t and
passengers.... Being fully conscious that the enforcement of
this law will ruin the property of the company, and feeling
assured of the correctness of the opinions of the eminent
counsel who have examined the question, the directors feel
compelled to disregard the provisions of the law so far as
it fixes a tariff of rates for the company, until the courts
have finally passed upon the question of its validity."

The letter was at the time regarded by railroad men as a very strong
document, and the railroad journals were filled with lengthy editorials
in praise of the soundness of the doctrines and arguments which it
contained. The disinterested of the enlightened portion of the community
even then realized that the "eminent jurists" whom the company had
consulted were hired attorneys and greatly biased in their views as to
the constitutional rights of corporations, and that President Mitchell
on his part had painted by far too dark a picture of the situation. It
is now quite generally admitted that many of Mr. Mitchell's statements
were as false as his counsel's interpretation of the Constitution and
the law was erroneous. From the assertions made in this letter one is
led to infer that the then stock-and bondholders of the Milwaukee road
had paid in full every dollar of the capitalized value of the road, and
that they derived from their investment an income of only about six per
cent. on the money actually invested by them. The cost of the entire
Chicago and Milwaukee system in Wisconsin was stated in the letter as
being $38,000 per mile. It is not likely that this line of road ever
cost to exceed $25,000 a mile, or that those who then owned the road
paid much more than two-thirds of its actual cost for it. The road, as
the letter itself admits, was bought at sheriff's sale, and no mercy
whatever was shown to the farmers who had mortgaged their farms to aid
the railroad company in raising funds for the construction of its line.

The letter contains other misstatements equally grave. Mr. A. B.
Stickney, the president of the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas City
Railroad, in his recent excellent work, "The Railway Problem," reviews
Mr. Mitchell's letter as follows:

"Mr. Mitchell states the average rate per mile in 1873 for
passengers at 3.42 cents. It was well understood that this
was an average rate received from those passengers who paid
anything, a