ARE RAILROADS PUBLIC ENEMIES? 149 



for the long than the short haul, we must primarily assume the two 

 propositions : first, that the public are not at liberty to use any other 

 means of transportation than the railways ; and, second, that there is no 

 such thing as competition. Does Mr. Hudson desire us to accept these 

 propositions, or think that he has established them ? What else does 

 he mean by such a paragraph as this (page 40) : " While the force of 

 competition causes the railways to accept moderate or even narrow 

 profits on the Western grain-traffic, the absence of that force allows 

 them to collect what, by comparison, are shown to be exorbitant profits 

 on the grain shipped by the farmers of the Eastern or Middle States." 

 As a matter of fact, the figures actually show that it is combination, 

 not competition, which has reduced the rates charged by the enemies 

 of the republic and forced them to " accept moderate or even narrow 

 profits." Surely, Mr. Hudson does not wish us to believe him guilty 

 of catering to the general public by misstatements of fact in cases 

 with which, from the least apparent foothold for grievance, he assumes 

 such fluent familiarity. And yet, what else can we conclude from 

 his retort to Mr. Fink's calm statement before the Senate Committee 

 on Railroads in 1883, to the general effect above stated (viz., that 

 geographical and not arbitrary conditions controlled pool-rates) in 

 which he happens to mention Winona (using that town, as we have 

 used Denver or Salt Lake City above, as an instance of a " short-haul" 

 point) ? " Why," says Mr. Hudson (page 161), "the road, if built for 

 Winona, should have stopped at that place and given its exclusive 

 attention to the transportation interests of that town." And, if this 

 could be exceeded in artless incapacity, he meets Mr. Alexander's 

 statement (page 162) that "no railway has ever raised its local charges 

 to meet the loss caused by lowering its through rates," by the fol- 

 lowing : " When railway rates have been reduced fifty per cent on 

 through traffic within the last ten years, and local rates have virtually 

 remained unchanged, the burden of the local shippers has been prac- 

 tically doubled, no matter what sophistry is used to conceal the fact." 

 Surely, it needs no expert in railway affairs to detect that the " soph- 

 istry " just here is not Mr. Alexander's. Lawyers of a certain grade 

 sometimes talk to juries in this vein, but they are shrewd enough to 

 know their jury pretty well before attempting it. An industry that 

 employs seven or eight thousand millions of capital in these United 

 States ought, one would say, to be reasonably suspected of employing 

 brains here and there certainly ought not rashly to be assumed to 

 neglect the entire remainder of its continental field (to say nothing 

 of the keeping of its own books), in order to concentrate its entire 

 energies upon the commercial destruction of a single village ! There 

 has yet to be discovered, I suppose, a human institution in whose 

 workings there was not hardship or inequality somewhere. But Mr. 

 Hudson has only, it seems to him, to select his hardship to demolish 

 the entire railway system his principle being, not the greatest good 



