106 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



This unprecedented consumption of power, of course, places a heavy 

 strain upon transportation, both directly by virtue of the bulk of the 

 power materials to be moved — coal alone represents over a third 

 of the country's freight — and indirectly in respect to the haulage of 

 materials and products involved in the industrial processes. The re- 

 sponsibility thus falling upon transportation is added to in further 

 degree by the size of the country. The presence of a population 

 scattered over a vast area, with a standard of consumption cut to the 

 measure of a concentrated industrialism, attaches the element of dis- 

 tance to the factor of bulk and imposes an accentuated dependence 

 upon adequate carriage.^ Thus in two respects the transportation 

 problem in the United States is unique. 



But national dependence upon transportation, so highly developed 

 by virtue of the advanced state of industrialism and the area'l extent 

 of consumptive demand, is increasing. The rapidly enlarging use 

 of power and the growing burden of commodity haulage arising in 

 consequence, to say nothing of the claims of foreign trade, give no 

 prospect of letting up. Every time an individual adopts a mechani- 

 cal appliance or purchases an article hitherto made at home or gone 

 without, thousands of others are doing the same thing. Society will 

 not turn back now ; presently it can not turn back any more than it 

 can to-day weave its own garments by hand. The convenience of 

 to-day is the necessity of to-morrow. If we project the present trend 

 of requirements even 10 or 15 years into the future, we begin to gain 

 a true perspective of the imposing weight of the transportation prob- 

 lem that industrialism faces. 



Since transportation is called upon to bear a heavier responsibility 

 in the United States than is the case elsewhere in the world, it should 

 be observed that there is an element of weakness in the functioning 

 of transportation which becomes the point of break under strain 

 and therefore merits particular attention in this country. This is 

 the matter of differential elasticity as between the operations of in- 

 dustry and transportation, which prevents an equalized stretching of 

 the two. For example, when a ton of material passes through a 

 manufacturing plant it means, with due qualifications, that the rail- 

 roads have hauled a ton of raw material from far and wide and will 

 move a similar weight of products away for distribution. Thus 

 each increment to the volume of manufacture creates a twofold 

 addition to the volume of transportation. Induce a stress of indus- 

 trial expansion and the stress communicated to transportation is 

 correspondingly magnified. The fabric is mechanical in each case; 

 but the fabric of industry is woven with the maximum of elasticity, 

 while the fabric of transportation is inherently more rigid. Thus 



1 This has nothing to say of further complications in the way of conflicting currents of 

 haulage arising from topographical conditions, etc. 



