always subject to competition, would have
saved a large part of it. With equal propriety might it be said that the
railroads, by meeting canal competition, saved for themselves in the
year mentioned a goodly share of their gross earnings. Such reasoning is
absurd, and it is high time that the bubble of an argument so often used
by railroad advocates be pricked. As Mr. Atkinson has introduced the
farmer, let us apply his rule to him. There was a time when the farmer
sold his corn for a dollar a bushel. To-day he sells it for thirty
cents. He therefore saves to the people of this country, on
2,000,000,000 bushels, the enormous sum of $1,400,000,000. There is
scarcely an industry in existence to which this argument does not apply
with equal force. Mr. Atkinson virtually admits that railroads charge
all the traffic will bear when he says: "The charge which can be put
upon the wheat of Dakota or Iowa for moving it to market is fixed by the
price at which East Indian wheat can be sold in Market Lane." He is
opposed to the Interstate Commerce Law, which he regards as "obnoxious
measures of national interference and futile attempts to control this
great work." He would rely chiefly upon the publicity of accounts made
by railway officers, as secured by the private publication of Poor's
Railway Manual, for all needed regulation, but concedes the
establishment of a figurehead commission, concluding his remarks upon
the subject as follows: "A commission which may bring public opinion to
bear upon railway corporations may well be established, and there the
work of the legislator may well cease." When we consider the powerful
agencies employed by railroads to create public sentiment in their favor
we can well understand the inefficiency of such a milk-and-water method
of control.

One of the most radical books ever published at the instigation of
railroad managers appeared in 1888, under the title "The People and the
Railways." Its author is Appleton Morgan, who attempts to "allay the
animosity towards the railway interests" as shown in Mr. James F.
Hudson's book, "The Railways and the Republic." The means which Mr.
Morgan chooses are not well calculated to accomplish his purpose, for
the masses of the people prefer in such a controversy arguments to
ridicule and sarcasm, weapons of literary warfare to which this author
resorts altogether too freely. Mr. Morgan's opinion as to the benefits
of centralized wealth and trade combinations