re usually railroad men, and
under these circumstances an unbiased discussion of the questions at
issue is indeed a rare occurrence. It is but too frequently the sole
object of the contributor, and not unfrequently even of the publisher,
to create a public sentiment in favor of the unjust demands of railroad
managers.

During the last few years systematic efforts have been made by the
railroad interests to influence public opinion against the Interstate
Commerce Law and restrictive State legislation through the leading
magazines of the country. Mr. Sidney Dillon, president of the Union
Pacific Railroad, in an article which appeared in the April (1891)
number of the _North American Review_, under the title "The West and the
Railroads," endeavors to show that the West is indebted to the railroad
managers for nearly all of the blessings which its people enjoy, and
that therefore railroad legislation in the West is a symptom of rank
ingratitude. He prefaces his argument with the remark that the elder
portions of our commonwealth have already forgotten, and the younger
portions do not comprehend or appreciate, that but for the railroads
what we now style the Great West would be, except in the valley of the
Mississippi, an unknown and unproductive wilderness. He then argues
that, inasmuch as the railroads carry the wheat of Dakota and Minnesota
to the sea-coast, and bring those sections of our community into direct
relation with hungry and opulent Liverpool, the world should "thank the
railway for the opportunity to buy wheat, but none the less should the
West thank the railway for the opportunity to sell wheat." It does not
seem to occur to Mr. Dillon that the railway might, with equal
propriety, thank the world in general, and the Great West in particular,
for its opportunity to carry wheat.

We are also told that the railway has reclaimed from nature immense
tracts of land that were worthless except as to their possibilities,
which once seemed too vague and remote to be considered and are to-day
valuable; that it has changed the character of the soil as well as the
climate of the West, and we are almost given to understand that in many
respects it has assumed the functions of Providence. Mr. Dillon
generously admits, however, that railways have not been built from
philanthropic motives and that we find among railroad promoters and
contractors men of large fortunes. He then proceeds to reprimand the
States west of the Mis