that
every departure of man from farms
to factories means loss and every mi
grafton from city to country means
gain in the welfare of the united
States.
All this presented as a new idea.
It is as old as the hills. Before the
French Revolution a whole school OF
economists and statesmen rose IN
France to preach it. An attempt was
made even to apply it to France That
ATTEMPT was one of the things that
brought on the revolution. The idea,
therefore, lost it's popularity. Yet to-
day, to heal many of the men IN pup
lie life talk, one would imagine that'
in producing the wealth and business
of the mines were everything, and that
the railroads, the markets they sup
nlv and the cities and industries they
serve were only third or fourth rate
factors in creating the wealth OF the
country.
ONLY when things are Jared loose
by some unusual event like the aban-
donment of the little Illinois railroad
does the truth begin to dawn.
Suppose a man were to go to the
thirty-six villages along the abandon
ed line a year or two from now n
to tell the farmers that it was a good
thing the road was abandoned, that
the men who owned the road were
only a lot of teaching capitalists;
that thew never had made two blades
of grass grow where formerly there
was me-; that they never had pro-
duced anything of value to the farmer
by carrying his goods to the city mar
ket; that they never had produced
ANYTHING for the village by laying
down city-made goods at its door,
steps: and that in general the real
wealth of the region once penetrated
by the railroad would increase as rap
idlv without the road as with it.
What would be the answer OF the
armer who had been cut off from
their market or the mine operators
who had lost the means of transport
ing their coal? Would they assent!
Would they agree that the transpor-
tation afforded them by the railroad
had done nothing to increase the
value of their products? Would they
argue still that they alone produced
the whole market value of the crops!
Hardly. That is not what their
protests against the abandonment Oh
fine railroad mean now. That is sure
" not what their business losses,
after the abandonment of the rail-
road, will prompe them to say.
The lesson almost teaches itself.
To take any main part of this u
trv's business machine, set it to n
side. label it non-productive, and
then treat it as such is about the
most hurtful performance that can
be imagined. Nine-tenths of us, and
probably more, are producing wealth,
welfare, business, occupation, every
dav we go to work. This can be
proyed in a thousand ways.
The case of the rickety little rail
road in Illinois is only n in point.
It has been made the text of this
article because it is proving the argu-
ment to 10000 persons at once
thav in turn are proving it by their