EDITORIAL 



363 



certain objects and under certain limi- 

 tations. Experience likewise may be 

 relied upon to teach us how far it 

 should go. Should it go too far, there 

 is always the possibility, under popular 

 control, for it to retrace its steps. 



•« ♦« kii 



Prosperity to Be Genuine Must Be General 



IN OUR news columns are references 

 to the marked increase in invest- 

 ments in water transportation. The ed- 

 itorial from the Wall Street Journal, 

 there quoted, ends with the paragraph : 



"No threat to our railroad develop- 

 ment as a whole is implied. Such wa- 

 ter facilities in fact have usually 

 brought more new business to the rail- 

 roads than they have taken away." 



In these few lines is recognized a 

 great principle too little understood. 

 To far too great an extent the old max- 

 im has prevailed that "One man's gain 

 is another's loss." As a matter of fact 

 no proposition could be found more 

 baseless in philosophy. To an increas- 

 ing degree we are coming to see that 

 the same principle is unsound in busi- 

 ness. Reference is made in these col- 

 umns to the old-time fight of railroads 

 against waterways. Happily, this hos- 

 tility is passing. Such representative 

 railway men as President James J. Hill 

 and W. W. Finley do not hesitate to de- 

 clare in public that the railways, instead 

 of opposing the development of our in- 

 ternal waterways, with the accompany- 

 ing increase in transportation facilities, 

 welcome this movement as helpful, not 

 simply to shippers or to the country at 

 large, but to the railways themselves. 



In a very fundamental sense individ- 

 uals, industries, communities, and na- 

 tions rise or fall together. A genuinely 

 good thing is good not simply for one, 

 but for all. A gain derived at the ex- 

 pense of others is factitious, specious, 

 ephemeral, a will-o'-the-wisp. 



That this principle applies to nations 

 was emphasized by President Roose- 

 velt in his address to the North Ameri- 

 can Conference on the Conservation of 

 Natural Resources when he said, "The 



ablest man will do best where his neigh- 

 bors also do well. It is just so with na- 

 tions. In international relations the 

 great feature of the growth of the last 

 century has been the gradual recogni- 

 tion of the fact that instead of it being 

 normally the interest of one nation to 

 see another depressed, it is normally the 

 interest of each nation to see the others 

 elevated." 



One of the strongest and most strik- 

 ing pieces of work ever done by Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer was the demonstra- 

 tion in his "Principles of Sociology" 

 that society is organic, that its mem- 

 bers are parts of a living whole, and in- 

 terdependent. Let this principle once 

 be recognized and far-reaching conclu- 

 sions will flow therefrom, not the least 

 important of which is that all should 

 welcome a good thing and help to push 

 it aloiig, conscious that, whether we see 

 it or not, the real good which comes to 

 one will be dififused throughout the 

 community, yielding, directly or indi- 

 rectly and sooner or later its blessings 

 to all. 



)^ 5^ 5^ 



New Jersey Protects Woodlands 



BY AN act approved April 12, New 

 Jersey has provided for the protec- 

 tion of the woodlands of the state. The 

 act provides that wherever in the state 

 woodland adjoins the right of way less 

 than no feet from the roadbed of a 

 railroad whose locomotives consume 

 coal or wood, a fire line shall be con- 

 structed. 



At a distance not less than 100 feet, 

 nor more than 200, from the outer rail 

 on each side the track, and parallel 

 with the track, a ten-foot strip of land 

 shall be entirely cleared of combustible 

 matter. Where the land is swampy, a 

 ditch three feet wide dug to the perma- 

 nent water level may replace the bared 

 strip. From between this strip or ditch 

 and the roadbed all combustible mate- 

 rials must be removed, except that 

 standing trees above three inches in 

 diameter and not less than six feet apart 



