THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 247 



Erie, running through a half-settled country, could, on 

 an emergency, bring 25,000 votes into the field. At 

 how many votes, then, must we reckon the master of 

 2150 miles of railway through a thickly settled country, 

 and 70,000 miles of telegraph ? It is, moreover, one 

 thing to pass laws, and quite another to execute them 

 against a man fertile in resource, energetic in action, 

 obstinate in combat, and inexhaustible in purse. We 

 have some fine laws prescribing the rate of fare on the 

 Central & Hudson, but every traveller knows that if 

 he would be comfortable he must pay thirty to forty 

 per cent, extra for a seat in a drawing-room car. 



"If, again, the concentration of these great enter- 

 prises in one grasp were likely to be attended with a 

 reduction of the cost of travel and the burdens of trade, 

 or if it insured improved facilities to keep pace with the 

 development of the country, these would be redeeming 

 features in the Vanderbilt regime. But great as Mr. Van- 

 derbilt undoubtedly is as a railway manager, his greatness 

 shows itself not in increased facilities for travel and 

 trade, but wholly and altogether in economy of adminis- 

 tration. He makes money by saving it. Economy is 

 his watchword, his motto. It was by new economies, 

 he said in his letter accepting the presidency of the 

 Lake Shore, that he hoped to set that company on its 

 legs. It is by economy that he makes the Central pay 

 four times more than Erastus Corning or Henry Keep 

 could ever make it yield. Now economy in railway 

 administration is admirable from the stockholders' point 

 of view. It is not so good for the traveller. If it means, as 

 some evil-disposed critics of the Vanderbilt regime pre- 

 tend, filthy cars, wretched stations, general discomfort, 

 and decreased instead of increased accomodation, the pros- 



