102 - PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



their products, and then of shipping them directly to the consumer. That it 

 can be done, has been and is dail}^ being proven. Just so surely as it is not 

 generally done tlie farmers of our country will continue to be the hewers of 

 xcood and drawers of water for the speculator, and middh-nien who like 

 vampires are destroying the industrial energies of our country." 



TRANSPORTATION. 



The subject of transportation, that is, "cheap transportation" is so 

 closely related to the producer, the consumer, the merchant, the manu- 

 facturer, that it would seem almost unnecessary to wearj' you with any of 

 its details. The factory girl in a New England cotton mill, as she toils 

 wearily and oxertaxed at her loom, has an interest at stake, for to her it 

 means cheap or dear board, all of which must be paid out of her small 

 earnings. Her employer, the manufacturer, has a three-fold interest in 

 cheap transit; fir-st, in the less freight upon the cotton from the plantation 

 to his factory ; second, the cheaper cost of board to his employees means 

 less amount of wages to be paid for labor; third, cheaper freight on the 

 manufactured articles, means larger profits to him; also, cheaper cloth to 

 the Western and Southern consumer, and in turn, the Western producer 

 of grain, pork and provisions, with the Southern producer of cotton, 

 tobacco, sugar and rice, each realize a larger margin of profit on their 

 products by reason of this cheaper transportation, while all that portion 

 of our brother humanitj^ who toil East, West, North or South, for hire, are 

 mutually interested in this question, for it oftentimes means to them work 

 or no work, the latter situation bringing starvation and beggary. For 

 five years previous to September, 1872, it cost the farmers of Illinois an 

 average of three bushels of corn to pay the freight on one to New York 

 city or about 49 '".ents at that time. During that same Winter of 1872, 

 Iowa was burning an average of 50,000 bushels of corn daily, and many a 

 poor laborer East was hungry for this very corn, and why was this? 

 Because a bushel of corn in Iowa was only worth 10 to 15 cents and two 

 bushels of corn would give as much fuel as a bushel of coal which cost 

 40 cents. The farmer was, therefore, practising economy by burning his 

 corn. In discussing the question of cheap transportation, we confine our- 

 selves entirely to railroads, as the water routes are the people's routes 

 upon which any one has a right to put a boat or vessel and compete for 

 the carrying traffic. This is the way our railroads should be managed; 

 made public highways or turnpikes upon which any one could place cars 

 and run them in accordance with the time table, or the highwaj- should be 

 owned by the people, that is, the Government or States through which 

 the road passes, so that it could compete with private corporations for the 

 business of the country. I do not believe we can have the cheapest trans- 

 portation (such transportation as we should have, to be prosperous) until 

 we have a People's Freight railway, or a Government railroad to compete 

 with the private corporations. The corporations always will combine for 

 their mutual welfare. When they so combine, competition is at an end. 



