LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES, 177 



same protection as any other person, but it never gets it. A railroad before 

 construction is always desired, helped, and welcomed, afterward persecuted. 

 There is not a legislature that meets which does not try to encroach on the 

 charter of the railroads. The railroads take from the farmers the land for 

 the road, whether they are willing or not, and what do the farmers get in 

 return? They are paid and paid well. They receive a permanent fence on 

 their farms, on both sides of the track, and are protected even against their 

 own carelessness. If a farmer leaves his fence down, and if in a consistent 

 length of time it is not repaired by the railroad company and any stock is 

 killed thereby, the railroad company is liable. No matter what the cause or 

 who is the author of the breach. Trains must be run and baggage checked, 

 but fare for travel is rigidly controlled and excessive chai'ge for freights care- 

 fully guarded against. It seems sometimes as if a railroad is a crime and 

 ought to be suppressed. There can be no railroad monopoly in this State, for 

 railroads maybe paralleled, the right to use tracks and buildings may be forcibly 

 taken by any other road, and lines may be crossed by any highway, and every 

 farmer is entitled to a crossing. They have a monopoly of kicks and curses, 

 and no one wishes to take that from them. All farm products over home 

 necessities find a market at home or abroad. A number of years ago a farmer 

 was obliged to haul his corn to market or distill it and market it in a concen- 

 trated form. Then the railroads acted as reformers. When a railroad came 

 through the distilleries were destroyed and the product taken to market as it 

 grew, and caused a potent reform in the community. Over ordinary high- 

 ways, the cost of transporting wheat is about 20 cents per ton, which gives a 

 farmer a market radius of about 185 miles before it exhausts itself by expense 

 in carriage. By railroad the rate of one cent per ton per mile is to be obtained 

 anywhere, which gives a radius of 37,000 miles to the farmer for a market. 

 The chief benefit is that the market is brought to the farmer's own door ; he 

 does not have to laboriously transport the produce to a village to find a cus- 

 tomer. Practically, the farmer has the market of the world at his door. 

 This is what has made this country great. The rates on railroads have been 

 so reduced that they have to do two and a half times as much work now to 

 earn a dollar as they did twelve years ago. Wheat can be transported from 

 Grand Rapids to London cheaper than it can be from Liverpool to London ; 

 that is, American railroads can carry a ton of wheat 900 miles by land and 

 3,000 miles by water for less than English railroads carry a ton 300 miles. 



What is discrimination? It is generally declared to be a charge of a greater 

 rate per ton for one distance than for another. But this is inevitable if the 

 railroads would give the distant farmer access to market. It is the near man 

 to market who complains. A man 50 miles from New York pays 10 cents per 

 bushel to New York, and Michigan farmers only pay 16 cents per bushel to 

 the same place. If the charges were in ratio to the number of miles Michigan 

 would pay 60 cents per bushel. This would entirely shut out the great wheat 

 fields of the northwest as well as Michigan. The farmers give the railroads 

 but little revenue. A purely agricultural community never supported a road. 

 The surplus of grain in Michigan for 1883 is estimated at 360,000 bushels. If 

 I owned all the roads I would contract to take the entire surplus out of the 

 State in one day. In 1883 only seven per cent of the entire tonnage carried 

 by the G. R. & I. Avas farm products, but it is growing, and when the mam- 

 moth pineries are gone the business and farming interests will make a fairly 

 paying railroad. I call the traveling public "The Great American Baby." It 



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