The Railroads 



Ribbons of Civilization Bind Together 

 in Bands of Steel the Broad and 

 Fertile Acres of Montana — The Big 

 Work of Empire Building Is Going 

 Rapidly Forward. 



By WILL A. CAMPBELL, 

 Editor of The Helena Independent. 



Before tbe power of steam was known, }'ears before electrical energy 

 was harnessed and transmitted, in a period when there were only trails, 

 beaten paths, caravan routes, coastwise and river shipping, a famous 



English essayist said that next to a fertile soil the most funda- 

 Easy Trans- mental necessity of commerce and civilization — of life itself, 

 portation for was the "easy transportation for men and comiinodities from 

 Men and one place to another." 

 Materials. This statement has never been successfully disproven. The 



history of transportation is the liistory of civilization, wdiether 

 it refers to the pack animals toiling over trails, the goods van, stage coaches 

 or crude ships and barges of old. The railroad is but new — it has only 

 recently taken the place of inferior means of "transportation for men and 

 commodities." 



When the railroad first appeared in the United States, the only thickly 

 settled territory was along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and the navig"iblc 

 rivers flowing from the interior into the seas, making possible easy but 

 slow communication with tlie coast, and centers of population along these 

 streams. 



— The Montana homesteader of today is the prosperous farmer of tomorrow. 



