THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 71 



"At the close of 1870, with $103,000,000 of their 

 capital yet unsubscribed, and thus reserved for issue, 

 should the earnings of the roads at any future period 

 make watering practicable ; with this amount of stock 

 in reserve, the two companies operated 2083 miles of 

 road, represented by stock and debt to the amount of 

 $240,000,000. Thus the last results of Vanderbilt's 

 genius have been surpassed at the very outset of this 

 enterprise. The line from Chicago to New York repre- 

 sents now but $60,000 to the mile, as the result of many 

 years of inflation, while the line between Omaha and 

 Sacramento begins life with the cost of $115,000 per 

 mile. It would be safe to say that the road cost in 

 money considerably less than one half of this sum. The 

 difference is the price paid for every vicious element of 

 railroad construction and management ; costly construc- 

 tion, entailing future taxation on trade ; tens of millions 

 of fictitious capital; a road built on the sale of its bonds, 

 and with the aid of subsidies; every element of real 

 outlay recklessly exaggerated, and the whole at some 

 future day is to make itself felt as a burden on the trade 

 which it is to create. 



" Enough has been said to illustrate the bearing which 

 stock-watering and extravagant construction have upon 

 taxation. It would be useless to attempt to estimate 

 the weight of the burden imposed through these means 

 upon material development. The statistics which 

 should enter into any reliable estimate are not accessi- 

 ble, and any approximation would be simply a matter 

 of guess-work. A table was published, during the year 

 1869, in a leading financial organ, comparing the capi- 

 tal stocks of twenty-eight roads as they stood on July 

 1, 1867, and May 1, 1869. During those twenty-two 



