8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES 



II 



By Peofessoe CHARLES F. EMERICK 



SMITH COLLEGE 



The Railways and Fair Play 



SINCE the close of the civil war, the American people have devoted 

 their energies largely to the development of their material re- 

 sources. In 1865, the men who had served in the armies of the south as 

 well as of the north returned to the pursuits of peace and, reinforced by 

 the rising tide of immigration, the nation entered afresh upon the indus- 

 trial conquest of its environment. Aided by the homestead act, the rail- 

 way and improved farm machinery, and more recently by irrigation 

 works and the scientific expert, the agricultural development of the 

 country has gone forward by leaps and bounds. But material develop- 

 ment has not been one-sided. The growth of manufactures, the increase 

 of commerce and railway expansion, have been even more conspicuous 

 than the development of agriculture. More noteworthy still, probablv, 

 are the changes which have taken place in the mode of businesss organi- 

 zation. The corporation has displaced the partnership, and the size of 

 the business unit necessary to a maximum of efficiency has enormously 

 increased in many fields of activity. A process of consolidation, com- 

 bination and integration has gone on that has transformed the busi- 

 ness world. The change marks nothing less than a revolution. As a 

 consequence, the individual and small combinations of individuals find 

 themselves in the presence of adamantine forces with which they are 

 powerless to cope, and the conflict between equality and property has 

 shifted to a new field. The energy and ambition of the age are so cen- 

 tered upon economic ends that equality of industrial opportunity is the 

 crying need of the hour. 



I 



Among the new forms of property that have violated the sense of 

 fair play, that embarked in the several fields of transportation and com- 

 munication is easily chief. This is preeminently true of the railway. 

 In a highly specialized industrial system, where nearly everything is 

 produced for sale, the mass of commodities at some stage in its career 

 enters the channels of transportation. Under these circumstances, 

 equality of opportunity in the matter of reaching the market concerns 

 the consumer as well as the producer and is fundamental to industrial 



