annual Report—miscellaneous* 
55 
TRANSPORTATION. 
The transportation facilities of the country are of vital import¬ 
ance, for upon them depend in a great measure the success of a 
people. Many of the products of the west are practically value¬ 
less in the hands of the producer, when commanding high prices 
in the east, in cousequence of enormous transportation charges; 
and the manufactured goods of eastern producers are enhanced in 
value from the same cause; and as we examine this question in 
all its different phases and bearings, it will be found that it is of 
vital interest to all our people. Every man, woman and child in 
the state is paying tribute to our transportation system upon man}/- 
of the articles they eat and drink, and upon nearly everything 
they wear. They are also dependent upon the same system for 
all of the luxuries and most of the necessaries of life. In fact, 
the want of better facilities for interstate communication and a 
consequent reduction of transportation charges between the east 
and the west is a serious drawback to the development and pro¬ 
gress of the vast agricultural, mineral and manufacturing indus¬ 
tries of the state, and calls for earnest and efficient measures of 
relief. It must be apparent to our people that individual effort 
can accomplish nothing as against corporations of vast powers and 
of immense wealth. These great questions ot transportation 
charges by railways and other common carriers, and of the bur¬ 
dens of state which they ought to bear by taxation, etc., must be 
met by the intelligent people of the state firmly and unitedly, to 
the end that the profits of labor and capital engaged or employed 
in the varied industries, trade and commercial interests of the 
state may be equally and justly distributed. 
If, as is alleged, the railway corporations have not made returns 
of the full amount of their gross earnings to the state, and by so 
doing have evaded the state laws and defrauded the treasury of 
legitimate revenues; if they have obtained, by corrupt means, an 
influence in the halls of legislation or before the courts, which 
are subversive of the best interests of the people, let them be 
shorn of their power and strength, and made to understand that 
these great arteries of commerce were created and brought into 
existence, not for the building up of monopolies and the enriching 
