eclare the dividends which they did.

Under her beneficial railroad policy Iowa has prospered wonderfully, and
her railroads have been more prosperous than when they were allowed to
have their own way. The commissioners' tariff has made jobbing and
manufacturing profitable where it was unprofitable before. It has added
to our industries and our commerce, and has made new business for the
people as well as the railroads. It has contributed to the increase in
the value of our farms and factories and their products, and the time
will come when wise railroad managers, like the majority of former
slaveholders of the South, would not resurrect the past if they could.
In fact, honorable managers now acknowledge that they would not if they
could.

The railroad companies are at present making a systematic effort to
weaken the Iowa commission, but if they should succeed in doing so, the
people, under our system of electing the commissioners, can readily
correct the evil.

Other States have much experience similar to that of Iowa. Nebraska has
just adopted a maximum tariff law for the control of her roads. It will,
of course, be resisted by the railroad managers of that State.

The State of Texas is not so productive in proportion, but is much
greater in extent than Iowa, and upon the whole resembles it much in its
prominent characteristics. Both are thrifty, progressive States, with no
large commercial or manufacturing centers where their people can easily
organize to protect their financial interests.

The people of Texas endured patiently the abuses so prevalent in
railroad management until a few years since they enacted a railroad law
similar to that of Iowa. The Wall Street managers of the Texas railroads
are at the present time using all of their familiar methods to influence
the people of that State to repeal their law. The following letter
serves to show the spirit with which they are approached:

"23 BROAD STREET,
NEW YORK, November 30, 1891.

James B. Simpson, Esq., Dallas, Tex.

"DEAR SIR: Yours of the 26th is received and contents
carefully noted. Very likely you have valuable franchises,
or what would be valuable in almost any other state than
Texas; but while there are many places in Texas where we
would like to build some railroads--mostly short ones--we
cannot do anything so long as the disposition exists that
now seems to in Texas; that is, to