STATE GRANGE OF ILLINOIS. lUU 



a great part of the way through a mountainous countrj', with heavy 

 grades and short curves; is operated with a mixed traffic; has carried 

 through freight for the past ten years at less rates than any olhtT of tlie 

 trunk lines, yet has paid ten per cent, dividends: has accumulated a 

 surplus of oTcr thirty millions of dollars, and its stock is never seen upon 

 the market except at executor's sales. Is it too much to expect of an 

 exclusive freight road, (or one on which jjassenger traffic would be subor- 

 dinate to freight,) built on a hard-pan basis at the present low prices of 

 labor and materials, connecting the Garden of the West with the principle 

 seaport of the nation, and competing with roads having all the defects 

 before mentioned, that it would pay fair dividends on the capital invested? 

 In the opinion of your committee it would pay reasonable dividends from 

 the time it was opened for business, and within five years from that time 

 would accumulate a traffic which would enable it to carrj- at half the 

 average rates for the past five years, and make it pay as largely as the 

 Baltimore and Ohio now does. But suppose it did not pay one penny of 

 interest, and that it sunk all of its earnings, it would be the best invest- 

 ment the merchants and property-owners along its line and its respective 

 termini could make, f(»r it would, as before stated, save its entire cost each 

 year, save it U) the merchants and manufacturers, the producers and con- 

 sumers, both at the East and West. Save it in the increased value and 

 productiveness of real estate, and save it ten times over to the whole 

 country in the effect that it would have upon the management of our 

 present railway system. And here we will remark that unless some 

 power is brought to bear to prevent and counteract the abuses which have 

 crept into every stage of the construction and operation of our modern 

 highways, and which now tax the many for the benefit of the few — unless 

 some power steps in and prevents reckless and unscrupulous speculators 

 in ' Wall street 'from using the vast wealth thus obtained to further 

 reduce the profits of merchants, manufacturers, and producers — these 

 interests may as well acknowledge that they are subordinate to and 

 governed by the common carrier, who was established to carry their pro- 

 ducts; certain it is that the logic of events since the discovery of steam 

 and its application to the purposes of transportation, point strongly in 

 that direction, and the legislation of the day is largely in the interest of 

 this privileged class. 



The merchants and property owners of Baltimore and Pliiladel|)hia, rec- 

 ognizing tlie importance of transportation to their interests, have invested 

 a portion of their capital in thai direction, and as before stated, control 

 their lines, while we in New York have been indifferent to this great 

 question, have allowed our lines to pass from our control, are now sutl'er- 

 ing from the effects of that policy, and unless something is done about it, 

 will continue to suffer in a constantly increasing ratio. Our situation is 

 like the owner of a valuable coal mine who can produce the best quality 

 of coal at a lower price than any competing mine, but wlio has no voice 

 in the managena-nt of its transportation to market, and whose legitimate 



