THE STATE REVIE\V. 



the 



PUBLISHED EVERY MONTH 



BY 



THE STATE REVIEW PUBLISHING CO., 

 14OU Majestic BUlg., Detroit. 



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 Office at Detroit as second-class matter. 



THE COMING CONSTITUTIONAL CONVEN- 

 TION. 



From the Michigan Investor. 

 From the controversy which is now going on 

 in the city of Detroit relative to the conditions 

 under which the street railway company operating 

 in that city shall continue to serve the public, 

 several interesting lessons can be drawn by those 

 who are charged with the management of cor- 

 porate investment in this state. The conditions 

 are that the street railway company is approach- 

 ing the end of its franchise rights upon certain of 

 its lines, while it has many years of use of the 

 streets upon which its other lines are operated. 

 Meeting the demands of the people for a revision 

 of the terms upon which it is doing business it 

 has agreed with the mayor of the city, as the 

 highest executive officer available, to accept cer- 

 tain reductions in its income and assume addi- 

 tional burdens in the way of taxation as a con- 

 sideration for the extension of its expiring rights 

 to the same date when the rest of its rights expire. 

 Forthwith all the pent-up sentiment of distrust 

 in corporations, all the anxiety of politicians in- 

 capable of creating a new issue, and fearful that 

 they will lose out when the old issue which they 

 have memorized disappeared; all the grasping 

 anxiety of newspaper proprietors whose stock in 

 trade is the making of public distrust, are launch- 

 ed upon the devoted head of the street railway 

 company. Anyone who assaults the integrity of 

 its property is a patriot. Anyone who seeks to 

 defend it is a public enemy. The Republican can- 

 didate for mayor, who happens to be the gentle- 

 man who attacked the solution of the difficulty 

 from a business standpoint, is set down in terms 

 which barely escape the application of the Jaw of 

 libel, not specially from the willingness, rather 

 from the cowardice of his opponent. The Dem- 

 ocratic candidate for mayor, who has probnbly 

 never read a book on political economy in his life, 

 is heralded by another class composed i prac- 

 tically the same persons as the former, as being 

 the incarnation of all that is wise, eKpre'tenced, 

 and patriotic, in the political life of Michigan for 

 this generation. The same elements which are be- 

 hind Hearst in New York, the same elements 

 which made a fact out of the mythical La Follette 

 in Wisconsin, the same elements which made a 

 public idol of Folk in Missouri, have sifted out 

 of the population of Detro't to become the ad- 

 herents of the political gentleman whose sole ana 

 only slogan in public life is the destruction or 

 impairment of capital invested in public service 

 enterprises. The fact that he, himself, is a gen- 

 tleman of some financial substance, who would 

 fight to the finish if the same outcry were let 

 loose against his own property, neither disqual- 



ified him in his own estimation nor in that of 

 his followers to be the leader of their propa- 

 ganda. 



from liii- rather striking exhibition of an ap- 

 peal to the worst sentiments of the community, of 

 an .itipaal to all the prejudices thd' mediocre 

 mein-j or Ability may have against great means or 

 great ability, there is a lesson to be learned by 

 the administrators of the great properties which 

 have built up the state of Michigan. The steam 

 railroads, the public service corporations- and the 

 great developers of natural resources can learn 

 from the Detroit experience of the street railway 

 company something of the size and texture of the 

 rod is in pickle for them and which at least some 

 disturbing element in the state of Michigan will 

 attempt to wield against them when the coming 

 constitutional convention begins to be formed. 



This is a situation to which The Investor has 

 already called the attention of those who are 

 charged with the administration of such bodies of 

 capital. 



The seed which was sown by Pingree was not 

 sown upon rocky ground. There are thousands 

 of people in Michigan who would be shocked if 

 they were charged with Socialistic tendencies, 

 which represent the mildest form of advocacy of 

 destruction of property; but who are in their 

 expressions even more radical than the disciples 

 of the Nihilistic Propaganda. More than this, 

 there are any number of people in Michigan who 

 live in glass houses, who do not hesitate to throw 

 stones, entirely forgetful of the fact that when 

 the return volley comes they are quite likely to 

 find their own glass disturbed. By which, we 

 mean that no public service corporation can 

 afford to have one of its representatives joining 

 in the public hue and cry against the interests of 

 any other public service corporation. The in- 

 terests of each and all of them are the same. 

 They are not, by any matter of necessity, adverse 

 to the public, but they are, by all means, adverse 

 to the sentiment which would destroy rights of 

 property, would impair the obligations of con- 

 tracts and would seek to disturb investments 

 made upon the faith and credit of contracts en- 

 tered into with municipal bodies before their legal 

 term of expiration had come, 

 of human experience, the results of the present 



To those who study this subject in the light 

 propaganda in Detroit cannot fail to be instruct- 

 ing. If the street railway company shall win in 

 its entirely proper agreement with the city, it 

 will simply show that something a little less than 

 half of the voters of Detroit are in favor of cor- 

 porate destruction. If it shall lose it will simply 

 show that something more than half of the voters 

 of that city are opposed to the preservation of 

 the integrity of capital invested in public service 

 enterprises. In either case, the warning will have 

 been sounded loud and clear to those who are 

 charged with the administration of such concerns 

 to get busy and see that the public is more thor- 

 oughly educated to a conservative sense of justice 

 before the present Socialistic sentiment becomes 

 fixed in the basic law of the state. 



LOST SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



Near Irkutsk, in Central Siberia, is a series of 

 rapids on the Angrara river. After many disas- 

 ters, the river transport companies decided in the 

 early '70s to build a short railroad for trans-ship- 

 ment of freight around the rapids. The twelve- 

 mile road was probably the first railroad built in 

 Asia outside of India and certainly the first one 

 built in Northern Asia. 



There was no regular service, about two trips 

 .each way being made a week, as cargo offered. 

 With the improvement of the roads through this 

 region by the Russian government, traffic on this 

 part of the river was gradually abandoned and the 

 railroad finally fell into disuse. The locomotive 

 was acquired by a farmer to be used once a year 

 to drive a threshing machine, the cars were taken 

 off on barges and towed away, and the line aband- 

 oned. 



Some fifteen years later, writes L. Lpdian, in 

 the Electrical Review, the locating engineers of 

 the Siberian railroad, entering this part of Siberia, 

 heard rumors of a railroad which had existed 

 many years previously. This is a vast region of 

 sierra, forest, tundra, steppe pnd here and there 

 of rinc (untranslatable literally "quick mud") 

 and presented great difficulties for railroad con- 

 struction. News of an abandoned line which had 

 been successfully operated was, therefore, re- 

 ceived with much interest and search was made 

 for the road. 



The freight sheds were finally discovered and 

 then the line of the road marked by the clearing in 

 the forest, but no trace of the rails or roadbed 

 could be found. The right of way was much over- 

 grown with underbrush and bordered with the 

 dense forest, was almost as black and cold as a 

 mountain tunnel, the sun being just visible light- 

 ing up the topmost branches of the giant firs. The 

 railroad itself had completely disappeared. Not a 

 rail, not a sleeper, only an occasional suggestion 

 now and then of what had once been rude cross 

 drainage ditches. 



In an effort to find the track, picks were driven 

 as far as they would go into the earth, only to 

 bare masses of tangled roots. The railroad was 

 lost. It could not have been burned up. because 

 there had been no fires, nor stolen and carried 

 off piecemeal, for the region was totaly lacking 

 in population. Moreover, the old freight houses 

 remained with their locks intact and packages of 

 overlooked goods in good condition within them. 

 It is believed to have been a case of gradual sub- 

 sidence. 



The unballasted track through the forest gradu- 

 ally depressed by a few years' traffic, naturally 

 became a drainage conduit for the surface water 

 of the forest, rendering in time the subsoil spongy 

 throughout. The significance of the fact that the 

 line was much overgrown lies in the fact that this 

 undergrowth probably owed much of its origin 

 and profusion to the taking root of the submerged 

 tree length ties. There was never any ballast and 

 in some unusually warm summer it is probable 

 that the watersoaked tree sleepers, weighted down 

 by the cumbrous pig iron rails, sank beneath the 

 surface and there sprouted. 



SUSPENDS NIGHT OPERATION. 



The Marais Lumber Company's big lumber 

 and lath mill at Grind Marais has been unable 

 to secure enough men to operate its night shift 

 and as a result the company is forced to suspend 

 night operations entirely. For months past the 

 mill has been operating short handed in the hopes 

 that with the coming of the fall season a full 

 crew would be obtained. However the labor 

 market remains unchanged, which has brought 

 about the above result. The suspension of the 

 Marais Lumber Company's night shift nearly 

 cuts that company's monthly payroll in two. and 

 the loss of the same will be felt by the business 

 interests. The various lumbering concerns oper- 

 ating in the district and just now preparing for 

 their winter's work are also experiencing much 

 difficulty in getting men. 



After a. very successful season, the Skanee mill 

 operated by N. M. DeHaas, of Marquette, has 

 closed down. The mill has been in operation for 

 the past several months and a very successful 

 season is reported, timber of many different de- 

 scriptions being cut up and manufactured into 

 lumber. 



Wilfred Bouchi, who has conducted logging 

 operations in the Little Lake district for some 

 years past, will this year get out pine near L'Anse, 

 the crew making headquarters at one of F. W. 

 Read & Co.'s old camps. 



