lis •WISCONSIN ACADEMY SCIENCES, ARTS, AND LETTERS. 



The people mean no injustice to property invested in railroacis. 

 It is that which is not invested that they desire to make some in- 

 quiries about. They want to know what the fictitious elements are 

 which they sustain by taxation levied in the shape of rates. In 

 Illinois there are roads that cost but ^16,000 per mile on which 

 rates are collected on a basis of cost at §32,000 per mile. 



When we want to get to tide water if we go over the New York 

 Clentral, or Erie, or the Pennsylvania Central, we have to pa3' rates 

 to support stocks that represent an average cost of $107,000 per 

 mile on those roads. It is well enough known that not one-half 

 of that amount per mile was paid to build and equip those roads. 



The people have no desire to convert private property into a pub- 

 lic use, but they do not want to be taxed from year to year to make 

 that property which is no property. 



It is "watered stock," stock, that represents no money advanced, 

 that the people are at war with. If a farmer had the privilege of 

 taxing the community to make up to himself any sum which he 

 might name, he would only be doing as the railroads have had the 

 privilege to do in ''watering" their stocks and in issuing stock 

 dividends. No wonder that railroad operators have become rich 

 men. 



It may be difficult even impossible at this date to eliminate tLis 

 no property element. But that is no reason why we should not 

 look steadily at it till we know what it is, and till we find out where 

 it came from. It is an element, that beginning with credit mobil- 

 ier contracts in the construction of roads, has by various modes of 

 " watering" and mortgage '' loading" increased, till it may be round- 

 ly stated as constituting half of the burden against which the peo- 

 ple lift, in the payment of rates of transportation. If the past 

 cannot be rectified the future can be secured. II it cannot, then, 

 farewell to the prospects of honest industry. 



Everything cannot be swallowed up by the men who do not earn 

 but invent property. 



Besides being property laid down on the foundation of a public 

 riglit as no other property is, railroads should be subject to the 

 public control for the reason that they are supported by public taxa- 

 tion as no other property is. 



The President of one of our railway companies in a recent report 

 maintains, that the railway companies should have a right to the in- 



