686 



RAILWAY SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



tions that are born only of liberty are now be- 

 ing rapidly established. While the traffic is 

 small, as it is in the South and in the far West, 

 the rates of charge must be relatively high, or 

 else the railways will not be built, or, if built, 

 may cease to be operated. The present con- 

 test for the regulation of railway traffic by na- 

 tional statutes covering or entering into the 

 minute details of the work, presents another 

 of the many examples of futile attempts to 

 alter the nature of things. It seems to be an- 

 other effort to overcome what are considered 

 hardships, which can only be remedied by the 

 slow progress of events, and not by the enact- 

 ment of what may be called meddlesome stat- 

 utes. Low rates of traffic can not be enforced 

 unless the volume of business is large enough 

 to sustain the roads at such low rates. 



Thus far, attention has been directed to 

 what has been accomplished. We have spent 

 not less than $6,000,000,000 in the construc- 

 tion and equipment of 125,000 miles of rail- 

 way ; but such figures only confuse the mind 

 they must be reduced to units in order to be 

 comprehended. In another part of this arti- 

 cle, each mile of railway is estimated as repre- 

 senting the continuous work of 560 men for 

 one year, but this is the representation of only 

 a mile of single track at a computed cost of less 

 than $25,000. A large proportion of our lines 

 are double-tracked and heavily equipped, and 

 cost the labor of a much greater number of 

 men 1 in the past than they would now. If they 

 have cost only $5,000,000,000, which would be 

 a little over 60 per cent, of the outstanding se- 

 curities, they represent the labor of 10,000,000 

 men for one year, or of 500,000 men working 

 continuously from the end of the civil war to 

 nearly the present time. In this view of the 

 matter, the work accomplished has cost us but 

 little, if we compare it with what has been 

 wasted in Europe in war or in preparation for 

 war. Had not the South been subdued by the 

 principle of liberty upon which this nation was 

 founded by the common ancestors of the peo- 

 ple, the Potomac might have become the Rhine 

 upon whose borders two hostile camps would 

 have been arrayed, waiting and watching while 

 consuming the substance of both sections, keep- 

 ing them poor and wretched like the peasantry 

 of France, Germany, Italy, and Austria, whose 

 standing armies in proportion to their popula- 

 tion are about the same as an army of 500,000 

 men would have been for the people of this 

 country had the two sections been separated 

 from each other. In place of this burden, our 

 peaceful army of 500,000 stalwart men have 

 leveled the mountains, filled up the valleys, 

 opened the mines, and laid down the iron bands 

 over which the abundance that comes from 

 peace, order, and industry is carried to the re- 

 motest point of our country, rendering each 

 and all interdependent under the beneficent 

 law of mutual interest and of mutual service, 

 which forever forbids war and makes armies 

 useless, except as a border police. Not only 



do we .feed and clothe ourselves with all the 

 necessaries of life, but with the excess of grain 

 that we can not consume, and the excess of 

 cotton that we can not spin arid wear, we buy 

 all our tea, coffee, sugar, spices, and fruits in 

 such measure that what are the luxuries of 

 many lands are but the common comforts of 

 our own. Yet what we have accomplished is 

 but a tithe of what remains to be done. The 

 following table shows the relative portions of 

 our soil that are now occupied by our grain 

 and cotton crops, or that would suffice for the 

 production of meat, dairy products, and wool, 

 if methods were adopted in their production of 

 which the success is already absolutely assured. 

 As we stand at the parting of the ways, when 

 the adjustment of the prices of the necessaries 

 of life upon a lower plane has been made, and 

 when constructive enterprise is about to be 

 resumed under such conditions that the work- 

 ing people of this land will be better off than 

 ever before, perhaps we may summon our 

 whole population to judgment. They now 

 number, or soon will number, 58,000,000, and 

 they could all stand at ease on the ten square 

 miles of waste land that are within the limits 

 of the city of Boston. 



The area of the United States, omitting 

 Alaska, is substantially 3,000,000 square miles. 

 In the following table will be found a com- 

 parison of the areas actually under cultivation 

 in grain and cotton (given in round figures, 

 disregarding fractions), and the areas that 

 would suffice for meat, dairy products, and 

 wool, if special modes of agriculture now in 

 use should become general : 



Total area 



Indian corn 



Dairy and eggs. 



Wheat 



Mutton and wool 



Beef 



Cotton 



Total assigned. 852,500 



3,000,000 

 111,500 



60,000 

 40,000 



60,000 



20,000 



At 25 bushels to an acre, will pro- 

 duce over 1,800,000,000 bushels, 

 about the crop of 1884. At five 

 pounds of corn to one pound of 

 pork, one half the crop would 

 give 38,000,000 casks of pork. 



At the ratio of one cow to two 

 acres, would sustain 19,000,000 

 cows. Number in 1880, 12,500,- 

 000. By means of ensilage and 

 cotton-seed meal, two cows can 

 be sustained to one acre of corn- 

 stalks. 



At only 13 bushels to an acre, will 

 yield over 500.000,000 bushels. 



At four sheep to an acre, 102,400,- 

 000 sheep. At four pounds per 

 sheep, 409,600,000 pounds. 



At 500 pounds of meat per acre, 

 one pound of beef per day for 

 58,000,000 people. By means of 

 ensilage and meal from the corn- 

 area, this can be done, whether 

 at a profit or not remains to be 

 determined. 



At half a bale to an acre, 6,400,000 

 bales. 



Corn, wheat, and cotton, actual, on our present wasteful 

 modes of agriculture. Dairy products, beef, mutton, and 

 wool, possible, but not probable, for many years. 



The area assigned to beef, and to mutton 

 and wool, is potential rather than probable, 



