\K 5 <^PHoro'£ffe.co 
VOL. LXIX No. 4033 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 12, 1910 
A FEW PLAIN FACTS. 
Let Us Consider Them. 
It has become fashionable for railroad presidents 
and others versed in economics to decry the indiffer¬ 
ence of American farmers to the growing demands of 
the country. Under existing conditions the farmer’s 
day of toil begins about 4 A. M. and ends at 9 P. M., 
with an hour for noon rest while his horses are eating. 
There are land owners, of course, who do not bear 
such burdens, but they are rather the managers of 
estates than the actual producers of food stuffs. While 
the shortage in food stuffs is increasing there is an 
equal growth of squalor, hunger and crime in the cities. 
A few plain facts which should not be high sounding 
either in theme or phraseology seem to me to be timely, 
and they arise wholly out of monopolies of artificial 
and natural resources. Let us consider them, not 
with a view of convincing anybody but with a view of 
prevailing upon some thoughtful men to 
think. 
First is the transportation question. 
By this is not meant the excess of 
charges for freight or passenger trans¬ 
portation, but the availability of the ser¬ 
vice in agricultural regions. The indus¬ 
trial unit has been magnified until the in¬ 
dustrial atom has been destroyed. The 
writer resides in an agricultural district 
that is naturally very fertile. It is well 
adapted either to general or special farm¬ 
ing. One of the country’s great trans¬ 
portation companies owns and operates 
the only line of railroad traversing the 
district. For years its train service con¬ 
sisted of three local passenger trains each 
way daily. The service was at inconveni¬ 
ent hours, because the long distance 
required to be traveled by a given train 
made it necessary that a sort of general 
average be struck in the matter of time 
schedule, with the result that while no¬ 
body was suited, yet the trains were al¬ 
ways overcrowded, Prayers, tears and 
profanity were alike ineffectual to obtain 
relief. The answer always was that our 
officials are experts in the science of 
transportation, and know more about it 
than any farmer can ever hope to know. 
Finally a trolley line was built between 
two common termini. The lines were 
not parallel in the sense that the trolley 
line ran alongside the railroad, but there 
was a divergence which might be com¬ 
pared with the frame and the strings of a 
bow. with a river and several miles ex¬ 
panse of country between them. We 
will call the two terminal cities A and 
B. Before the trolley line was built real estate values 
on farm lands, figuring at the smaller city B and 
computing every few miles were as follows: 
Along Railroad. 
¥125 per acre Station 
100 - “ 
100 “ “ “ 
125 “ “ • < 
350 “ “ •< 
Within five years after the trolley line was 
pleted its highly watered stock was earning 
dividends; its line of road had become populated 
because of its cheap hourly service with trains mak¬ 
ing stops at close intervals, and then the ratios of 
land values had changed like this: 
Along Railroad. Along Trolley, 
per acre Station 1 .$150 per acre 
*• “ 2 150 " “ 
3 150 “ “ 
“ “ 4 1,500 “ 
‘ “ “ 5 3,500 “ 
It became impossible for farmers along the rail¬ 
road to employ labor, either skilled or unskilled. 
Carpenters and other artisans were not only em¬ 
ployed along the trolley line at higher wages than 
the landowners along the railroad were justified in 
paying, but at even wages or at a premium offered 
for service along the railroad, the artisans would not 
leave their service along the line of the trolley, be¬ 
cause it afforded them better opportunities to get to 
and from their homes in the course of their work. 
The same was true of dairy hands, common labor and 
domestic servants. Many of this class of employees 
are unmarried. Their natures rebel against being 
locked up in the country, excluded from all sorts of 
amusement and diversion. If they may go into the 
city in the evening to attend a theatre and return at 
night, very well. Then they will work in the country, 
but if the train service will not permit them to do that, 
then they stay in the city and struggle for place 
with those who have meagre employment, or they 
may join the great class of unemployed, and finally 
On Trolley Route. 
.$100 per acre 
75 
75 “ 
100 “ 
250 “ 
$125 
100 
75 
125 
350 
A RURAL MAIL CARRIER WITH PRECIOUS PARCELS-POST. 
fall into wrongful ways. Women who employ domes¬ 
tic help are quite familiar with this phase of the 
question. 
The writer happened to be one of a number of 
farmers, and was chairman of their executive com¬ 
mittee, who once took up with the railroad company 
the matter of improving its service. We wanted not 
only to increase the productiveness of our farms bv 
better labor and more of it, but we desired also to 
find a quick and convenient market for the products 
of our dairies, gardens, poultry yards and farms after 
the produce was made. When the negotiations began 
the farmers looked upon their situation as a tragedy, 
but before it ended they were persuaded that however 
they might regard their position, the railroads treated 
it as a comedy, if not. indeed, as a burlesque. The 
train service was not changed, and the great fertile 
valley produces less than one-fourth its capacity, and 
only a trifle of what its farmers would have it pro¬ 
com- 
good 
duce. Few people realize how much transportation facili¬ 
ties have to do with the advantageous sale of crops, 
or with the reputation for quality. Producer and 
consumer are equal sufferers in such cases as referred 
to above. 
But the transportation evil is only one that tends to 
depress agricultural production. To enumerate all the 
others would be endless. Another quite as sweeping 
as the transportation question is the monopoly of ag¬ 
ricultural implement manufacture. A few years ago 
an immense holding company was organized that took 
over various concerns engaged in making a particular 
line of machinery. After that was done there was 
a ten per cent increase made in the selling price of 
machines. That might look little enough of an ad¬ 
vantage, but it was not. The new dombine set about 
to suppress the patents of some of the subsidiary com¬ 
panies, and closing the factories of those plants it re¬ 
fused to furnish “repairs” for several makes of ma¬ 
chines. I chanced to be operating three 
farms some distance apart, and each of 
them was supplied with its separate 
mechanical equipment. Now it so hap¬ 
pens in farming that a particular make 
of implement or machine may get “a 
run” in a particular community, and 
when that occurs the farmers who are 
wise purchase the popular machine. 
Why? Because of the familiarity with 
its working he can more readily obtain 
hands who are competent to operate it. 
On two of the farms I had machines 
that cost me for each $125 cash. While 
they were in service a peculiarly shaped 
pinion on one was broken, and on the 
other a small shaft. All efforts to ob¬ 
tain these repairs were fruitless. The 
only alternative was to purchase new 
machines at the increased price, or hire 
your work done by a neighbor who had 
the machinery required. In each in¬ 
stance the broken-down machine, 
which with repairs costing not to exceed 
two dollars, would have been serviceable 
for years, was hauled to a place visible 
from the railroad, to be converted into 
junk. Some time afterward I was on 
a train passing the place' where these 
machines were in view. Some well- 
dressed men in the coach within my 
hearing began to berate the profligacy 
of farmers in allowing their implements 
to rust out. After they had burned 
their fuses arid exploded their charges 
and the smoke had cleared away, I told 
them I was the man about whom they 
had been talking, and I told them why 
the machines stood out “going to ruin.” 
Of course it was “something new” to them, and I 
got their sympathy, but the “outrage” with which they 
condoled me did not supply new equipment. 
Assaults on the packing house trust are as fashion¬ 
able as they are commonplace, and may be passed 
by unnoticed, save with the remark that they are 
one of the monopolies of artificial resources that de¬ 
press agricultural development. 
Second: The monopolies of natural resources are 
equally as mischievous. When God created the great 
fertile valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries 
and placed at the head of that valley the Great Lakes, 
it may fairly be assumed that His work was for the 
common good of mankind. The Chicago Board of 
Trade as the leader of a bunch of its kind has 
taken constructive possession of the lakes, the gate¬ 
ways of commerce, and without a cent of proprietary 
interest has placed an embargo on all the great 
cereal products of the big grain belt. Rules and 
