58 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 
rapidity with economy, safety of movement with certainity of time, all 
united with the greatest comfort. So rapid has been this great work, that 
we have scarce had time to duly estimate its magnitude or importance. 
It is but little over forty years since the first railroad was constructed 
in the United States, while we have now nearly eighty thousand miles, with 
an aggregate of investment of about four thousand five hundred million 
dollars^ an amount which more than doubles our national debt, and with an 
annual gross receipt amounting to five hundred millions, and of net earnings 
of overdone hundred and eighty-six millions, or more than twice the interest 
on our national debt; and moving the last year over two hundred millions 
of tons of freight. Of this eighty thousand miles of railway, more than 
one-halt have been constructed within the last ten years, and thirty-seven 
thousand miles, or near one-half, are located within our favored Western 
States. In extent and cheapness of construction no other nation compares 
with ours. The cost of seventeen thousand miles of railway in Great 
Britian is but one-third less than our eighty thousand miles; the nominal 
cost of ours, (which is much above the real cash cost,) being about sixty 
thousand dollars per mile, to one hundred and eighty-nine thousand for 
those of Great Britian. 
Nor have these works been unremunerative to their originators. Like 
all investments some have been largely successful, even on wasteful con¬ 
struction and worse management, while some have proved less so, or 
valueless. 
Owing to the lack of statistics, it is impossible to arrive at very accurate 
returns, but I question whether as a whole, any of our large interests during 
good times paid better, and our best authorities place the net income during 
the last year of unusual ruin and prostration of business, on all the railroads 
of the United States, at an average of three per cent. And when we con¬ 
sider the sacrifices made on securities sold, the wasteful and even corrupt 
expenditures in construction and management, the large amount of fictitious 
stock divided without cost, and the extensive process of watering stock, I 
do not think it an exaggeration to place the income on money actually 
invested so high as at least six per cent.; a better interest than agriculture 
or manufactures have paid, as a whole, during the same peiiod. Now, if 
so great an advance has been made under such circumstances in the past* 
what may we not expect from our present stand-point, in the future. For 
myself, I believe so far as a less cost of movement of production is 
concerned, we are yet to have a great change for the better; we are still in 
the infancy of the work. The true principles of transportation are yet but 
